THE THREE LANDS OMNIBUS

Dusk Peterson

2011 Edition

Love in Dark Settings Press

Greenbelt, Maryland

Published by Love in Dark Settings Press in Greenbelt, Maryland, in the United States of America.

This text, or a variation on it, was originally published at duskpeterson.com as part of the series The Three Lands. Copyright (c) 2002-2011 Dusk Peterson. April 2011 edition. Some rights reserved. The text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0). You may freely print, post, e-mail, share, or otherwise distribute the text for noncommercial purposes, provided that you include this paragraph. The author's policies on derivative works and fan works are available online (duskpeterson.com/copyright.htm).

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

The Three Lands Omnibus contains all the current stories in the ongoing Three Lands series. Readers' feedback is welcome and will be taken into account in the preparation of future editions of this e-book.

DEDICATION

To my friend and first beta reader,

Katharine Bond.

Koina ta ton philon.

In gratitude to our alma mater,

St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland.

Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque.

CONTENTS

=== Law Links ===

Few events are more thrilling in a Koretian boy's life than a blood feud between two villages. Or so Adrian thought.

Torn between affection toward his traditional-minded father and worship of his peace-loving, heretical priest, Adrian finds himself caught between two incompatible visions of his duty to the gods. Then the Jackal God sends Adrian a message that will disrupt his life and send him fleeing from a danger he knows too well.

¶ Novel: 160,000 words.

Law Links 1: God of Vengeance. "Sometimes I feel that he is as mysterious as the gods, and that he is hiding something of vital importance from me. Something that would transform my life."

Law Links 2: The Sword. "But what if I were to reverse the picture? What if I were to become the jackal and pursue them?"

Law Links 3: God of Mercy. "I felt a deep stillness enter into me then, one I hadn't felt for many weeks – one I hadn't felt since the last time Fenton and I spoke. I understood."

Law Links 4: The Bird. "The slaves are a second mystery."

Law Links 5: God of Judgment. "'Spies don't fight – remember that.'"

Law Links 6: The Balance. "'You asked whether you could do anything for me; now comes the moment when I must take up your offer.'"

=== Blood Vow ===

He has taken a blood vow to the Jackal God to bring freedom to his land by killing Koretia's greatest enemy. But what will he do when the enemy becomes his friend?

Thrust into exile and pain, young Andrew has no choice but to accept the friendship of the very person he had vowed to kill. When he returns with his friend to his homeland fifteen years later, though, he finds himself in a land of conflicting loyalties . . . where a vengeful god awaits him.

¶ Novel: 120,000 words.

Blood Vow 1: The Gods' Land. "I had come to tell him, in the cheerful manner boys have, that our world was about to be destroyed."

Blood Vow 2: Land of the Chara. "'If I were to take him, in three months you would find him thinking and acting like a civilized Emorian. If you know how to discipline a slave, as I do, such transformations are accomplished with ease.'"

Blood Vow 3: The Look of the Chara. "'You have not been raped or killed or enslaved, or watched as your city was destroyed on the orders of the Chara.'"

Blood Vow 4: Land of the Jackal. "'I hope that you do not allow this visit to confuse your carefully acquired Emorian sensibilities as to the proper definition of loyalty.'"

Blood Vow 5: The Eyes of the Jackal. "'The only way in which to bring peace is to find this Koretian rebel-leader and kill him.'"

Blood Vow 6: The God's Land. "'If you cannot serve me, then you must be my captive.'"

=== Re-creation ===

What can you give a slave who, by law, can own nothing?

A holiday gift story for Dusk Peterson's readers.

¶ Novelette: 17,000 words.

Re-creation. "He could not leave this room without his father's permission. And he could not imagine going to his father and saying, 'Please let me go gather moss so that my slave can have a proper New Year for once.'"

=== Bard of Pain ===

In the battle-weary lands of the Great Peninsula, only one fate is worse than being taken prisoner by the Lieutenant: being taken prisoner if you are the Lieutenant.

As the world's most skilled torturer struggles with his change of fortune, he finds that his fate is intertwined with the destinies of an idealistic army commander, an affectionate prisoner, and a protégé who reveres the Lieutenant's art . . . but is on the wrong side of the conflict.

¶ Novella: 38,000 words.

Bard of Pain 1: The Darkness. "The beginning of the end for him (or so it seemed at the time) came in the moment that he stepped into the shadow of Capital Mountain and was assaulted by a stranger."

Bard of Pain 2: The Fire. "He was on fire."

=== Mystery ===

Three days ago he faced death by fire. Now he faces a bigger challenge.

¶ Novella: 27,000 words.

Mystery. "Prosper, watching the hand fondle the sword-flat, with the blade's killing edge turned toward him, found himself doing battle with no less than three demon-fears."

=== Upcoming fiction ===

Law of Vengeance: Excerpt. A preview of the next Three Lands novel.

=== Back matter ===

Credits.

Publication history.

More writings by Dusk Peterson. Includes a link to the author's contact information.

o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Law Links ===

Law Links 1

GOD OF VENGEANCE

CHAPTER ONE

Begun on the first day of September in the 940th year after the giving of the law, by Adrian son of Berenger, from the Village of Mountside in the Land of Koretia.

Hamar and I played Jackal and Prey this afternoon, with Hamar as the Jackal, and with me as the Jackal's prey. I spent three hours hiding amidst the mountain rocks, creeping away whenever Hamar came near, and he never caught me. Eventually Hamar called to me that I was cheating, and I came out and we argued about it and would probably have ended up duelling each other except that I was reluctant to get blood on the new dagger that our father gave me this morning.

Finally I told Hamar that it wasn't fair that he always played that he was the hunting god, while I was always delegated to being the hunted. He responded that I play the prey better than anyone else in the village – which is true – but I pointed out to him that I am just as good at being the hunter as I am at being the hunted. "Besides," I said, "I came of age this morning, and if you want to be at my birthday feast this evening, you ought to acknowledge that I am a man."

He sulkily allowed me to take the Jackal's role, and I caught him within a quarter of an hour. My father said this morning that Hamar and I ought not to be playing such games any more, since we are both men, even if I am only sixteen and Hamar is just two years older. But Fenton said that even boys' games have value to a man and that some day I may be able to make as much use of my hours spent at Jackal and Prey as I will of what I learned in the rite he performed over me late last night.

o—o—o

Fenton and I were silent for a long while after the rite was done. We were in the sanctuary, of course, but the small chamber seemed strange, for I had never been there at night, and Fenton hadn't lit so much as a candle. He had even shuttered the windows so that the uninitiated would not chance to hear the words he spoke. The only light came from the full moon, which shone down through the smoke-hole onto the altar. I could barely see Fenton.

He had tried to put his arm round me after it was through, but I pushed him away – it was the first time I had ever done that, but I wanted him to know that, being a man, I was now old enough to be strong on my own. So I had dressed, still shivering, and he had gone over to the table against the wall and poured wine for us. He paused after pouring the first cup, and for a moment I thought he would share a cup of wine with me, as he sometimes does with my father. But then he poured a second cup of wine and came over to where I was standing, staring through the cracks of the shuttered window.

He handed me my cup before he unlatched the window and swung it open. Light from my family's home, several spear-lengths up the mountain, spilled into the room. I could see, through the open window of our hall, that my parents were sitting on their chairs next to the central hearth. My father had Mira upon his knee and was bouncing her up and down as though she were riding a horse. She was squealing with delight as though she were a small girl instead of being thirteen and close to her coming of age.

I longed to join them, to return to the familiar safety of my house, but I was worried that would make me appear a coward. So I sipped from the wine, though my stomach remained so tense that I feared I would be sick.

Finally I said, "Perhaps I should have picked another god to serve. One whose rite isn't so frightening."

I meant this as a joke, and I tried to smile, but Fenton said seriously, "In many ways, the Jackal is the most merciful god. Some of the other god-rites are far worse."

I looked over at him then. He was leaning back against the altar, sipping his wine, and his face was shadowed by the hood of the frayed priest-robe he has worn for eleven years. He looked as calm as ever, just as he had looked calm when he spoke in the name of the god and raised the knife over me as I lay upon the altar. . . .

On impulse, I put my cup aside and came over to take Fenton's hand. For a moment I felt foolish; his hand was as steady as ever. Then I felt, very faintly, the tremor within him, like a thunder-roll deep within the earth.

It was then, I think, that I truly understood what it means to be a man: to put thoughts of others before thoughts of myself. I said softly, "I'm sorry," and for a moment I could think of nothing but Fenton's pain.

Then he turned his head to look at me. As the firelight fell upon his face, I saw his smile, and I felt foolish and boyish again.

"It's of no matter," he replied. "I have performed this rite many times before, and on other occasions it was far worse. At least this time I knew that the god would not require the worst of me."

I wanted to ask how he was sure that the Jackal would not accept my proffered sacrifice, but I thought the better of it. I let go of his hand and rubbed the back of my neck. It seemed odd to feel the soft night-breeze blowing where, only a short time before, my boy's-hair had been. I said, before I could question the wisdom of my asking, "Has a god ever required the full sacrifice when you performed the coming-of-age rite?"

To my relief, he shook his head. "Only once did he come close to doing so when I took part in a rite. And on that occasion, I was nearly the victim."

He lifted his hand as he spoke, in order to bring the cup to his lips. As he did so, his sleeve slipped back far enough for me to see the faint lines of his blood vows. He has three of them. One is the vow he took when he became a priest, and the second is the vow of friendship he took with my father. I have never asked him about the third blood vow. Now I found myself wondering: Had Fenton become blood brother to one of the other priests in the priests' house when he was in training? And was a vow between priests so great a matter that he had feared he would need to offer up a full sacrifice to his god or goddess?

Or perhaps he was simply referring to what had happened when the priest from Cold Run made Fenton a priest. I knew, of course, that the coming-of-age rite for a priest is different from that of an ordinary man, since the priest makes a greater commitment to his god or goddess. I supposed the rite must be far more frightening.

I felt again that odd tenderness I had felt before, and I wanted to find a way to remove Fenton's mind from what had just happened. Desperately, I looked about the grey-shadowed sanctuary. Thus I caught sight of my back-sling, lying near the door.

I raced over to it and pulled the bound volume from it, then ran back to Fenton. "Look!" I said, thrusting the volume into his hands. "I've never shown this to anyone. See what I've been keeping."

He opened it slowly, read aloud the first few words, and smiled. "Now I know why your Emorian has been improving so rapidly during recent months. I thought it must be due to more than my lessons."

Feeling shyly pleased, I pointed to the first entry of my journal. "You see?" I said. "I even date the entries the Emorian way: 'The fifth day of February in the 940th year after the giving of the law.' What does 'after the giving of the law' mean?"

"That's a lesson in itself," Fenton murmured. He was flipping through the journal rapidly, far too quickly to be reading the entries, so I knew that he wished to preserve my privacy. "Some time soon, when we have time, I'll explain Emorian law to you. I ought to have done so before now, I suppose, but it has been hard enough a task to teach you the Emorian language."

I grinned, not offended. We both knew that I had no special talent for learning foreign languages. It was a tribute to Fenton's talent for teaching that I now spoke his native language as well as I did.

He came to the final page, which was completed, and closed the volume. As he handed it back to me, he asked, "Will you continue to write this?"

I nodded. "I'm starting the second volume tomorrow. Today," I amended, looking at where the moon hung in the sky. "A new volume for a new life."

Fenton's eye lingered a moment upon the moon, and I found myself wondering whether he worships the Moon Goddess. He has never told me who his god is – there is a great deal Fenton has never told me about himself. Sometimes I feel that he is as mysterious as the gods, and that he is hiding something of vital importance from me. Something that would transform my life.

For a moment, standing in that dark sanctuary, I almost thought he would tell me. But all that he said was, "My only suggestion is that, from now on, you write as though you were speaking to an Emorian who needed to be told about Koretian life. Those first few words you wrote in your journal . . . I would not have understood them when I first came to Koretia. Not because you lack command of the Emorian language," he added, seeing my expression fall, "but because I was unfamiliar with Koretian customs. Knowing another person's language is only half the struggle. You must try to make clear to them how you think, so that they can understand ways that are strange to them."

I thought upon this for a while. Finally I said, "What do I need to explain to Emorians about Koretia that they don't already know?"

He looked at me for a long moment, his light-skinned hand curled around his cup. Finally he said, with a firmness that surprised me, "Emorians know nothing about Koretia. You will need to teach them everything."

o—o—o

I thought about that afterwards, while lying in bed at home. I suppose that I must accept Fenton's statement as true, since he was born in Emor and spent seventeen years there as a slave. I asked him again last night, for the twelve dozenth time, to tell me about his escape through the mountains. . . . But perhaps I should explain, for the benefit of my Emorian reader, that I live in northern Koretia, and my village is built on the side of one of the black border mountains between Koretia and Emor. We found Fenton one day, lying atop our mountain, where he was nearly dead after his escape past the border mountain patrol – I know that I don't have to explain about the patrol, since they are Emorian soldiers, after all. My father told me that Fenton is the only man he has ever known to slip past the patrol, either coming out of Emor or going into it, and I think it was mainly out of admiration for his bravery that my father made Fenton his blood brother and therefore made him a member of our village. For – I realize once more that I must explain – most Koretian villages are made up entirely of single families, relatives either through birth or through blood vows of marriage or friendship.

Fenton spent six years in the priests' house at our capital city, which is in southern Koretia, but when he had learned his calling he returned here. My father asked Fenton to come back here to tutor me, and he even allowed Fenton to teach me Emorian, which my father calls a godless language, but which Fenton says could be of use to me since we have several people of Emorian blood in our village. Emor may be godless, says Fenton, but it knows certain things Koretia does not know, and we who live here in the borderland are in the best position to take what is good from both lands and combine those goods into something new.

Needless to say, I do not report such remarks to my father. Tonight my father is giving me a birthday feast – a thoroughly Koretian one, with nut tosses and blessings and blood vows. Afterwards we will sleep by the fire in order to watch the Jackal eat his prey. (That's what we call it here in Koretia when the fire burns its wood.) I will bring along this second volume of my journal along in case anything happens at the feast that is interesting enough that I would want to write it down.

Perhaps, now that I am a man, I will be able to peer into Fenton's spirit and know what he is, in the same manner as the Jackal knows me.

o—o—o

The second day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I suppose that I ought to be reluctant to write in this journal again, considering its role in what happened at my birthday feast. But when I told Fenton what had happened, he said that I must model myself on the Jackal and not destroy the good in my eagerness to erase the evil. Fenton does not say, as my father says, that the Jackal ate his prey and that what happened is the will of the gods. Instead, Fenton says that the ways of the gods are mysterious, and though the gods do not bless the evil deeds that men have done, they are able to take these deeds and turn them to good.

For this reason, I will continue to write in this second and now sole volume of my journal, though it feels odd to take up this book once more and remember it lying between Hamar and me on the night of my birthday, like a murderer's thigh-dagger hidden in its sheath.

We were sitting around the outdoor fire in our village green, which must have been selected for its purpose for the simple reason that it is the only piece of reasonably flat open ground in Mountside. What other flat places there are on the slopes of our mountain – usually naked boulders jutting out from the sparse grassland – are occupied by houses such as our own. My mother, who lived in Cold Run before she vowed herself to my father, often complains about how uncomfortable our rock floor is compared to the dirt floor she grew up with. My father, over the years, has always made the argument that such stony barriers prevent fires from spreading from one village house to the next, and I suppose that such an argument is now irrefutable.

We had already had my birthday blessing and the prayers to the gods – that took a while, since Fenton prayed to all seven rather than reveal which gods are worshipped by the people of our village. Some people, like my brother, consider their god-service something to be spoken of only to the priest. My brother and I were sharing wild-berry wine from one cup, since we were short of drinking vessels, and at a certain point Hamar commented, "The Emorians think wild-berry wine tastes like poison."

I had just received one of the nut bowls that was being passed hand to hand around the fire. I took a nut, gave the bowl to Hamar, and said, "Where did you hear that?"

"From Titus – I heard him talking to Lange. He said that the Emorians believe their wine to be the best wine in the Three Lands."

"Well, they would," I said in disgust. "They think that everything they do is better than what is done in Koretia and Daxis. They even say that it's better not to believe in gods."

"No!" Hamar stared in astonishment at this blasphemy.

"That's what Fenton says," I said calmly, having recovered from my shock at the time I first heard this. "He said that the Emorians believe that Koretians use the gods as an excuse to indulge themselves in passionate and irrational behavior."

I thought it best not to add that Fenton had said that the Emorians were sometimes right about this. Hamar leaned back his head to sip from our cup, as well as to watch one of the nuts soar over the flames and then crack at the moment before it reached the fire. We joined in the cheers and applause. Hamar said idly, "Do you suppose that Emorians have nut tosses?"

"I don't know, but I know they eat nuts. Fenton said that he tasted some Daxion nuts when he was a slave and that they were delicious."

Hamar frowned as he took from the man next to him the bowl of blackroot nuts. "Not that I want to accuse a priest of such a thing, but he must have been lying. Daxion nuts are a noblemen's luxury."

"Well, his master was rich, remember? —Oh, blessed of the gods," I said enviously as I noticed that Hamar was holding the last nut of the bowl he had been handed. He stared at the flames for the moment, formulating his thoughts, and then sacrificed his nut to the fire. Hamar was always eager to show off his throwing skills: as a result the nut went too high, then plunged quickly into the fire before it was hot enough to crack.

"Too bad," I said. "What did you pray for?" Then, at Hamar's look: "You can tell me, since the god didn't accept your sacrifice. The prayer won't be answered in any case."

Hamar shrugged, reaching over to take the wine cup from me. "It wasn't an interesting prayer," he said. "I prayed to the Sun God to protect me from harm."

"Is that who your god is?" I said with interest. "Why did you choose the Sun God?"

Hamar shuffled the heels of his shoes against the ground, which was dry in the late-summer heat and therefore gave off great clouds of dirt that rose into the night sky. "The Sun God is the most powerful god, I think," he said. "More powerful than the Jackal God, more powerful than the Moon Goddess – I don't know why people choose to serve the other gods. The Sun grows our crops and he makes the fires that warm us, like that one." He pointed to the balefire.

Annoyed, I said, "That's the Jackal's fire – he's eating his prey."

"Well, but who says that? Father, who worships the Jackal, and Fenton, who is his blood brother and wouldn't say anything to offend Father."

I rose to my feet and kicked the dust at Hamar, saying, "Don't you dare say such a thing. Fenton would never lie about the gods, not even if it meant hurting Father or anyone else."

Hamar jumped up and put his hand on his dagger hilt in a clear challenge. "Don't you dare say that my god isn't the most powerful!" he shouted.

A few heads turned our way, but not many, for our village had already had three duels that night, though only one of them resulted in serious injury. I could see my father watching us with amusement. He had kept out of our quarrels ever since we had reached an age where he trusted us to be able to duel without drawing more than first blood – and he had made it clear that such blood must not be deep.

I considered taking Hamar aside and teaching him a lesson, but I decided that Fenton would not be pleased if I were to quarrel with my brother on my birthday. "Peace," I said and held out my left hand.

Hamar considered this for a moment, then said, "Peace," and clasped my hand as though our palms were sliced and we were joining our blood in a peace oath.

I waited till we were seated again before saying, "Anyway, Fenton says that all of the gods are the different faces of the Unknowable God."

"Oh, well, if Fenton says . . ." Hamar's words dissolved into giggles as I attacked my brother's sides with my fingers.

I released him from my tickling eventually so that I could take another nut bowl that was passing my way. I noticed with envy that only two nuts were left. Taking my nut, I passed the bowl to Hamar, saying, "Here's your second chance."

Hamar was still catching his breath from my attack; he said between gasps, "You take it. If I tried it now, I'd probably drop it on Father's head. Besides, I owe you a birthday present."

Satisfied that this would now be a perfect birthday, I took Hamar's sacrifice, made it my own, and prayed to the Jackal, saying, "God of Vengeance, God of Mercy, God of Judgment: I do not yet know how you wish me to serve you, but I know that Fenton is your servant, as he is the servant of all the gods. Since he is the wisest man I know, give me the strength to do something courageous which would please him. Hunting god and trickster god, as my sacrifice, accept this, all that I have." I tossed the nut toward the fire.

It cracked while still clear of its flames, its sound breaking through the light chatter and laughter about me. Amidst the applause of the others, Hamar said with balanced criticism, "That's better than your usual throws."

"Thank you," I said, judging it better to interpret this as a compliment. Feeling a warm glow after the sign that my prayer would be fulfilled, and wishing to make up for my quarrel with him, I said, "Hamar, I've been writing a journal."

"Have you?" he said vaguely. He was looking over the fire at Fenton, who had risen to his feet. "Do you suppose that he's going to start the blood vow now? Oh, he's only walking over to get more wine. Listen, Adrian, I know what blood vow he has chosen for tonight – I heard him tell Father."

"You ought not to tell me," I said uneasily. "It's supposed to be a surprise."

"Well, you'll be finding out in a short while anyway, and I don't want you to look crestfallen. It's not at all an exciting one, like the one he gave me at my coming of age. He's going to have us take a peace oath."

"A peace oath?" I frowned in puzzlement. "You must have heard wrong. We're not feuding with anyone."

"We're feuding with Cold Run," said Hamar.

"Oh, that," I said, dismissing the matter with a wave of the hand.

It occurs to me here that blood feuds may not familiar to my Emorian reader. Fenton told me once that the Emorians don't take blood vows, which obviously must have been some sort of joke on his part, but perhaps the Emorians don't take certain types of blood vows, such as feud vows. Our village's feud with Cold Run had not yet reached the stage of blood, though both Hamar and I half hoped that it would, as we had never before witnessed a blood feud. Of course we had witnessed a dozen or more lesser feuds. This one had started when Richard of Mountside, driving his cart, ran over the prize rooster of Tabitha of Cold Run and refused to pay for the creature, arguing that the rooster had darted in front of his wheels. Since that time we had progressed from livestock theft to drilling holes in wine barrels to water-traps that left the victim squealing in indignation – I knew that Hamar had done the last, since he had gleefully confessed to me that he had drawn the lot for this deed. Otherwise I would never have known, for, except on the rare occasions when a fire-killing occurs during a blood feud and the victim is avenged by his nearest kin, those who take part in a feud are known only to the village priests who draw the lots.

I knew that Fenton was worried because we were only two stages away from a blood feud, but everyone said that the people of both villages were too wise to shed blood over such a small matter. Anyway, the dispute would be ended as soon as someone was caught in the act of carrying out a part of the feud. This being the case, I could not understand why Fenton would waste my birthday vow with a peace oath, which was usually used only to settle a prolonged blood feud. But I was too loyal to Fenton to voice my disappointment; instead I hid my feelings by saying, "Oh, listen to me, will you? I've been writing a journal for several months now, all about everything that happens to me. I just started the second volume – it's lying next to us here."

That caught Hamar's attention. He was always the sort of person who needed to have something right in front of him to fully understand it, this being the reason he did so badly at playing Jackal and Prey. I sometimes wondered too whether he hadn't inherited most of the Emorian blood in our family, for he was as pale-faced as an Emorian, and he sometimes talked about the unseen gods as though he were not quite sure he believed in them – but of course I would not insult him by pointing this out to him.

Now he said, "I wondered about that book, but I thought it was one of those volumes Fenton taught you to bind."

"He did," I said, "but I only bound blank pages, so I decided to fill them as a journal."

"What does it say? Does it have anything in it about me?" He reached toward the book.

I pulled it hastily from his hands, remembering what I had written about him earlier that day. "Not this one," I said, offering a silent apology up to the Jackal for my falsehood. "My earlier volume has some passages in it about you." Some of those passages, I knew, were complimentary enough to my brother that he would be pleased to hear them.

"Read them to me now," he ordered.

"I can't. I don't have the first volume with me. I hid it back in the house, where you and Mira couldn't paw your way through it."

"Then fetch it," ordered Hamar. He's like that sometimes.

I could see that he was on the point of going into one of his rages, so I said wearily, "You can fetch it yourself. I've hidden it in—"

"I can find it," he said, clearly annoyed that I had so little faith in his hunting abilities.

I shrugged and turned my attention back to my wine flask. When I looked again, Hamar was gone.

After a minute, I regretted his departure. All around me, villagers were chatting and laughing, but Hamar and I had set ourselves slightly apart from the rest, and no one rose now to take Hamar's place.

I looked about. Drew was on the other side of the fire with some of his playmates, and he looked longingly at me, but I was sure it could not be a manly act for me to go sit with a cousin so much younger than myself, so I turned my gaze away from him toward the younger men of the village. They were all standing in a knot, gathered round Drew's father, Lange, who was talking about the latest village council meeting. I realized, with a lowering of the heart, that I would have nothing to contribute to such a conversation.

Leda was sitting nearby, holding her baby and smiling as she watched Lange. I was trying to decide whether it would be manly to go talk with my own sister when, to my relief, I caught sight of Fenton gesturing to me. I rose and rushed to join him.

He said in a low voice, "Adrian, where is your brother? Your father wants to start the village's vow-taking now."

I looked at the hall, which was farther down the mountain. "He went back to our house to fetch something."

"Well, have someone bring him back here. He should be present for the ceremony, and he will need to be here for its sequel, when you and he exchange vows."

I looked round, but Leda was now in conversation with one of the more garrulous older women in the village; I knew that it would be difficult for her to extract herself from the talk. After a minute's more frantic searching with my eyes, I found Mira.

She was sitting with her friend Chloris, who recently married Titus. Some of the older boys were saying at the time of the marriage that Emorians do terrible things to their women, but I had known better than to pass that information on to Mira; my sister is a terrible gossip. Besides, Titus has lived in Koretia for three years now. He has had time to become civilized.

When I told Mira what I needed done, she treated me as though I was still a boy. "Fetch him yourself," she said, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. Then she said to Chloris eagerly, "Go on. What did he do next?"

Chloris turned pink; she was trying to bite away a smile. I sighed and stepped back out of hearing, turning my eyes toward Drew.

At that moment, though, I heard my father call for silence, and I knew that it was too late. I ran over and was just in time to scramble onto the speaking rock beside Fenton. My father remained below us, waiting for the moment when he would be called forward to help administer the vows.

I looked round from the heights of the speaking rock at the view before me. All in a cluster around us and the balefire were the men and women and children of the village – about thirty households in all, along with a few unmarried men who had become members of our village by vowing their blood to a blood-brother. That same vow – the one I was about to take with Hamar – is always taken by the village's boys when they become men, as a way of showing their loyalty to the village . . . and also, of course, because a double bond of blood to one's village, through birth and through friendship, makes a man more likely to exact vengeance in a feud.

So there were blade-carrying men and boys there, and very young boys who yearned to carry blades, and the women and girls who brought new sons into the world – and daughters too, for women and girls are needed to help with the healing of wounded men and the preparation of corpses. The last is a secret among women: the art of preparing a corpse so that it will stay fresh for three days, even in the hottest weather. But other than that, women are never allowed to take part in blood feuds. I'm glad I was born a boy rather than a girl.

Beyond the villagers stood the wooden houses, built on rock and dirt, including our own house: a hall, along with a loft where Hamar and Mira and I slept.

And beyond that was the Sea of Koretia, as it is called: the long stretch of green woods, nearly unbroken within the triangular bounds of the mountains that enclose Koretia. Sometimes, on clear days when I'm on top of the mountain, I've thought I could see Capital Mountain, where the priests are trained, and at its foot the city where the King lives and his lords meet in council. But my father says that the capital is much too far away to be seen – many days' ride away. Only Capital Mountain serves as a dim and distant sentinel of the capital's position.

We of the borderland are almost a people apart, for it was here, the stories say, that the tribesmen from the northern portion of the Great Peninsula met the tribesmen of the southern portion of the Great Peninsula – who, it was said, had originally travelled over the Koretian Straights to the east, from mainland areas that were turning into desert. And when the northern people met the southern people, they intermarried and formed a common language. And that language was what we now call Border Koretian.

Then, after a few generations, most of the people left the borderland, the northern people spreading north and the southern people spreading south, so that the Three Lands of the Great Peninsula came to be formed: Koretia and Daxis to the south, and Emor to the north. But here in the borderland, some villagers stayed, preserving the ancient manners of speech and living. We who are their descendants hold the memories of what the Great Peninsula was like, back in the years before the Three Lands were formed.

Or so Fenton has told me. None of this was on my mind on my birthday, so I know that the reason I am writing all this down is to avoid writing what came next on that day.

o—o—o

Presently I became aware of Fenton speaking, though not because he was speaking about me. He was describing how the Jackal, after tricking his enemies, would often forgive his enemies and make peace with them. He was leaving out the stories where the Jackal killed his enemies, and I could see from my father's expression what he thought of this selectiveness in the recounting. But like all the other villagers, he remained respectfully silent as the gods' representative offered us a glimpse of the wisdom of the gods.

After a while, Fenton became more concrete in his examples of acts that should be forgiven: he was citing acts that had taken place during our present feud in Cold Run, and I realized that Hamar had been right when he said that Fenton would require us to take a peace oath with Cold Run.

This reminded me that Hamar had still not reached the speaking rock in order to exchange his blood vow of friendship with me. I scanned the crowd with my eyes, trying to see whether, after finding my journal, Hamar had dilly-dallied in order to talk with some of the other boys.

Fenton was saying, ". . . and those who seek peace will experience the peace of the gods in their hearts, but those who seek fire and blood—"

He stopped suddenly. His head jerked up, as though he had heard the eerie wail of a jackal.

And at that moment, as Fenton was staring up the slope, and I was staring at Fenton, a woman screamed. A man cried, "The hall! It's on fire!"

o—o—o

By the time we reached my house, flames were leaping through the roof. I – who had shouted almost incoherent warnings on the way that Hamar might be in the hall – would have run into the building immediately, even though black smoke was pouring out of the open door. But Fenton caught hold of me and held me; for a priest, he is very strong. As I struggled in his arms, he said, "No. Look – your father is going in."

I turned my head in time to see my father duck his way through the doorway. He was carrying a face-cloth in his hand, which seemed odd, until I saw that it was dripping with water. He had it over his mouth and nose as he disappeared into the blackness.

More water was arriving, brought by the women from the mountain brook – women always seem to be quick-witted at such times. I saw Leda thrust her baby into Mira's arms so that she could help with the water-carrying. Drew and some of the other boys had run off to fetch the village's one ladder, other than our loft ladder, but they returned, panting, to report that the ladder was in a state of disrepair, as it was being mended by Warner, who is our village carpenter.

The men had joined the water-carrying now, and people were throwing water onto the flames, though it was clear that this was of no use. The flames were eating the walls of the house like a ravenous beast.

And my father and brother were still inside.

Suddenly my father emerged, stumbling, coughing. Fenton let go of me, and we both ran over to him.

"No . . . good," he was saying to Lange when we arrived. "Loft ladder is . . . burnt. Can't reach . . ."

At that moment, there was another scream, and the villagers, crying out, began to point.

I looked up. There in the tiny loft window, too small for anyone to crawl through, was a face I knew well, and a hand carrying a blade. I could not hear the voice above the roar of the flames, but the gestures that Hamar made with his dagger were clear enough.

The villagers had gone silent. Someone said, quite unnecessarily, "He wants us to avenge his death."

There was a crack, like the crack on the day that the gods split the Great Peninsula from the mainland, and I heard Hamar give a great cry, and then the hall collapsed, and there was no sound but for the crackle of flames.

o—o—o

Lange was shouting again, calling upon the village men to dig into the rubble of the hall. The men came forward eagerly enough, but it was clear that it would be some time before they could follow these instructions, for the fallen timber was still red-hot. Leda, crying openly, continued to pour water onto the lingering flames, while Drew and Mira huddled together with the baby, with my mother standing behind them, her arms protectively round them as she gave out small, whimpering sobs.

And I – I who had stood by all this while and done nothing, I who had sent my brother to the place of his death – stood numbly, unable to weep as a man should weep on such a day. I felt nothing, except for the presence of Fenton's hand on my shoulder.

Then I heard my father call my name. I turned and saw that he had tears streaming down his face. He gathered me into his arms, and I pressed my face into the hollow of his shoulder, closing my eyes and trying to rid myself of the image of the flames and the sound of Hamar's voice in the final moments.

When I looked up again, Fenton was gone.

CHAPTER TWO

The third day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I'm sitting on the back of our mountain – that is, on the northern side of the mountain, the side that is beyond the border and located in the no-man's-land of the black border mountains. Hamar and I used to sit in this spot to eat meals and to pretend that we could see as far north as Emor. Of course, our mountain is only a foothill in comparison to the other mountains, but the land to the north of us dips in such a way that our mountain actually looks taller than some of the other mountains. From this vantage point, you can see about one day's journey into the mountains, which takes you a third of the way to Emor, according to Fenton.

There isn't much to look at here, for what scrubby vegetation exists on the mountains is overwhelmed by the blackness of the rocky slopes, but right now I can see a flickering of light in the distance, accompanied by a low rumbling sound that has managed to travel this far, so I know that there must be a thunderstorm occurring to the north of us. It won't come this far – none of the clouds from Emor make it this far. Mountside receives all its rain from the south or the west or from whatever clouds have made their way over the ridge of mountains along the eastern sea-coast.

Mainly, what Hamar and I used to do here was listen: listen to the winds, and listen to the animals in the mountains, and pretend that we could hear the mountain patrol guards talking to each other, though we're too far south for that. Then, when we'd finished eating and listening, we'd play Jackal and Prey.

Father caught us playing here once, a few years' ago, and we could tell that his anger that we had crossed the border was combined with puzzlement that we could play Jackal and Prey in such a place. On the southern side of our mountain, where all the trees are located, Jackal and Prey is a game played through the eyes: you try to locate the prey by sighting him as he ducks around trees and bushes and rocks. But the rocks in the no-man's-land are so numerous that my father thought that you would have to spend years here before you could ever find your prey.

So we told him that we located the prey through sound, which made him even more confused. "How can you hear anything in the mountains, much less a prey?" he asked.

It's not as bad as everyone thinks, actually. It's true that the winds whistle through the mountains nearly without cease, and there are times when Hamar and I have to shout in order to hear each other. But every few weeks, the wind dies down altogether for a long period of time, and even when it doesn't, the wind is usually low enough that you can hear any sounds in the nearby mountains. Besides, there are the echoes.

Hamar and I experimented once to see how far the echoes go. Hamar stayed here, and I went a couple of hours' journey into the mountains, then dropped a rock. As a result of the echoes bouncing from mountain to mountain, Hamar could hear the rock's fall as clearly as though I had been standing beside him.

Hamar told this to our father, which of course was a terrible mistake, since it revealed how far into the mountains we'd explored. Our father didn't bother to tell us that we'd break our necks climbing over the loose rocks of the mountains, or would fall down one of the many fissures at the feet of the mountains. That might be true of someone who lived in central or southern Koretia, but those of us who live in the borderland spend our lives clambering over the slippery slopes or hopping across the deep chasms. Instead, he said that it is easy to get lost in the border mountains unless you travel by way of the passes. The mountains are so tall that you can't orient yourself by the sun except around noonday – even the shadows are no help, because everything is in shadow in the parts of the mountain that are low enough for men to climb. Our father said that a man who is fool enough to travel the mountains anywhere other than the passes is likely to get lost and die.

Fenton says that this is quite true, and that the worst mistake he made when escaping Emor was to leave the mountains next to the passes and travel through the other mountains. It enabled him to escape the patrol – even the patrol guards stay close to the pass – but he might have wandered around the mountains till he died if he had not reached the Koretian border by chance. Even then, he had nearly died of thirst by the time he was found by my father and our old priest and my cousin Emlyn and I. (Actually, he was sighted first by Emlyn, who always seemed to have a gift for knowing when something important was happening out of sight.)

Since our father was so angry, Hamar and I didn't bother to tell him the greatest discovery that we had made, which was that we could locate objects far away, just by the way that the echoes arrived at us. The experiment with the rock was actually superfluous, because Hamar had been able to trace my movements through the mountains by the sounds I made as I travelled: he could locate where I was every time some rocks rolled out from under my feet and even, when I was close enough, when I was panting hard from the climbing.

When I told Fenton this in confidence, he said that we had discovered one of the secrets of the mountain patrol – that this was why the patrol was so successful at locating border-breachers. "The patrol can hear a breacher coming about an hour ahead of time," he said, "and once the breacher is close enough, the guards use the echoes of his movements to pinpoint exactly where he is. With that kind of training, the patrol can catch nearly anyone who passes by them."

I doubt that the guards could have caught Hamar or me, because we learned how to run swiftly but silently over the mountains when we were playing here; otherwise our games would have been very short. We didn't stop playing here after our father forbade us to. We simply came here when the village council was busy in its meetings, or on dark nights when no one would suspect us of sneaking over here. Of course, everyone in the borderland knows how to walk over a mountain even on a moonless night, but nobody in Mountside suspected that we were foolhardy enough to do this in the no-man's-land, where the slopes are as black as the night sky. But this was when some of our best games took place.

Well, I'll never play Jackal and Prey here again, because I have no one to play with any more – none of the other boys in the village would be bold enough to come here. I called out Hamar's name as loud as I could a little while ago, and listened to the sound echoing off the mountains for quite a long time. I wonder whether the sound reached as far as the mountain patrol – if so, the guards must have wondered what it meant. It's the only tribute I can think of to pay Hamar: to send his name into the mountains that we both loved so much.

o—o—o

The fourth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

We have received word back from Cold Run, in response to my father's letter, sent by way of Fenton. The baron of Cold Run, Roderick, claims that the killing of Hamar was an accident and that the killer believed our home was empty at the time he lit the fire. Roderick therefore refuses to state who the killer is or to hand him over to Mountside for punishment.

We all had a bitter laugh at the idea of a fire-feuder not scouting beforehand the house that he was planning to set on fire. This is obviously just an excuse from Roderick, who must value the murderer in some fashion. Because of Roderick's lie and his refusal to surrender the murderer, my father declared that Cold Run has begun a blood feud. We have started to prepare for our side the feud – even emigrants such as Titus. As kin to the victim, my father will be sent to take revenge upon Cold Run for my brother's death.

In the meantime, my father says that we must observe the traditional three days of mourning, even though everyone knows that the Jackal does not wait three days in the case of a murder – he comes immediately to claim the body of murder victims. So Hamar's spirit is already in the Land Beyond, but father is determined to celebrate his life with proper ceremony. We men of the village will take our blood vows of vengeance tomorrow evening, after we light the balefire in honor of Hamar.

I spent this afternoon whetting my blade.

o—o—o

The fifth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I went to see Fenton today, just after dawn.

Even though we are really too far north for such a construction, the priests' house is built in the style that became fashionable around the time that Koretia was born: it has an atrium in the middle, with a garden-bed of raised earth. Fenton uses it as a place to grow apple trees, however strange it may seem to grow trees within the walls of a house. He said once that the apple trees make him feel less homesick – the only time he has ever hinted that he misses his native land.

Now I found him busy, pulling the first apples of the season from the branches. I held the basket for him as I said, "Father wants me to make my blood vow of friendship today."

Fenton did not turn his eyes to look at me; he was trying to persuade a little green worm – which would no doubt destroy many of the apples on his tree – to crawl safely off the apple he was picking. "I imagine so. The blood feud begins tonight; you cannot take part in it unless you are pledged to one of the other men in the village."

"Yes." I let myself linger on that thought with pleasure, as I might have lingered on the last rays of summer sunshine. Hamar's death still made me feel sick and hollow inside, but at least we would be able to find his murderer and punish him.

"Do you wish to make your blood vow of friendship to your father, since Hamar is gone?" Fenton asked as he turned to drop the apple into my waiting basket. "Or do you wish another of your relatives to be your blood brother?"

"I thought . . . I thought perhaps it might be more pious to pledge myself to someone who is nearer to the gods."

I stammered a bit as I got the words out. I had spent much of the pre-dawn hours lying awake on my pallet, wondering how I would find the courage to make my request. My shyness was odd, for I am as close to Fenton as I was to my brother, but somehow, asking Fenton to be my blood brother seemed as bold as asking a god whether I might be a guest in his home.

Fenton gave me the barest flick of a look before turning his attention back to inspecting the apples in the basket. "Only the gods can say who is closest to them."

I bit my lip as my cheeks turned hot at this refusal. After a minute, Fenton added, "Here, put the basket down and come help me. I need the use of your blade over here, where the leaves are thickest."

I gladly helped but found I could not meet his eyes as we did our work. Finally, Fenton said quietly, "Do not think that I feel anything but the greatest honor at your offer, son of Berenger. If love alone were reason enough to pledge myself to another, my blood would already be on your blade. But I swore to my god, long ago, that I would not vow my blood to any man who took part in blood feuds."

"But—" I stared at the faint scar on his wrist that represented my father's oath to him.

Something that was not quite a smile touched the edge of Fenton's mouth. "Your father and I became blood brothers when I was newly arrived in this land, before I realized how matters of justice are played out in Koretia. I have received many fortunes from that vow: your father's friendship, the opportunity to serve as the gods' representative in this village, and the sweet enjoyment of teaching you. But now that I know of blood feuds, I cannot, in all conscience, allow myself to blend my blood with any man who takes part in them."

"But the gods ordained the blood feuds," I said in confusion, pausing from my work, blade in hand. "And the priests are the ones who bless the hunters."

Fenton, reaching high for an apple beyond my reach, said, "Not all of us."

After a time, he paused to wipe sweat from his forehead as he said, "I pray for the hunters' safety. I can do that much for them. But it is your father's decision to begin this blood feud, not mine."

"It was the decision of Hamar's murderer," I growled, misery and hatred washing over me again.

Fenton did not speak immediately. His face, bright in the early morning light, seemed as white as a bone. At last he said, "Let us leave the murderer aside. You know, as well as I do, that other men in Cold Run are likely to be killed in this feud. Is it right that their blood should be shed for another man's deeds?"

"They're shielding the murderer," I said quickly.

"We cannot know that they do so by choice. They may be acting under their baron's orders."

"They share the murderer's blood, for he is part of the village of Cold Run. Men who share the blood of a murderer deserve death as much the murderer does." The words tripped off my tongue easily, for I had learned them when I was young. Ironically, the lesson had come from Cold Run's priest, who had cared for us until Fenton became our priest.

"It is words like that," said Fenton, bowing his head over the basket, "which make me determined not to share my blood with any hunter."

I thought of this as I sheathed my blade and got down on my knees to begin inspecting the apples for worm-holes. I knew that Fenton's words could not be the words of a coward, not only because he is the bravest man I know, but also because he is in no danger of being killed. Any village man who does not bear a blade cannot be hunted in a feud, and Fenton never bears a blade. He cannot bear a blade, by his oath as a priest.

So his words puzzled me. Finally I decided that, being a priest who is oath-bound not to fight, he wished only to pledge himself to others in a similar circumstance. This made sense, that he would want to be blood brother only to men who were on a similar path of life to his own. And yet . . .

"What if," I said, my voice tight, "I should not be a hunter?"

His gaze flew over to me. "Your father would be angry."

His reply reassured me. He had not said, "No"; he had only shown concern about angering his first blood brother. Feeling myself on surer ground now, as though I had found a part of a cliff that did not crumble, I said, "I am a man, and I must decide for myself what oaths I take. If I had been blood-bound in friendship to Hamar, I would gladly have taken part in the hunt for his murderer. As it is . . . It's not too late for me to take another path, is it?" My words held more pleading than I would have liked.

"No," said Fenton, sitting back on his heels; he had joined me a moment before in sorting the apples. "It is not too late. Yet you place temptation in my path, Adrian. If I can keep you out of this feud . . . But that is a poor reason to bind myself in lifelong friendship to another man."

"You already said you wanted to be my blood brother." The words came more easily from me now. "If the only thing holding you back is that I'm to be a hunter, then I won't take part in the feud. It's as simple as that."

Fenton pushed back his hair under the hood of his robe, sighing. "It is far from simple. I see the possibility of another feud arising from this. And if you are doing this only for my sake—"

"No," I said quickly. "You are my priest. If you think it would be wrong for me to take part in this feud – if you believe that my god doesn't wish this for me – then of course I won't hunt. That would be wrong, whether or not you became my blood brother." The thought was rising in me that perhaps Fenton had specially chosen me for this role, as a Commander might have chosen one of his soldiers to remain away from battle in order to guard some important post. Normally, as a grown man, I would not be required to remain bladeless, as though I were a priest or a child. But perhaps Fenton believed that one man in this village should remain bladeless during the coming feud, as a visible symbol of the words of peacemaking that he had spoken at my birthday feast.

And he had chosen me. He believed that I had the strength to withstand the temptation of taking part in the hunt.

Something of my joy at being granted this special role must have conveyed itself to my face, for after looking at me for some time, Fenton said gently, "I wish I had the eyes of the Jackal, to know what will come of this. But as you say, you are a man, and it is your right to make this choice. Come, then, and I will pledge my everlasting friendship and faithfulness to you. May our bond never be broken, even by death."

o—o—o

And so we exchanged blood, and then I went home and told my father of my decision, and he shouted at length until he finally calmed down enough to say, "Well, in practical terms, this means little. I will find Hamar's murderer when I am sent out, and that will be the end of the feud. But you ought not to have misled Fenton into thinking that you are on the path to becoming a priest, Adrian. You know that, the next time a feud arises between us and Cold Run or another village, he won't want you to take part in it, because of the promise you made him."

This had not occurred to me; I had thought of myself only as a special sentinel for this coming battle, not as withdrawn from battle for all time. But I dared not express my doubts to my father; I said only, "That is farther away even than the death of Hamar's murderer. Surely you have better things to worry about at this time. Have you whetted your blade?"

This turned our conversation to easier matters – ways to trap and kill the murderer – and so, in the end, I escaped further rebuke from my father. As for my mother, I think she is relieved that I will be in no danger from the coming feud, though of course she cannot say this openly, with my father so angered by my decision. And Mira is too young to fully take in all that is happening; she still cries every night from Hamar's loss.

But I . . . I have a difficult role given to me by the gods, and I have a blood brother who will help me to keep my promise.

CHAPTER THREE

The sixth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

My father left for Cold Run early this morning before any of us had awoken except Fenton, who gave his blood brother the blessing for safe killing before sending him off – or so everyone thinks, but I now realize that Fenton must have given him only a prayer for his safety.

Leda packed a food-bag last night for my father, in case he should need several days to find a suitable prey. I'm staying at the house of Lange and Leda and Drew at the moment, since there isn't room enough for more than my father and mother and Mira in the sleeping-hut they have moved into since the fire. My father says that the village's first task after this is all over will be to build a new hall.

Lange came up to me somewhat hesitantly this morning and said that he knew I must still be upset over what had happened to Hamar, and would I like him to take care of matters in the village until my father's return? That was a nice way of saying that he didn't think I could handle the job yet. I gave him my permission gratefully. Now that Hamar is dead, Lange is next heir to my father after me, and he has much more experience in these matters than I do. He has been on the village council for twenty years now, and I have only attended one meeting since coming of age.

This set me thinking, though, of what Hamar's death would mean for me. I had almost forgotten, amidst the pain of what happened, that I am now the heir. Before this, I had planned to do some travelling in order to help me decide what sort of work I wanted to do. Of course, I could live at home as long as I wanted, and my father would support me, but I am not the sort of man to be a blood-worm to my parents. The money for my travels was my father's second birthday gift for me, but now there is no question of what work I will do.

I don't really mind. I think I will enjoy working alongside my father, though Hamar, who liked to elicit pity, always tried to make it sound as though he was training for the worst job in the world. Most of all, I will enjoy being able to attend village council meetings. For the last few years, Drew and I have been eavesdropping on the meetings by listening through one of the windows. (Drew is only nine, but he likes to pretend that he is as old as I am.) Now that I am of age, I would be able to attend the meetings anyway, but it will be different sitting at the right hand to my father and presiding over the meetings when he is away.

I will try not to remember that Hamar should be doing that instead of me.

o—o—o

The eighth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

My father still has not returned, and I am trying not to worry. Perhaps the Cold Run villagers are simply being cautious, as well they might. Anyway, if my father is killed, Cold Run's priest will send word.

Drew is so excited about the feud that I nearly slapped him today out of frustration, though I felt the same before this all started.

o—o—o

The tenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Still no word. Surely they would not have killed him and kept the news to themselves? It would be their victory, after all. Lange says that if we do not hear from Cold Run by tomorrow, he will send Fenton over to discover how matters stand.

o—o—o

The eleventh day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

My father returned at noonday. He drew blood – Nathaniel, whom I vaguely remember as giving me rides on his pony when I visited Cold Run as a child. Everyone here is now tensely awaiting Cold Run's hunter, and all of the boys have long faces because they are not allowed to wear their daggers until the blood feud is over. My father spent a long time this evening reminding me that I must not wear my free-man's blade or even hold it in my hand as long as I am determined to stay out of the feud. I think he said that in order to shame me into taking my blood vow to murder, but I have remained steadfast to my promise to Fenton.

My father was delayed in returning because he hunted in Cold Run for several days before picking his prey. He had hoped that one of the villagers would say something that would reveal who Hamar's murderer was, but everyone there kept quiet about the subject, no doubt knowing that they might be overheard by our hunter.

My father was also delayed because it took him several minutes to bind Nathaniel, and during that time he got a lot of blood on his only remaining tunic – mainly Nathaniel's blood, fortunately. So my father decided to travel south to Border Borough to buy new clothes, not only for himself, but also for my mother and Mira and me, since we lost all our goods in the fire. (Our money is safe, since my father always kept that with the town bankers.) While he was in town, my father informed Lord Ellis of our feud, and Lord Ellis says that he will send word to the King, though I cannot imagine why the King should be bothered with such a matter. There must be several dozen blood feuds going on in Koretia right now, and none of them is likely to go beyond the village or town where it began. But since the King is head of our blood line, he has to know about even a small feud like this, since he may be called upon to defend us.

My father took two days to travel to Border Borough and back – of course, it would have taken less time than that to go east to Blackpass, but Blackpass's baron is Blackwood of the old nobility, and my father will not do business in a town that is run by our enemies' kin.

o—o—o

The twelfth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I had Fenton read over the above entry, and I asked him whether there was anything in it that an Emorian was unlikely to understand. He laughed and said that it would all be incomprehensible to an Emorian. One of these days, he said, I will have to explain in my journal about blood lines and blood debts and why the King is obliged to defend us in the feud if it grows serious, and why Blackwood must do the same for Cold Run, and a dozen other matters that I would have thought would be perfectly obvious.

I had no desire to argue with Fenton; it was the first time I have seen him laugh since this blood feud started. These days, he spends most of his time in the sanctuary, praying, and all the rest of his time with me, cramming me with knowledge of the Emorian language as though I had only hours to live, though of course he and I are the only men in this village who are safe.

My father gathered all the men in the village square today and warned everyone not to wander off alone, since Cold Run's hunter is no doubt hiding near our village at this very moment and waiting to make his kill. I heard my father tell Fenton afterwards that he expected the others to follow his advice for no more than half a day before forgetting it.

I changed into one of my new tunics today. It feels odd to be wearing a tunic with silver trim, just like my father and Hamar. All I am missing now is a sword, but my father says that will have to wait until we go together to Border Borough and have one custom-made for me. The delay is of no importance; I will only wear the sword on formal occasions, and I cannot even wear a dagger right now, as my father keeps reminding me. I think he is puzzled that I am remaining so obstinate.

o—o—o

The thirteenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Despite our efforts to stay alert, Cold Run's hunter made his kill today. His prey was Titus.

I went over to see Chloris this evening. She was still weeping in her hut, refusing to see anyone, but she let me in; she said it was because I had refused to take part in the feud.

"I tried to persuade Titus to do the same," she said as I handed her a face-cloth because her own was soaked through. "Titus thought the blood feuds were foolish; he said that in Emor, Hamar's murderer would have been brought to judgment, and that would have been the end of it. But he said that he had to abide by Koretian customs, or nobody here would believe that he was truly loyal to the gods. As if anyone could have doubted that!" She exploded into another shower of tears, and I put my arm around her.

After she had calmed somewhat, I asked, "How would the Emorians have brought Hamar's murderer to judgment? Cold Run refuses to surrender the man."

"I keep trying to remember," she said, gulping between sobs. "Not that it matters to me, but it mattered to him – it was all he kept talking about during the last few days. He said that Cold Run refused to surrender the murderer to us because their baron was sure that the murderer wouldn't receive fair judgment here, and that Roderick was right. Titus said that there ought to be someone who could judge the murderer without any bias."

"Like a priest, you mean?"

"No, Titus said that even the priests are allied with the villagers they minister to. He said that, in Emor, the law would stop the blood feud. That's what he kept saying over and over – that if Koretia had the law, there would be no feud. And now he's dead." She flung herself face-down onto her pallet, and eventually I had to leave because I saw that I was only making her more upset by having her talk about this.

So I went to Fenton to ask him about the nature of Emorian law, and how it differs from the gods' law. I found him in the dark sanctuary with his fingers on the Jackal's mask – that seems to be the only god he prays to these days, I suppose because the Jackal is the hunting god.

He pulled away from the mask when he saw me, though. After I had asked my question, he said, "I wish that I had had time enough to explain Emorian law to you, but it seemed a lengthy enough task just to teach you the Emorian language. And now—"

He turned away suddenly, and for a moment I feared that he would ask me to leave, as he does sometimes when he feels he must speak with the gods. But instead he went over to the altar and stood there for a moment with his head bowed, looking down upon the grey slab of stone. With his back to me, he seemed like a stranger. I could not see his face or his hands, and only his robe told me who he was – his robe, and the fact that he bore no blade.

A blood-fly buzzed past his head. The weather has not yet turned to autumn mildness, and so the blood-flies are still thick in the early evening. Fenton waved his hand, and at first I thought he was trying to kill the blood-fly before it settled upon him. Then I noticed that other flies were in the room – house flies, attracted by the drying blood on the altar.

He turned then, beckoning me over, and by the time I reached his side, his robe sleeves were pushed up to his elbows and he was scrubbing the blood with a brush. I found the other brush without needing to ask where it was; he rid himself of his assistant last year, after I offered to help him with his menial work. Together we dug away at the hard blood. There was a great deal of it. Usually, at his daily worship, Fenton sacrifices small animals: birds on feast days, and on other days, the rodents he traps in our houses. My mother said once that a priest in a village is as good as a cat. When the blood feud started, though, my father offered up to the gods our entire flock of goats. Our hired hands were happy at this news of less work, until they realized how long the feud might last, and that there might be no goats left in the end for them to watch.

Fenton said finally, "Why should we serve the gods?"

I was ready with an answer; we had talked about this many times. "Because they are good, pure good; anything good that we have, we received from them. If we serve them, the good in us will be increased. If we turn our face from them, the gods will curse us – not because they want us to suffer, but because they can no longer help us, unless we turn our face toward them again and ask their forgiveness."

Fenton pushed his right sleeve further toward his shoulder. For a moment, I caught a sickening glimpse of what he keeps hidden under his robe; then he pushed his sleeve back down to his elbow. "And how do we serve the gods?" he asked.

"We serve them by thinking of what they want, always, before anything else," I replied promptly. "We serve them by being willing to sacrifice everything we have and are, for their sake. We serve them by following the gods' law, as given to us by our priest – you." I ended with a smile.

Fenton smiled back, but said, as he pulled a bowl of water toward himself. "And what if I say the gods want one thing, and Cold Run's priest says the gods want the opposite? Whose law do you follow then?"

I wanted to say that I would always follow his commands, no matter what any other priest said, but I knew that was not the answer he wanted, so I said reluctantly, "I would follow the gods' law as proclaimed by the High Priest – when he finally comes. Do you think he will come?" I looked over at Fenton, who was now washing the altar with as much tenderness as a mother might wash her child.

I thought his smile wavered somewhat, but he said only, "In your time, perhaps. I don't think he will show himself to the Koretians while I'm alive."

I looked with concern at the wrinkles next to the sides of his eyes. It had never occurred to me before that he would die before I did. "Are you very old?" I asked tentatively, not wanting to add to his pain.

He laughed then, a light, soaring laugh, and threw a dry rag my way. "As old as the black border mountains," he replied. "I celebrate my thirtieth birthyear next spring."

That sounded quite old to me, but I had no wish to offend him, so I said quickly, "You didn't tell me about the Emorians' law."

"I didn't have to," he said as we wiped the altar dry. "You told me yourself."

My expression must have been as blank as my thoughts, for he smiled again and said, "I've heard many people say that the Emorians have no religion, but they're the most religious people in the world. They have a god whom they serve with duty and sacrifice. They have priests who tell them what the god wants them to do. They have a High Priest who serves as the living presence of the god whom they worship. They even have their own gods' law."

I stood back from the altar, watching the last drops of moisture glisten in the ruddy evening sun. Finally I said, "The Emorian law – that's their 'gods' law.' And the 'priests' – they have people who tell them how to follow the law?"

Fenton nodded. He had brought out the brush again and was rubbing at a bit of blood we had missed. The flies, disappointed, wandered out the door. "They have men called judges who decide when their law has been broken. And the Emorian 'High Priest' is their ruler: the Chara. He is High Judge of the land, and he makes final decisions on the law. The Emorians even call their law the Chara's law, believing that the Chara is the living embodiment of their god."

"And who is their god?" I asked with curiosity.

"The law itself."

I gave a laugh of disbelief as Fenton finally stood back, satisfied that the altar was purified for the morrow's worship. "That makes no sense," I said. "The law is what the gods give us – the law isn't the gods themselves."

"The Emorians may have seen it that way in the past," said Fenton. "Some of their old documents refer to a Lawgiver, as though something stood behind the law – but you won't find many Emorians talking that way today. To them, the law itself is worthy of worship and sacrifice, and they are as ready to lay down their lives for it as we are for our gods."

I shook my head. "Somebody should tell them the truth," I said. "Somebody should teach them that the gods are the only ones that are purely good, the only ones that they should worship. The gods are pure goodness, so the gods' law is pure goodness, unlike the Emorians' law."

"Is it?" Fenton had been looking down at the altar all this time; now he raised his eyes. I could see them clearly in the light, bright blue like a newly forged blade. "It is the gods' law that tells men to murder each other," he said softly. "In Emor, this blood feud could never have happened. The Chara's law would have forbidden it."

I was so astonished that by this time I had forgotten my original question: of how the Emorians' law accomplished this feat. Just the fact that Fenton would speak of the gods' law in such a way made my heart beat fast, as though I expected a god to bring down his vengeance on us at any moment.

Finally, I swallowed the hardness in my throat and said, "But . . . you worship the gods."

Fenton nodded. His gaze had drifted past me toward the door, and I realized from this that he did not wish his words to be heard by others; he was telling me a secret no one else had heard. "I pay honor to the gods with my life, but we men are imperfect; we see only glimpses of what the gods want. You said a while back that I give you the gods' law, but I have never done that. I have given you my own understanding of what the gods want, an imperfect understanding. And sometimes, when men's hearts turn evil, and they wish to follow their own wills rather than those of the gods, they pretend that the gods want what they want. They create rules for murder and execution and enslavement, and they call these rules the laws of the gods."

Now my heart was beating so hard that I felt the blood throb at my fingertips. What Fenton was speaking was blasphemy; I was old enough to know that. Nothing less than a terrible death would satisfy the gods who heard such words spoken . . . and yet I could not believe that the gods, good as they were, would ever want to harm Fenton. I stood bewildered, not knowing what to say.

For a moment, I thought that Fenton would speak more, but his eyes flicked to the side again and he said, "The Emorians' law is hard to explain in one lesson, and surely it is time you were home and helping your father with your family's evening worship."

I turned around and saw standing on the threshold of the sanctuary my father, his brows drawn low as he looked, not at me, but at Fenton. For a moment, I feared that he had heard what Fenton had said and that he would denounce Fenton for his blasphemy. Then I remembered with relief that my father is blood-sworn not to harm Fenton, and that anything he had heard he would keep locked in his heart.

So I went home, and we worshipped the gods together as we have done since I was a baby, but this time I stared at the mask of the Jackal, wondering what the Emorians know that we Koretians do not know, and wondering how their law brings them closer to the gods' will than ours does.

o—o—o

The fifteenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Our hunter returned today. Now that the blood feud is begun in earnest, we no longer wait out the period of mourning before we send our hunter. Digby, who is my great-uncle's cousin, killed Angus the shopkeeper, whose wife I remember: she used to give me sweets when her husband wasn't watching. My father is angry that Hamar's murderer has not yet been identified, but he congratulated Digby on a fine kill. Now we await Cold Run's hunter.

o—o—o

The sixteenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Every man in the village is on edge. I tapped Lange on the shoulder today as he was lathing wood, and he leapt as high as a funeral pyre flame.

Fenton continues to tutor me but has not spoken again about the Emorians' law. I am quite glad. Fenton is such a good man that I know that the gods would never punish him for anything he said against their law, but I fear that the gods will punish me if I listen to such talk.

o—o—o

The seventeenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

My cousin Rosa woke this morning, turned over in bed, and discovered her husband Warner lying in a pool of blood. The flies were feasting on his neck.

Her screams must have been heard all the way to Cold Run. Everyone has been saying that it was Warner's fault, for wearing his dagger to bed. No hunter can kill a man unless he wears a blade at his belt or carries it in his hand.

Lange has been sent to Cold Run. Drew is in a very bad mood and refuses to play with me.

o—o—o

The eighteenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I have been having a hard time keeping from thinking about the gods' law, so I allowed myself to think about the law today – I mean the Emorians' law, but I find myself thinking of it just as the law these days. I suppose that is impious.

If I were creating a law, I decided, I would make a law where the innocent need not die in the place of the guilty. It is not Warner's fault, or Titus's, or even Nathaniel's or Angus's, that someone at Cold Run killed Hamar. Why should all these men be killed to satisfy the gods' vengeance? It would be better if the gods were to pick priests who would have the power to say, "This man is guilty and must die for what he has done." And something would have to force those priests to follow the gods' will, rather than simply follow the desires of the villagers whom they served.

I just read the above paragraph and am now cold with fear for what I have written. I am tempted to blot out my words, but the gods already know that I have criticized the law that they gave us, and so I can do nothing except go to Fenton and confess to him my impiety – my blasphemy, rather. But he has said words harsher than mine against the law, so I do not know whether he will consider what I did to be wrong. I am very confused.

o—o—o

The nineteenth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I had no chance to ask Fenton what I should do yesterday, for Lange brought back exciting news in the evening: he has killed Cold Run's baron.

My father says that Lange must have had great skill to accomplish such a feat; a baron is always especially wary during a blood feud, and Roderick was an accomplished swordsman. Lange, who is modest, says that he is lucky Roderick didn't kill him, and that Roderick's death is a sure sign that the gods wish for Mountside to win this feud.

Everyone has been celebrating tonight, sitting in front of the fire and making toasts to the gods in thanksgiving for their blessing upon Mountside. I had to leave the fireside before I was sick. When we visited Cold Run when I was young, we always stayed at Roderick's house. Roderick was like an uncle to Hamar and me, bringing us gifts from far-off villages when he went travelling.

Is something wrong with me? My father has begun to imply that I am nothing more than a coward, and I think he must be right. I ought to be rejoicing that Mountside is so close to winning the feud, but instead I feel as near to weeping as a woman.

I wish I could speak with Fenton, but he has gone to Cold Run. My father sent a message that we would observe the three days' mourning in honor of Cold Run's baron.

o—o—o

The twentieth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Again I had no chance to talk to Fenton, for when he returned to Mountside he was accompanied by Cold Run's priest, Felix, and by Cold Run's new baron.

Griffith I remember even better than Roderick. He and my cousin Emlyn swore blood vows of friendship when they were children, and Hamar and I used to go to Cold Run to play with Emlyn and Griffith and Griffith's younger brother Siward. Sometimes the Cold Run boys would come here, and we would all play Jackal and Prey in the woods; Emlyn usually won, but Griffith was almost as good at the game. He and Emlyn were the best pranksters among the boys in either of our villages. My father used to say with a smile that it wasn't safe to become enemies of those two.

All this was back in the old days, before our feud started with Cold Run.

Griffith was dressed in mourning grey today, with a face to match; his eyes were so barren that it seemed his spirit had accompanied his father's to the Land Beyond. When he began talking, though, he was quite calm. He said that he had no wish to take the feud any farther than it had already gone, and that he was willing to concede victory to Mountside. He would compensate Richard for the damage to his cart when it ran over Tabitha's rooster, and he would pay Mountside whatever fee it liked as blood-payment for the Cold Run man who would have died if the feud had ended in the normal way, with a hunter being caught and killed.

My father's answer was short. "Give me Hamar's murderer," he said, "and I will consider the matter ended."

We were all crowded into the sanctuary, there being as yet no village hall in which the council can meet. I could see Drew peeking in through the half-opened window, and the women's voices murmured outside. Some of the younger men had had a hard time restraining their laughter during Griffith's speech. Now they stared at my father, amazed that he would ask so small a victory price when it was clear that Cold Run's new baron was spineless.

I was standing next to my father and could hear Fenton murmuring in his ear, urging a peace oath, regardless of Griffith's answer. My father ignored him; he was staring with dark eyes at Griffith, whose spine appeared quite firm to me, and whose dagger-hand was twitching in a manner I did not like. I was glad that Griffith had vowed a truce oath and would not draw the blade at his side.

When he spoke, though, it was in the same mild voice as before. "Hamar's murderer has already received his punishment from our priest. If you wish his blood in payment for your son's death, I stand in his stead."

This time there was no laughter, only a collective intake of breath. Faintly through the window, I could hear Drew whispering the news to the other children, and soon after a gasp arose from the women outside. Felix was staring at Griffith as though he had gone mad.

My father is too well-bred to show his contempt for weaklings, but I thought his face shimmered with a smile for a moment before it grew grave again. He said, in a voice raised so that the women outside could hear, "My son, dying from the fire, demanded vengeance upon his killer. The gods were witness to that cry, and I would be lacking in my duty to the gods if I allowed their vengeance to go unfulfilled. I will accept no substitute for the murderer's blood."

Fenton began to say something, then stopped, having caught sight of Griffith's face. I wondered, then, whether Griffith himself was Hamar's murderer, for he looked at that moment like the sort of man who would willingly burn flesh. He said, slowly and precisely, "Then let the gods judge between us. They alone know which of us deserves their vengeance." And he turned and walked out of the sanctuary, with Felix trailing behind, looking as proud as a mountain cat when her cub makes its first kill.

So tonight the men are whetting their blades in preparation for the next hunt. Lange, who is always gentle with Drew, lectured his son sternly when Drew touched Lange's blade.

Fenton and my father have been locked together in the sanctuary all day. I heard my father shouting.

o—o—o

The twenty-first day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Everyone was relieved yesterday when my father emerged from the sanctuary with his mind unchanged. I heard some boys saying today that Fenton has forgotten to worship the god of vengeance; by the time I was through with them, I was sure that I had proved I was no coward. When I told Fenton afterwards how I had defended him, though, he said that a fist is no better than a blade. I felt ashamed of myself and begged his pardon for breaking my promise to him.

He smiled then and said, "Men are called to different paths in life, and your father is wrong in thinking that I am training you to be a priest. I hold no doubt that, in future years, you will unsheathe your blade and defend others who are in need, and that the gods will honor your bloodshed as much as they honor my bladelessness. I want to be sure, though, that when you shed blood, you are following the gods' will, not your own."

This came so close to our previous conversation about the law that I'm sorry to say that I asked leave to skip our lesson that day. I left Fenton alone in the sanctuary, polishing the curved blade he uses during his daily sacrifices.

I remembered then that Fenton has shed more blood than any other man in our village, and I grew angry at my father for not remembering this. But when I arrived at my parents' sleeping hut, I had no opportunity to speak with my father, for my mother was weeping and my father was shouting.

I quickly climbed the ladder to the loft where Mira sleeps, before my parents could notice me, and then I listened to their conversation. "Thank the gods that Emlyn lives in the south," my mother was saying between sobs. "If he still lived in Cold Run, I've no doubt that you would have killed your nephew with your own blade if you had the opportunity."

"Emlyn is no kinsman of ours!" shouted my father. "Nor has he been since the feud began. Blood feuds break ties of kinship – you know that, for I would never have married you if I thought that you understood otherwise."

My mother drew breath to answer, but my father bellowed over her words, "You are a woman of Mountside – have you forgotten that? Or do you hold your birth-blood more dear than the blood I gave to you when we exchanged our marriage vows?"

"Never," my mother choked out. I could see her through the cracks in the floorboard, and I saw that her face-cloth was moist with tears. "I am yours always; the gods are witness to that. Why must this feud continue, though? Griffith has offered an honorable peace—"

"Honorable?" cried my father. "Honorable to allow the death of our first-born son to remain unavenged? Those are words I might hear from any weak-minded woman in the village. Those are words I might hear from our priest, who will never know what it is like to lose a son. May the gods watch over me, those are even words I might hear from my heir, who has turned into something halfway between a priest and a woman. Those are not words I expected to hear from the woman I picked to be my wife."

I heard no more; I picked up a cushion from Mira's bed and buried my head under it, afraid of hearing more about myself, and even more afraid of believing what my father said of me.

I went to see Fenton later, but Drew said he had gone out onto the mountain, and he had not returned when it was time for me to go to bed.

o—o—o

The twenty-second day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Today was the worst day since the feud began. No one died – we are still observing the period of mourning – but my father and I fought.

I have no need to record what he said about me; it is burned into my spirit. I will record here, though, what I said in the end, as a sort of penance, for it is painful to recall my shamelessness. I said, "You are just like the men Fenton talked about, who are evil in their hearts, and who pretend that the gods want what they want."

My father said nothing after that, which frightened me more than if he had shouted. He has commanded me to stay in this hut until dinnertime, when he will allow me to join the villagers around the fire we are building to match the fire built in Cold Run tonight for Roderick's body.

I almost wish that I had taken part in the feud after all. Perhaps I would be dead by now and would not feel this pain at what I have done.

o—o—o

The men had built the funeral pyre by the time Fenton arrived tonight, and the women were throwing onto it the mourning cloths that were meant to represent Roderick's body. As I saw Fenton's face, pale over the bright flames, I had a sudden image of Fenton himself burning in the fire, dying the death of the god-cursed, but I quickly thrust this thought away. The gods love Fenton; of that I can be sure.

He was very quiet tonight, saying the words in honor of Roderick's life. His gaze strayed a couple of times to my father, who kept a seemly silence throughout the rite. As soon as Fenton was finished, though, my father roared for wine, and soon all of us were sitting around the fire, warming ourselves as the first touch of autumn coolness travelled over the mountains from Emor.

I had hoped to be able to spend time talking to Fenton, but he was busy offering comfort to Chloris, who used this mock funeral pyre as an opportunity to reopen her grief for her dead husband. When he had succeeded in persuading Chloris to put aside her open grief, he began to walk toward my father, but he stopped as my father shouted for silence.

Licked by the light of the flames, my father stood with cup in hand, looking round at the people about him, like a father regarding his beloved children. His gaze rested finally on me, sitting between Mira and Drew. Then he raised his hand and said, "Eleven years ago last spring, we welcomed a new kinsman into our midst."

I knew immediately what my father was going to say next, and I looked over at Fenton. His lips were parted with surprise at this honor, and I saw a blush start across his cheeks. Then he ducked his head and went over to help one of my aunts collect the empty wine flasks.

"Eleven years ago," my father continued, "we met a stranger, an Emorian who had chosen to leave his old life and to brave danger in order to enter this land. He was called to Koretia by a voice, he told me, and he soon came to believe that the voice he had heard was that of his god. Wishing to serve his god with the same loyalty with which he had served his previous master, he took on the robes of priesthood and dedicated his manhood to the seven gods and goddesses of Koretia. Since that time he has borne no blade, except when serving as the god's representative at the sacrifice."

All around me, I could see people nodding. Even those who were angry at Fenton for wishing an early peace with Cold Run knew that he had acted as he did out of love of the gods. Fenton himself, still busily collecting flasks, looked as flushed as a boy in love.

"Because he had shown himself to be a god-lover, I asked Fenton to share blood with me," my father said. "Because he had shown himself to be a god-lover, I entrusted to his care my younger son, who has now become my heir. It is because of Fenton that my son is what he is today."

He turned and handed his flask to Lange, who had been nodding with the others; then he unsheathed his dagger. A small sigh drifted through the crowd like mist.

I was as impressed as the rest. I had expected my father only to offer a toast to Fenton, as a sign that this disagreement was superficial in comparison to their blood-bond and their love for each other. Now I realized that my father was going to go further and renew his blood vow of friendship with Fenton.

Fenton had raised his head. I saw his lips part again, and then he quietly took a step forward, awaiting the moment when my father would hand the blade to him. My father raised the underside of his arm so that all could see the thin slit of whiteness upon his wrist. He pointed to it with the tip of his dagger, and then carefully, precisely, he cut his wrist cross-wise from the original mark.

No one spoke. All eyes were now on Fenton, who looked like a corpse that had been drained of blood. My father, it was clear, had not told him what he planned.

"As the Jackal is my witness," said my father in a cool and level voice, "I hereby abjure my vow of friendship with Fenton son of Paulin. No longer is his blood mine; no longer will I protect him from harm. He has broken his vow of friendship to me by teaching my son godless ways and has brought danger to him through those teachings."

Now a murmur ran through the crowd, like wind running over grass. Everyone's gaze turned toward me, including my father's. For a moment more, as my spirit screamed from fear of what he would say next, my father looked upon me. Then he said quietly, "Fenton remains blood-bound to my son; I will not say anything that would cause harm to my son's blood brother. For this reason, I will not repeat the teachings I have heard Fenton speak. Nor will I ask him to leave this village; he remains kin to us through my son. I have sent a letter to the King, though, asking him to send a new priest to us. When that priest arrives, Fenton may leave or stay, as he wishes. If he stays, I will not ask him to take part in the blood feud, for his vow to the gods forbids that. No longer, though, will he represent us before the gods. I believe that, if he were to remain as our priest, our village would be in danger of the gods' anger. That is all I wish to say." And wiping his blade clean on his sleeve, he sheathed his dagger and turned to Lange for his flask.

I looked over toward Fenton, but he was gone already, and when I ran to the sanctuary, the doors were locked.

CHAPTER FOUR

The twenty-third day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

I have been to the sanctuary five times today, but each time I have found the doors locked, and I dare not knock on the doors, for I have heard Fenton's voice murmuring prayers. I have been to see my father as well, and he listened to all that I had to say, but in the end he said nothing more than that, having been tutored by Fenton, I could not be expected to understand how Fenton had turned his face from the gods. The best I could do for Fenton, my father said, was to pray that the gods would show mercy toward him.

He also said that the greatest blame lay with himself, for allowing me to be tutored by an Emorian, but when he said that I left the hut, fearing that my anger would overcome me. How can my father not see that Fenton is a man loved by the gods, full of mercy and peace and goodness? It does not matter that Fenton was born in Emor. Even the blindest man ought to see that Fenton's a man of honor despite that.

But I have already brought about too much trouble by failing to show respect to my father. I am praying to the Jackal to solve the problems I have caused, for Fenton has always taught me that the gods can turn good to evil, and that the Jackal in particular can transform evil through his fire.

o—o—o

The twenty-fourth day of September in the 940th year a.g.l.

Nobody has been killed yet. Mountside's men are very much on edge. My father says it is likely that the hunter will avenge Roderick's death in an especially terrible manner, so everyone is taking care to stay close to the village.

I was unable to visit the sanctuary until this afternoon. My father wanted me to help him pick the location for our new hall and to discuss the plans for building it. I tried to keep my mind on all that he was telling me, but after a while he began looking at me out of the edge of his eye, and eventually he said in a sharp voice that he could do better work without me. So I went running to the sanctuary.

The doors were open. I slowed to a walk and entered cautiously, but the sanctuary was empty and was dark from the shadows of the tapestries on the walls. The smoke-hole in the high ceiling beckoned in a beam of light that fell straight onto the altar, as it always does at noonday. When I was little, I thought that Fenton slept on the altar, since the sanctuary has no sleeping loft. Only when I grew older did I realize that he kept a pallet in the storeroom. Everything in the sanctuary is intended for the gods: the wood and pitch for the sacrifice, the everlasting flame from which Fenton lights the sacrificial fire, and the priest's blade.

I used to spend hours looking at Fenton's dagger when I was young. Unlike most priests' blades, its hilt is made of gold and is dotted with polished bloodstones; its blade, curving like the Jackal's claws, is finely tempered and is kept honed as sharp as a thigh-dagger. Fenton told me once that his blade was made by a craftsman in the south, who created it for the High Priest, but since the High Priest has not yet shown his face, the craftsman loaned the dagger to Fenton. I love to watch Fenton practice bringing the sparkling blade down upon the sacrifice. He says that it is better for him to practice the swift death-stroke when the altar is bare than to miss the heart of the sacrificial beast and cause it more pain.

Today, when I arrived, the altar was bare, but the room smelled of burnt meat, so I surmised that Fenton had finished his noonday sacrifice and had gone to take the remaining goat-meat to our village butcher, to be distributed to the poorer members of the village as an offering to the gods. I looked for something in the sanctuary that I could tidy, but all was in place except for a piece of paper and a pen and an open inkwell. I walked over to stop up the inkwell before the ink should turn dry, and as I did so, I caught sight of my name on the paper.

It was a letter of some sort, though Fenton had not yet addressed it; it told of everything that has happened recently, from Hamar's death until the events of two nights ago. Fenton ended the letter by saying, "From all that I have written, you will understand why I believe that my duties will soon be ending here and that, when we meet again, it will be in the manner which we once discussed. That this prospect does not grieve me is due mainly to Adrian: I feel that I have received richer rewards during my four years here with him than most men receive in a lifetime. Therefore, I leave now with the god's peace in my heart and need only record here my very great love for you, in anticipation of our reunion."

I read the last paragraph several times, my heart beating harder each time, until I looked up and found Fenton standing next to me.

For a moment, I failed to recognize him; all I saw was the sober-colored lesser free-man's tunic. It has been many years since I last saw Fenton without his priests' robe. Then I noticed that the man before me had no blade at this belt. I swallowed the hardness in my throat, saying, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been reading your correspondence."

"It doesn't matter," he replied with half a smile. "I never write anything that might be dangerous for others to read."

I tried to puzzle this out, as he reached over to place the pen and ink back where they belonged, on the table where he keeps the holy instruments that are used only in the gods' service. Finally, finding no better way to speak my thoughts, I blurted out, "You're leaving!"

"Only if the gods will it," he said. His long hair, which is usually tucked into his hood, veiled his face as he leaned forward. "If the gods permit it, I'll stay."

I wanted to tell him that my father would never send him from the village, but my voice faltered as I watched Fenton gently place the pen and ink next to the silver blade. Fenton was a priest, and he had vowed to serve the gods; if he could not serve them here, he would have to go elsewhere. "I'll come with you," I said at last.

Fenton raised his eyebrows as he turned round. "Leaving your father with no son to be his heir?"

I could make no answer to that; I knew that Fenton would think less of me if I failed in my duty to my father and my village. In the end, I asked, "Who were you writing to?"

Fenton glanced over at the doorway. People were passing by, and I could hear my father's voice nearby, giving instructions to our village carpenter. Without need for instruction, I went over to Fenton, and he and I left the sanctuary together, walking past the village boundaries toward the top of the mountain.

I went slowly, for Fenton's sake; he did not grow up on a mountain, as I did, and it takes him time to scramble over the rocks. When we had reached the edge of the cliff, where the mountainside breaks free of forest, and scrub tickles the legs of passersby, Fenton said, "I was writing to your cousin Emlyn."

I looked at Fenton with surprise. I knew, of course, that Fenton was the one who took Emlyn to the priests' house in hopes that the priests there could cure Emlyn's long-standing mind-illness; I also knew that he had tutored Emlyn when they lived together at the priests' house. But Fenton had scarcely spoken of Emlyn since that time, except when my mother asked questions about him. Since Emlyn's mother was my mother's sister, my mother has a special fondness for my cousin.

"I didn't know that you'd kept in contact," I said.

Fenton nodded, though his concentration was focussed on climbing over a jutting ledge. I paused to help him over the hard part. "Emlyn and I have written to each other since I left the south," Fenton said. "He sends his letters to the priest at Blackpass, and I pick them up there whenever I visit."

I thought about this as we made our way up the rocky path to the top of the mountain. Fenton's exercise in subterfuge was perfectly sensible, of course. My father would not like the idea of any of us sending friendly letters to a native of Cold Run – not while our villages were feuding. I could not help but feel hurt, though, that Fenton had never revealed the secret of his correspondence to me. After all, our blood was now mixed, and our spirits had been mixed long before that.

As though guessing my thoughts, Fenton added, "Emlyn preferred that I not mention our correspondence to anyone. He embroiled himself in some trouble during his time at the priests' house – he never got along well with most of the priests there. Therefore, he has trying to live a quiet life now, hoping that people will forget his past so that he may freely make his mark on the future when the time comes."

"What sort of work does he do?" I asked as I scrambled my way up to the mountaintop, and then waited with restrained impatience as Fenton followed behind.

"He is a jeweller," replied Fenton, and smiled at my look.

A more unlikely profession for my cousin I could not have imagined. What little I remember of him is of an active boy, forever darting around our village when he came to visit – often in a secretive manner, since he and Griffith were fond of playing pranks on their elders. When he was not helping Griffith set up water-traps for men or locking indignant women in their chambers, Emlyn was most often busy ducking through the woods next to Mountside, playing Jackal and Prey. He was the best Jackal I ever knew, though he said that I was the best prey. Certainly I was the only boy who had any success in keeping hidden when he went hunting for us.

If I had thought about it, I would have imagined Emlyn as a soldier or a dagger-thrower or at the very least a fisherman. The idea of Emlyn being content to spend his life sitting on a bench, poring over bits of gold and emerald, was sorely disappointing.

"He's not an ordinary jeweller," Fenton said loyally; he always seeks to see the best, even in men who have wasted their lives. "He sells his own work rather than depend on traders to do so – that allows him to travel a great deal. And his way of looking at precious metal and stones . . . He sees into the heart of them. I remember standing in the work chamber of the priests' house when Emlyn was a boy, watching him craft a neck-chain for a noblewoman. He told me – as though he were my tutor rather than I his – that the Koretian people are joined together by their love of the gods, like the links of a precious chain."

I puzzled over this image as we walked across the scrubby grass that shivered continuously from the wind from the black border mountains. "Joined together in what way?" I asked finally.

"I mused on that thought for many a day afterwards," Fenton responded. "I finally came to realize that what binds all of us together is our belief that we must make sacrifice to the gods. If I truly love the gods and their law, I will know when the right moment comes to offer up my sacrifice. That is true of all of us who love the gods."

I raised my eyes from our path and felt a shiver shudder over me as though I were grass, for as chance would take it, at that moment we were passing the spot of my earliest memory.

Although I was only five at the time, I could still remember that day: hearing Emlyn give one of his lilting cries, like a wild animal, and then arriving at the mountaintop to see my cousin standing over the body of a dead man. At the time, being young and filled with stories of the gods, I had imagined that the Jackal would appear at any moment to carry the man away to the Land Beyond. I was therefore eager to help Emlyn start the funeral fire so that I could meet the god.

To my disappointment, the man had been alive, though close to death.

"You offered up your sacrifice to your god long ago," I said as we turned our paths toward the mountain range north of us. "You came to Koretia when your god called you, though you nearly died on the journey."

"The god was guiding me during that journey, else I would never have survived," said Fenton as we reached the edge of the mountaintop and sat down where I had rested on the day I mourned Hamar. "Few border-breachers make it past the patrol alive."

"You did, though," I said, feeling pride swell within me as I looked over at Fenton. Even in a lesser free-man's tunic, he is no ordinary man, I decided. Fenton's face contains something I have seen in few other men; my father once told me that Fenton has a look of patience that was won through endurance to hard pain. Fenton's eyes, too, are beyond the ordinary – not dreamy, as one would expect in a pious priest, nor practical, as Felix's eyes are. Fenton's eyes are cautious and calculating, but not in a mean sense – rather, when Fenton looks at you, it is as though he sees everything in you, down to the blackest evil residing within you. And yet I have never heard him say a harsh word against anyone, not even the Emorian slave-master that he fled from.

"I had assistance," said Fenton, his left-hand fingers rubbing the slave-brand on his right arm as he stared out at the black peaks before us. "Do you remember that I mentioned my master's son?"

"Yes, he helped you to escape." I was bubbling with pleasure that Fenton would discuss his life in Emor; he so rarely does. "He and an older boy he'd met in the Emorian borderland. The older boy gave you food for your journey, and your master's son persuaded you to leave Emor."

"He did more than that for me," said Fenton, his gaze continuing to embrace the still peaks. "My master's son and the older boy became acquainted because they both wanted to join the border mountain patrol – in fact, they had spent that day in the mountains, listening to the patrol guards whistle their signals."

"Whistle them?" I stiffened with excitement. This was a part of the story that Fenton had never told me.

Fenton nodded. The wind was blowing his hair into his face like a mask, but he was paying it no heed. "The patrol guards aren't like any other soldiers. I remember how startled I was when I first caught sight of them, for I expected them to be in armor, like ordinary soldiers. I suppose, though, that the weight of leather, small as it is, is considered too high a price to pay for the loss of speed. Speed is all-important to the patrol – it is how they manage, against all odds, to catch breachers who are making their way through or near the pass in the mountains. Speed is important, and secrecy. If it hadn't been for my master's son, I wouldn't have known that the guards were near me, until they had me surrounded. But my master's son, who had spent the day watching and listening to the patrol as the guards went about their business, revealed to me one of the secrets of the patrol's success.

"Rather than shout messages to one another – spoken messages that would be heard by the hunted – the guards instead whistle messages to one another. My master's son, clever boy that he was, had managed to guess the meaning of a few of the whistles. Just a few; I believe that the patrol may have two dozen or more whistle-codes. But the few that he taught me were the most important ones, and with their help I was able to detect the changing movements of the guards and flee accordingly."

I had stayed quiet all this time, but now I pelted Fenton with the questions, like a Daxion archer sending forth his arrows. To my surprise, Fenton answered all my excited queries. Within the hour I had learned all of the whistle-codes Fenton had been taught, as well as facts about the patrol that Fenton had never before told me. I will have to record them here when I have greater leisure, but the one I remember most – because Fenton looked so grave when he said it – is that, if I ever crossed the border into Emor, I must never, ever draw my blade in the presence of a patrol guard. I am not sure why this is so. Perhaps it has to do with Emorian customs I have not yet learned.

As the afternoon shadows began to enfold us, I was still practicing the whistles – for Fenton, always the tutor, had insisted that if I were to learn them, I must learn them well. Fenton had his arm around me, which made me feel like a boy again, but so great was my contentment that I snuggled my head under his chin. I still am not as tall as Fenton, so it was easy to do that. I could hear Fenton's heartbeat, as steady as well-balanced blade-steel, and the vibration of his voice as he said, "I've never wanted to reveal the patrol's secrets to others. I breached the border through sore need but would not want others to follow in my footsteps. Yet it occurred to me today that the day may come when you will wish to visit Emor. I thought I should give you what information I could in anticipation of that day."

"I wouldn't need to breach the border, though," I murmured; I was beginning to grow sleepy in the heat of the sun. "My father would give me a letter of passage. . . . You could come with me," it occurred to me to add. "You could visit your native land and show me places where you'd lived. The patrol wouldn't recognize you in your robe. Where is your priests' robe, by the way?"

"Your mother fetched it away this morning to mend it, before I awoke," said Fenton; I could hear the smile in his voice. "I think it was her way of apologizing."

I was silent for a long moment, listening to the regular pace of Fenton's heart. Then I said, "Fenton, I tried to talk with my father—"

"It doesn't matter." Fenton's voice was quiet. "If this brings good that I cannot yet see, then I am glad. If it brings evil, then I am sure that the gods can transform that evil to good. . . . We were talking of sacrifice before."

This was such a sudden change of topic that it took me a moment to retrace our conversation. I could feel Fenton's hand tighten on my arm, as though he were thinking hard about what to say next. "Yes," I said with a yawn. "Sacrifice. You gave your sacrifice a long time ago."

For a moment more, Fenton's hand remained tight on my arm. Then it loosened, as though a decision had been made. "Not my sacrifice only," he said. "The dearest desire of my master's son had been to join the patrol, yet he broke Emorian law in revealing to me the patrol's secrets so that I could breach the border. He was too honest a boy to lie about his crime to others, so in aiding me, he lost his chance to join the border mountain patrol. I've never forgotten the sacrifice he made for me."

Amidst my sleepiness, I felt a sting of jealousy toward the young boy who had captured Fenton's heart by offering him a sacrifice. I have never had the opportunity to make a sacrifice for Fenton. Then I remembered that I had possessed Fenton's company all these years, while the boy would never even know that Fenton reached Koretia alive. I chided myself for my selfishness.

Fenton said, "The older boy . . . Adrian, are you listening?"

"Yes," I said, swallowing another yawn. "Go on."

"The older boy was named Quentin. Since he did nothing more for me than give me food, it's possible that he joined the patrol in the end. If so, he could be of assistance to you if you ever needed to enter Emor and had trouble doing so – if, for example, you lost your letter of passage during your travels."

I was going to deny scornfully that I would be so careless, but it seemed too much trouble to break through the weight of the heat pressing itself down upon me, hugging me like Fenton's arm. Heat, I thought; a bright spring day. Emlyn standing over a dead body . . . "Emlyn," I murmured, feeling misery embrace me. "The Jackal . . ."

I heard a loud thump against my ear that woke me suddenly. After a moment, I identified it as Fenton's heart, which was now beating hard. I raised myself drowsily, saying, "What happened?"

Fenton smiled at me, though I thought there was a curious look to his gaze. "You were dreaming, I think."

"Yes," I said, remembering. "I was dreaming about the Jackal coming to our land and claiming the High Priesthood. That was one of the reasons I chose him as my god," I reminded Fenton. "Because there's a chance that I might meet him one day. Don't you think that would be glorious? Meeting a god face-to-face?"

"I imagine it will be a bit frightening, too," Fenton said, continuing to smile.

"I suppose so," I said reluctantly, not wanting to dwell on this aspect. "What do you suppose he'll be like? He'll have black fur, I think, with golden whiskers and fiery eyes . . ."

"Fiery eyes for certain," said Fenton with a laugh. "As for the rest . . . I should think that his outward appearance will be less important than his godliness. We were talking of your cousin Emlyn a while ago – do you remember his trick of being able to guess people's thoughts? He always seemed to know when villagers were intending to walk through certain doors, and he planned his water-traps accordingly. I suspect that when the Jackal comes, he will have that power, but in a godly form. He will know our spirits in a way that we do not know ourselves."

I said nothing for a moment; Fenton's words had uncovered for me the forgotten portion of my dream, the part that had distressed me. Always, my first memory had been of Emlyn finding Fenton and calling to the rest of us, but now my dream had reminded me of what had happened a few moments before that call: Emlyn insisting on travelling further, though all of us were planning to return to Mountside at that point. He had ignored our objections and gone ahead to the mountaintop, just as though he had known what he would find lying there. . . .

I felt myself shiver, and Fenton put his hand over mine, though he continued to look deeply into my face. "Is it the dream?" he asked quietly.

"It's something I remembered," I said in a low voice. "I don't remember Emlyn well, but I remember a few things . . . I don't suppose anyone else noticed this about him, not even Griffith; Emlyn always hid it from everyone when it happened. But I was so small, I suppose he didn't realize that I'd understand. I didn't at the time; it was only later, several years after he'd left for the south, when my father was speaking about how Emlyn's illness made him stare into emptiness . . ." I shivered again and gazed upon Fenton, frightened for the first time.

I have never before been frightened in Fenton's presence. I've known, of course, that he is a priest, and I've known what duties that requires of him, but our village has always been filled with god-loving people, so his duties in that regard have gone unexercised, like a blade that remains always in its sheath. Yet if I told him . . . Was it right for me to place Emlyn in danger?

Fenton was still watching me, saying nothing, and peace descended suddenly upon me, as it often does when Fenton looks at me that way. My highest duty is not to Emlyn but to Fenton – to the gods, really, but Fenton is their representative. I knew, without asking, that Fenton would only do what was good for Emlyn's spirit, however much pain Emlyn's body might undergo. I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "Emlyn used to see things that weren't there, and know things that were about to happen, before they happened. I think . . . I think Emlyn has a demon."

The words were out, and I waited tensely. When Fenton finally spoke, though, his words were not ones I had expected. "Would your feelings about your cousin change if he was possessed by a demon?" he asked quietly.

I stared at him. Then I felt hot shame cover me as I realized the answer, and discovered what Fenton already knew: how small my loyalty is to the gods. "No," I said painfully, staring down at the rock upon which Fenton and I were sitting. "I'd still love him. I know I shouldn't love a god-cursed man, but . . ."

After a minute of agony, I raised my head, and to my surprise, I found that Fenton was smiling. "I feel the same way," he said simply.

The heat in my face increased as I took in what he must be saying. Of course; what a fool I was. Fenton must have known all along that Emlyn was demon-possessed. And knowing that Emlyn's spirit was being eaten by a murderous demon . . . Any other priest would have placed the curse upon Emlyn at once, but not Fenton, I realized. No, Fenton would wait until the final moment before Emlyn's spirit was lost, doing all he could to draw Emlyn back from the evil path he was taking.

This, then, was the meaning of the correspondence between Fenton and Emlyn, and for the love that Fenton had voiced in his letter to my cousin. Blade and fire were not Fenton's primary weapons against evil, as they would be for any other priest. Fenton would fight the demon by loving the man who had given himself over to the demon.

"Adrian, you speak of matters that I would gladly share with you, but I cannot," said Fenton solemnly. "The god has bound my voice on this subject, and I cannot speak to you without his permission. Perhaps, if my god should give me liberty—"

"It's all right," I said quickly. "I know that you can't reveal the words of someone who confesses evil to you. I don't need to hear what's happened; I know that you'll help Emlyn if you can and kill the demon if you can't." I felt my skin prickle at the thought of what will happen if Fenton cannot rid Emlyn of the demon. Then I quickly put the thought aside. Fenton, I'm sure, can exorcise any demon.

Fenton seemed about to speak; then he stopped. The wind from the north continued to blow over us both, whistling through the mountain peaks like soldiers far away. Finally he said, with an intensity that surprised me, "There is one thing that I would have you know, Adrian, and this is something I want you to remember even if I must go away, and you and I are not able to keep in contact with each other. You'll meet many people over the years, even priests, who will tell you, 'My god told me to do this,' and 'It is the gods' wish that we do this.' Don't make the same mistake I once made and assume that their words are true. Though the gods can turn our evil to good, not all that men will in the gods' names is the will of the gods."

I felt like a prey that has entered the Jackal's trap. Too late, I realized what subject I had been inwardly hoping all afternoon we would avoid. This was not what I wanted to hear; I did not want to listen to any speech from Fenton that suggested my father's words about him are true. Of course I know that the gods would never punish Fenton for criticizing the gods' law – how could they punish a god-loving man like him? But I who am so weak in my love of the gods in comparison to Fenton, I who might misunderstand whatever truth lay behind Fenton's mysterious thoughts about the gods' law and use that misunderstanding to attack the gods and their law . . . Could it be, I wondered suddenly, that the gods had arranged for Fenton to leave this village so that I would not be endangered by his presence?

So horrible was this thought that I leapt to my feet. "I promised my father I'd help him with his duties," I said. "I'll have to go now." And I bounded away while Fenton was still trying to reply.

I ran across the grass and then down the mountain, feeling guilt claw at me because I knew that Fenton could not match my pace. Only as I reached the village did I look up toward the skyline, where the top of our mountain meets the sky. A man was standing there, silhouetted against the bright blue. Though his face was shadowed, I somehow knew that Fenton was smiling down at me.

o—o—o

I see that I have written a very long entry today; I suppose that is partly due to my guilt at leaving Fenton so abruptly. I will have to apologize to him tomorrow, and I think I will have to tell him also about the doubts I am having about the gods' law. For me not to confess my evil would be as wrong as if Emlyn had not confessed his evil to Fenton. If I am indeed in danger of turning my face from the gods, Fenton must be told.

I must shamefully admit, though, that I spent most of this evening thinking about the patrol guards and their whistles. I suppose that shows how frivolous I am.

CHAPTER FIVE

The second day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

The peace was broken today, in a fashion that I can hardly bear to think about. Cold Run sent its hunter; I saw him myself.

Father had sent me into the woods to look for trees to cut for the new hall. As I returned to the edge of the village, I saw the hunter standing next to a tree, leaning against it and holding his side as though he had been running. I could just see the edge of his face, and it was flushed red with warmth. I thought at first that he must be my youngest uncle, who is about my age, and that he was playing Jackal and Prey. So I called out softly, so that his playing partner would not hear, "Which are you, the hunter or the hunted?"

He turned swiftly, and for a moment all that I noticed was that he looked very ill. Then I saw the fear in his eyes, and I recognized him. It was Griffith's brother, Siward.

I felt a wave of relief flow over me. All I had to do was capture Siward, and the feud would be over. I had no dagger, but my father had taught me ways to fight if I were disarmed during a duel. I took a step forward.

Oddly, Siward did not move, not even to draw his dagger. Perhaps it was this peculiarity which made me turn and look back at the village. There were no bodies to be seen; everyone was going about their regular business. But there was a long, thin trail of smoke arising from one building.

I doubt that I looked back at Siward again. I was racing back into the village, ignoring the startled faces that swivelled my way, ignoring a call that sounded like my father's. I only stopped when I reached the sanctuary door and swung it open.

Immediately I began to curse myself. What had I been thinking? I had let the Cold Run hunter go and chased after a fire that turned out to be nothing more than Fenton's daily fire for the god. It was blazing on the altar as usual, the goat's meat already half-burned from the bones, while the sacrificial smoke wound its leisurely way up to the smoke-hole. It went straight as an arrow to its target, which Fenton had once told me was a sign that the gods were pleased with the sacrifice.

I was just about to turn away and run back to the woods to find Siward again when I noticed two things. One was that there were a great many bones on the altar. The other was that Fenton was not standing as usual next to the sacrifice.

I think I screamed. I know that I stood frozen at the doorway, unable to move. It was only a few seconds before I began to fling myself forward, but in those few seconds other men had reached the sanctuary, and I found myself struggling against a pair of strong hands pulling me back. They belonged to my father, saving me from flinging myself into the god's fire.

The other men, though too cautious to actually throw themselves at the flames, were pulling down tapestries and smothering the fire in that way. I had already seen, though, that it was too late, so I turned my face against my father's chest and wept the tears I had not shed when my brother died.

I do not think he blamed me. When I looked up at him again, many minutes later, he was staring bleakly at the altar, where the flames were dying down. "Such barbarity," he murmured. "Never, in all the feuds I've taken part in . . . Not even an Emorian would curse himself in such a way." He turned suddenly away from me to Lange. My brother-in-marriage had stepped away from the altar to comfort Drew, who was sobbing in the doorway. "Find a trader to send word to Cold Run," my father said sharply. "Tell Griffith that one of his hunters has burned an unarmed priest. If Felix doesn't confirm the curse and hand the murderer over to us for punishment, then we'll know that entire village lies under the gods' curse. . . . What are you looking at?" His voice softened.

I stared up at him blankly. I could scarcely take in what he was saying; my spirit had begun to grow numb. My hand trembled as it tightened on the paper it held. With my fingers still cradling Fenton's neat handwriting, I said, "A letter. Fenton was writing to Emlyn."

My father was still a moment. Then, with one swift move, he snatched the letter and threw it into the dying flames.

I gasped and tried to move forward, but my father held me back. "Emlyn is your enemy," he said in a hard voice. "He is kin to the man who killed your blood brother. Would you honor Fenton's murdered spirit by showing kindness to his enemy?" His grip tightened on me. "How will you honor him?"

After that, I could do nothing but close my eyes and cry for a long time, while my father held me tenderly.

o—o—o

The third day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

I slept last night with Fenton's sheathed dagger, which Lange found next to the altar. I knew, of course, that I was placing myself in danger by holding even a priest's dagger all night, but it was the closest I could come to Fenton's spirit. Since he was murdered, he is in the Land Beyond already, being welcomed by the kind gods he loved so much. I tell myself that in hopes that my pain will decrease.

I wish that Fenton was here to advise me. Already I have made one serious mistake: I told my father who Fenton's murderer was. That gave my father more arrows for his bow, though I suppose his attack on me would have occurred in any case.

I feel ashamed of myself for having written the above. I know that it does not do justice to the grief my father feels for the death of his former blood brother. "I was wrong to abjure my vow to Fenton," he told me today. "I see that now; I should have stayed by his side and guided him to see how he had turned his face from the gods, rather than allow the gods to punish him this way."

"The gods didn't murder him!" I shouted. "It was Siward!"

"Siward was the instrument of the gods' will, though that makes him no less guilty of his blasphemy," my father said steadily; his face was pale. "Siward will receive his just punishment for breaking the gods' law. The only question is whose hand shall execute his sentence."

I had a hard time steadying my breathing, though I had known what would come. "If Felix places him under the gods' curse—"

"He won't. Griffith has already sent word that Fenton was killed in error – an unarmed priest killed in error – and that he will not surrender the murderer. Nor will Felix acknowledge that the murderer is already under the gods' curse. Of course we know why, thanks to you. Griffith has so little loyalty to the gods that he will not surrender his heir and younger brother, law-breaker though he is. Well, Griffith has already shown what sort of baron he is; the gods will punish him in time. Siward, though, requires justice now. Fenton's spirit will not be able to rest peacefully in the Land Beyond until he is avenged. By his blood brother."

The words were finally out. I tried to turn away from my father, but his hand held me fast. "I cannot avenge Fenton's death," my father said in carefully spaced words. "The abjuration of my vow will not allow that. You are his nearest kin; it is to you that this duty falls."

"But Fenton wouldn't want me to kill Siward," I said miserably.

My father sighed and released me. We were standing in the sanctuary, now stripped of all of its holy objects, since it had been profaned by the murder of a priest. Only Fenton's dagger, which I had carried with me all day, remained in the sanctuary, and even that, I had discovered upon inspecting it, was covered with blackened blood. Fenton must have been so preoccupied by his worry over the feud that he had sheathed his blade after his daily sacrifice, before wiping it clean. I had cleaned the blade and the sheath, this being the best I felt I could do for Fenton's spirit. Now, though, I was being asked to do more.

"Fenton held peculiar notions about the blood feuds," said my father. "He told me honestly about those notions when he came to serve us, so I am yet more to blame for his death. I ought to have assisted him in recognizing his impiety, especially since he told me that he had been reprimanded for his views by the other priests at the priests' house. One matter, though, Fenton and I always agreed upon, and that was that a murderer should receive his just punishment. Fenton disapproved of the blood feuds because he did not believe that a law-breaker's kin should suffer from his crime, but he never once suggested that the law-breaker himself should escape justice." My father reached out and held me again, gently this time. "You know who Fenton's murderer is," he said quietly. "There is no chance that the innocent will die under your blade. All that is needed is that you execute the man who broke the gods' law twice over – by killing an unarmed man, and by killing a priest. Even Fenton would have approved of such an execution; he was not as soft as you present him."

In my mind, I saw again Fenton cutting his skin unflinching, then handing the bloody blade to me. I closed my eyes against the image, saying with tightness in my throat, "It just doesn't seem right for me to do this."

After a while, the stillness grew so long that I opened my eyes. My father had taken his hand from me; in his face was a coldness more chill than the black border mountains in winter.

"If that is your feeling, then that is a sign of what you are," he said in a slow, deliberate voice. "And if that is what you are, then you are no son of mine."

I stared at him, feeling the weight of what he had said descend upon me. First Hamar, then Fenton, and now— My spirit could not survive another loss. I had no choice, no choice at all.

I burst into tears once more, and my father, sensing my answer, wrapped his arms around me. "Just Siward," he said softly. "That is all I will ask of you. I won't require you to take part in the feud beyond that."

And so tomorrow I go to Cold Run, a hunter in search of his prey.

I hope I am caught.

o—o—o

The sixth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

One thing I can tell my father when I return. I am not the greatest coward in Koretia; Siward is.

I have never seen anyone so heavily protected. He cannot so much as go outside to empty a chamber pot without attracting half a dozen escorts. Nor does he seem at all bothered at being treated like an unmarried woman whose chastity must be protected. I am finding it hard to control my growing contempt for him.

Despite what I wrote in my last entry, I know that I would not honor Fenton's spirit by allowing myself to be captured and killed, so I have been cautious, approaching the edges of the village only in the evening hours, when I cannot be seen in the shadows. Through the leafy bushes surrounding the village, I have glimpsed men I know: Griffith and Siward and my mother's uncles, and others I know less well. Once I thought I saw Emlyn, but it turned out to be a young boy I had never known, and I remembered then that Emlyn is a grown man now. Even if he had returned to the borderland after all these years, it is unlikely that I would recognize him.

I hope he is still in the south; I would not want my skilled cousin to be among those who might capture me. The danger is great, for everyone in Cold Run knows who the prey is this time, and everyone will be on the lookout for Mountside's hunter, lest he kill their baron's heir.

In the daytime I have been visiting neighboring villages and buying food. My father supplied me with a generous amount of money, since we both guessed it would take me at least a week to lure my prey into the open. Now I am beginning to think it will take me a month. Why could my prey not be an honorable man who was willing to fight his hunter, rather than a terrified titmouse hiding in its nest?

o—o—o

The seventh day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

Before I left, I took my blood vow to my father and to the Jackal to participate in this feud. The mark has finally healed; its itch no longer annoys me.

Siward annoys me a great deal, though, and the more I watch him, the more my anger grows. At night I see Fenton in my dreams, screaming in the fire – or more likely, since he was a man of great courage and honor, remaining silent throughout his agony, so as not to weaken the courage of the rest of us. After that, I am sure, his fire was over; I know that the Jackal would not burn him further when Fenton reached the Land Beyond, just as I know, without even having to think it through, that Fenton was loved by the gods. My father was wrong about that; the gods would never punish Fenton, even if he spoke in error.

My father was not wrong about Siward; I can see that now. Griffith's brother has all the marks of a god-cursed man. He shows no concern for the crime he committed and has so little shame that he will allow other men to endanger themselves in order to protect him against the consequences of the evil he has done.

I understand now why my father, after I had made my oath, spent a full hour talking to me of the sacred duty I was about to undertake. It was a speech such as I would not have expected to hear from him – a speech, indeed, that sounded as though it might have come from Fenton.

My father began by reminding me of how, in the old days, priests were responsible for the punishment of all of the god-cursed. Gradually, over the years, the priests graciously allowed other men to assist with this holy task. First the priests permitted the people of each village or town the privilege of helping to execute men and women who were demon-possessed; then the god-cursed who were sentenced to a Living Death were handed over to the care of the nobles; and finally, when evil men sought to escape from the justice of the gods, the priests began to send men out in the names of the gods, to kill the criminals. Thus began the blood feuds.

By the time my father was through speaking, I could see why he believes that he has a duty to the gods to avenge Hamar's murder. I still think that something must have gone wrong with the blood feuds over the centuries, as Fenton suggested. Surely the priests who invented the blood feuds never intended for innocent men to be killed in the place of guilty men. Yet there can be nothing wrong in killing a man who has burned a priest alive; indeed, if Fenton were here, I am sure that he would want such a man to be executed, lest he spread his curse among his people.

Already, I can see, that is what is happening. I cannot feel the anger that my father does toward Griffith and the other people of Cold Run; rather, I pity them for allowing themselves to be lured by a god-cursed man into protecting him.

I am surprised, actually, that Siward has managed to do this. He is the same age as me, and I would not have thought he was clever enough to beguile a man like Griffith. I suppose Griffith loves him greatly, though, and his love blinds him to the evil in Siward.

And perhaps Siward has allowed a demon to enter him, and the demon itself is directing Siward's actions. If that is the case, then the sooner Siward is dead, the better for Cold Run's people. Siward should be grateful that I will save him from a stoning.

o—o—o

The eighth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

May the Jackal eat his dead – will Siward ever emerge from the arms of his protectors? Does the man have no honor left in him at all?

I suppose that it is time for me to stop hoping for chance to send Siward my way; it is time for me to begin creating a trap. To do that, I must remember what Siward's weaknesses are, and that is hard for me to do. Our feud with Cold Run began nine years ago, the year after Fenton and Emlyn left for the south, and I have not conversed with Siward since that time. Surely, though, he would not be much different now than he was when he was seven?

I remember that he was ravenous with curiosity, exploring everything odd and interesting in our village, but that he was not terribly clever. He was like Hamar that way, though he was much better-humored than my brother. These days, he seems sulky; I suppose that is the effect of the demon, if my guess about him is correct. In the old days he was quite pious, often visiting our sanctuary and even leaving offerings to the gods on our village's ash-tombs, which impressed Fenton greatly. I am inclined to wonder now whether the demon was already working in Siward then, teaching him how to lure Fenton into unwariness, but perhaps I should not speculate that far. Siward's piety may have been genuine in the old days, before he gave himself over to evil. Perhaps there is even a part of him now that continues to turn its face toward the gods . . . though when watching Siward yawn with indifference throughout the day, I find that hard to believe.

Now that I think of it, the yawning is strange. As a boy, when Siward wanted to show that he was indifferent to something, he tossed his head backwards; he never yawned. Could it be that Siward is yawning because he is truly tired? And if so, why—?

Ah. I have it now; the gods have sent me the answer. I must go to prepare my trap.

CHAPTER SIX

The ninth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

It is hard to write what comes next – harder even than it was to write about Fenton's death.

Last night I found Cold Run's cemetery easily enough. It was where I remembered it, at the edge of the forest, well beyond sight and hearing of the village. That was just as I wanted it.

I was right too in remembering that Cold Run had an ancient sanctuary next to the cemetery. That shows the age of Cold Run, I suppose. Fenton told me that in the early years of Koretia, sanctuaries were never built in villages and towns but were instead built away from the people's homes, so that the priests could spend all their time worshipping the gods, and the people could receive peace when they came to offer up their sacrifices.

It has been many years, I am sure, since any priest offered a sacrifice here except, perhaps, on the occasions that villagers' ashes are placed in the ground. I had been foresighted enough, though, to bring my flint-box on this hunt, and it was not hard to find the right sort of wood nearby for a torch. I spent the last light of evening fashioning a torch-hook out of bits of spare metal in the sanctuary, then attaching it to the sanctuary wall. By the time that darkness came, I was ready.

I had to wait a long time, though. I suppose that Siward has been delaying each night until he was sure that I was no longer hunting on the edge of the village, and it was safe for him to come out. I had been afraid that he would bring his escort with him, but to my relief he came alone, cradling late summer vegetables in his arms. I supposed that, god-cursed though he was, even he knew that it is proper to visit the dead alone.

He placed the vegetables where I knew he would, on the ash-tomb of his father. I did not wait to see whether he would occupy himself with prayer or with some activity more befitting a god-cursed man; I was too busy trying to light the torch. It took me a dozen tries and a dozen more before I could persuade a spark to stick on the torch-wood, even though I had rubbed the wood with lamp oil I found in the sanctuary. It was sacred oil, I suppose – but then, what I was doing was sacred.

I had just reached the point of cursing softly when the torch flared up. Hastily I placed it on the hook near the open window. Then I waited.

He came, of course. Siward's curiosity had not been tamed by the years, and he could hardly have expected his hunter to be waiting in a place like this. I stood behind the door, my dagger drawn, holding my breath as the blood made my body throb with fear and eagerness.

The door opened, and Siward stepped through. For a moment, all I could see was the back of his dark head, turning from side to side; he was looking around the sanctuary to see who had lit the torch. Then his gaze was snagged by the torch itself, and by the objects lying in the corner beneath it: my back-sling, and atop it Fenton's glittering dagger.

I heard Siward gasp, and waited impatiently for him to come to an understanding of what was occurring. Finally he fumbled his dagger out of its sheath and whirled around.

This was as I had planned. I knew that my father would ask me for the details of the killing, and I was not going to shame myself and my family by attacking a man who had his back to me. Fenton's dagger was there only to remind Siward of why I was doing this, and of how great the crime was that he would pay for.

I was surprised, really, at how easy it was. I did not even have to wound him; it took just a few blows to disarm him. He tried to flee through the door then, but I abandoned my dagger and fell upon him, grinding his face against the floor as I chanted the words of binding.

He was sobbing before I had even started the chant, and he struggled to escape my grasp. Then, as I spoke the final words, he went limp under me, like a body whose spirit has escaped.

I wondered then, for a fleeting moment, whether the demon had deserted him, so that I was left only with an ordinary man. Then I iced over my heart, remembering whose hand had burned Fenton. Dragging Siward to his feet, I said sharply, "Go stand over there."

He went in the direction I pointed, his body still limp. When he had reached the dark corner, he turned round to look at me. I had already sheathed my blade and stepped away toward where the torch still hung, eating the air with its flame. With a soft prayer of thanks to the Jackal for use of his fire, I picked up the torch and walked steadily toward Siward.

I was a body's pace from him when he realized what I would do; then he screeched like an old woman. I suppose the contempt showed on my face. He gulped down the remainder of his scream and stood panting, like a bitch dog that has run too fast. "No," he said in a trembling voice. "Not that . . ."

"What ails you?" I took another step toward him. "Aren't you brave enough to receive the type of death you give?" I took hold of his hair with my free hand and began to bring the torch toward his face.

He screamed again, screwing his eyes shut against the approaching heat. At the very end of the scream, he babbled, "He was dead before I burned him! I swear it!"

I paused. The torch was causing my hand to sweat; moisture was running down Siward's face like tears. He opened his eyes a crack, swallowed another scream, and whispered rapidly, "It's what he wanted. I swear to you, it's what he wanted."

I had paused only to figure out which part of his face I should burn first; I knew better than to pay heed to the words of the god-cursed. Something made me hold my hand, though. If the demon was truly gone . . . Siward still must pay for what he had allowed the demon to do, but if the demon was gone, perhaps there was some hope that Siward would tell the truth.

I brought the torch forward a little more and watched Siward's eyes widen with terror. Demons, I supposed, did not show fear; they showed defiance. I waited a moment more before I realized that Siward's hair was beginning to tug in my hand. He was not trying to escape; he was on the point of passing out.

This was proof enough to me that I was dealing with a real man. I swung the torch back a bit. The moisture running down his face, I saw, was indeed tears. Not allowing my voice to soften – for that would be an act of impiety, given the godly task I was undertaking – I said, "You murdered a priest. The god-cursed deserve this sort of death. If you tell me, though—" My voice wavered, and I had to start again in a firmer manner. "If you tell me truthfully what Fenton said and did before you killed him, I'll grant you a quick death with my blade. If not . . ." I gestured with the torch.

"I will!" he said in a voice high with hysteria. "I vow to you, I'll tell you the truth!"

The oaths of the god-cursed are worth nothing, but I nodded as though his word was of worth, then walked back to place the torch on the hook. When I turned back, Siward was where I had left him, bound to my will.

The corner where he stood was dark, now that the torch was gone. Even when I returned to stand beside him, I could barely see his face. His body was pressed against the wood – the sanctuary was very old, too old to be made of modern building material such as wattle and daub. I took a second hasty look at the torch-fire, in order to ascertain that it was well away from the wall, then leaned against the wall next to Siward and said, with the firmness of a priest hearing a confession, "Tell me what happened."

I heard him swallow, and then he said in a quivering voice, "It was because of what Felix said. I mean— It's not his fault, but he told me before I left that what I was doing was a sacred act, so when I saw your sanctuary, it just seemed right that I should hunt my prey there." He paused, as though hoping I would understand his logic – as, indeed, he had reason to believe I would.

I said, "Felix must have told you that it's blasphemy to kill a priest."

"Of course!" Siward sounded stung. "I knew that when I was a babe in arms. But Fenton didn't look like a priest, that's the trouble. I thought he was the priest's assistant; his back was to me, and he was wearing ordinary clothes and holding a dagger—"

"It was a priest's dagger!" I said, exasperated. "He was readying himself to do the noonday sacrifice. Don't you know the difference between a curved priest's blade and a free-man's blade?"

Siward shook his head; one of his hands was gripped tight around the other. "I was too excited to notice. And – and too scared, I suppose. I knew that someone would come by at any moment and see me, so I closed and barred the sanctuary doors quickly. After that, I could hardly see anything. The only light was from the smoke-hole and from the cracks in the wood of the door and window-shutter."

It took all my effort to keep from springing for the torch; I could tell from the misery in Siward's voice that he too was aware of how careless he had been. No hunter is supposed to attack his prey that quickly – not for the prey's sake, but because it would have been too easy for the prey to cry out for help, leaving the hunter trapped.

"Fenton didn't call for help," I said flatly.

"His back stiffened when I closed the door, and I knew then that my prey would call out or flee or attack . . . I wasn't sure what he would do. So I ran over to him and pushed his chest down onto the table – the altar," he amended. "I didn't see at first what it was. He spoke to me then, but I didn't hear what he said, because I was so busy reciting the binding and taking the blade from his hand. I did think it was odd that he didn't resist me." His voice trailed off. Perhaps, even in the darkness, he had seen the look I was giving him.

"Go on," I said harshly.

He swallowed again, and wiped his nose, and returned to clutching his hands together. "I pulled him up and turned him round, and – and then I saw who he was. And I was so scared, I wanted to flee. I expected him to call down the gods' vengeance upon me, but he didn't say anything, and that made me even more scared, because I realized he knew—"

Siward stopped abruptly. Outside the sanctuary, cicadas were singing in a drowsy manner, their sound nearly drowned out by the crackle of the flame nearby.

"Knew what?" I said. I felt his body start to slide away, and I grabbed hold of his arm. "Knew what?" I shouted.

I could feel that Siward was shaking under me. "I didn't mean to," he whimpered. "I swear, I didn't mean to."

I went suddenly still; I felt, as I had not felt before, the first touch of autumn on my body. Then, with no thought to what I was doing, I struck his face with my fist.

He stumbled to his knees, but I pulled him up by the back of his tunic. I could feel that he was shaking like a rock-tumbled brook. "I didn't mean to—" His voice was muffled.

"You killed him!" I shouted. "You killed Fenton, and you killed Hamar too! You killed them both!"

"I thought he was at your feast!" His reply was more a scream than a shout. "I was sure everyone was at your feast, or I'd never have lit the fire! Fenton must have known that, or he wouldn't have let me go last month."

I released him, feeling the cold reach my stomach. "He saw you?"

Siward nodded; his hands were over his face. "I waited till your hall collapsed – I'd hoped they'd be able to rescue Hamar – and then I ran. I thought everyone would be at the fire, but as I passed the sanctuary, I saw Fenton standing near the door. His hand was on the mask of the Jackal, and he was looking at me. My heart nearly stopped then, but he didn't say anything, so I kept running."

I turned away; I could feel bile on my tongue. He had known – Fenton had known all along who Hamar's murderer was. If he was willing to see the guilty be punished, as my father had said, why had Fenton remained silent? Why had he let innocent men die in Siward's place?

I turned round, and what I was going to say next died in my throat as I took in Siward's appearance. His hands had fallen from his face; blood was running from his nose, and his left cheek was already turning dark from the mark of my fist. I felt sick, and was too confused to understand why.

"Go on," I said roughly. "You'd bound Fenton."

Siward was biting his lip, which was trembling, but he managed to say, "I was afraid he would try to dissuade me from killing him. I knew that it was wrong to kill a priest, but I was sure that it must be even worse to break a blood vow to murder – and I'd vowed to murder the first man I bound. And I had to kill a prey; it was my way of making up to the gods for the mistake I'd made with Hamar the first time. So I explained all this to Fenton quickly, and told him how he mustn't try to dissuade me, or I'd have to kill him immediately – and he just listened, looking at me. I couldn't read what was in his face. And when I was through he said, all gently as though I were a child, 'Do not worry. It is the gods' will that I die this way. The Jackal must eat his dead.'"

For a sharp moment, I could see all in clarity: Siward trembling against the wall, the torch-fire casting long shadows toward us, the glint of the moon-glow over the cemetery. Then I shouted, "What sort of fool do you think I am? You can't expect me to believe such a tale! Do you really think I'll give you a quick death in exchange for that lie? I'll—"

I stopped then. Siward had sunk to his knees and was sobbing uncontrollably; the blood from his nose splashed onto his hands as he tried to shield his face. I looked down at him, feeling coldness extend to the tips of my fingers. I knew then that I had not been mistaken before in what I felt.

I was sick, sick enough to vomit. Something had gone terribly wrong; my hunt had turned into something it was not meant to be.

I gulped in some air to steady myself, and then knelt down beside Siward. He began sobbing even louder as I touched him. After a moment of struggle with myself, I pulled my face-cloth out from my belt-purse and offered it to him.

He took it but seemed not to know what to do with it. "I didn't lie," he said between sobs. "I didn't lie."

I took the cloth and wiped his face clean. "It's all right," I said gruffly. "Go on with your story. I won't use the fire."

It took several minutes more for me to calm him. I was aware, as I had not been aware before, of the ash-tombs nearby. Oh, I was not superstitious enough to believe that the dead linger near their tombs. Why should they, when they live in the glories of the Land Beyond? But I could feel their presence: centuries' worth of villagers who had died of injuries and child-birth and sickness—

And feuds? How many had died in blood feuds?

Siward said finally, "I didn't know what to say after that. I was shaking so much that I dropped my dagger, though I was still holding Fenton's blade. I didn't think it would be right to kill a priest anywhere except his heart, and I was afraid that if I tried to kill him from where I stood, I'd miss the spot. So I made him lie on the table – on the altar, I mean. And then I placed the blade-tip against his heart, but when I looked, I saw that his eyes were closed and his lips were moving. I knew that he must be praying to his god, so I waited until he was finished, and then— It was really quite quick. I don't think I hurt him much."

I closed my eyes, took a long breath of dark night air, and said, without raising my lids, "And the fire?"

"That – that was because of what Fenton said. About the Jackal eating his dead. I knew that meant he wanted his corpse to be burned. It occurred to me afterwards, though, that because he was Emorian-born, your father might think he wanted to be buried whole in the ground, the way the Emorians are buried. I thought of writing a note to your father, but I was afraid he would recognize my hand. He helped me to learn my letters. So instead I took the sacrifice wood out of the pile and placed it all around Fenton, then poured oil on him, and then lit the wood, using the sanctuary flame. I took his blade away first, so that it wouldn't be harmed," Siward added. "I waited until the Jackal's fire began to eat him, and then I scooped up my dagger and ran, and – and you saw me. And that's all that happened."

I rose slowly to my feet. After a moment I thought to open my eyes. The sanctuary was darker than before; the torch had begun to burn down to its root. I went over and took the remainder of the torch in my hand; I heard behind me a shuffle as Siward stumbled to his feet.

"Are you going to—?" He stopped and swallowed. "Will you cut my throat, as you promised?"

I shook my head without looking his way.

"But Adrian—!" His protest was halfway between a sob and a scream; he stopped abruptly as I threw the torch to the ground and stamped it out. The night's darkness gathered us in.

"I'm not going to kill you at all," I said in a voice that sounded distant to my ears. "I'm going to let you go."

There was no sound behind me, and for a moment I wondered whether Siward had slipped out the door. Then he said hesitantly, "But you have to kill me. You vowed to."

I shook my head again and went to stand by the window. It faced north; beyond the ash-tombs, gleaming like fire-burned bones under the rising moon, I could dimly see the shapes of the border mountains, black against the black sky.

I heard steps behind me; they stopped a body's length away. "Why?" asked Siward breathlessly.

I leaned my cheek against the age-smoothed wood of the window frame, feeling the night wind cool the tears, even as they flowed down my face. After a while I said, "Fenton wouldn't have wanted me to. He hated the blood feuds, not only because innocent men die in them, but because hunters kill for the wrong reasons. They kill, not out of love of justice, but out of hatred and revenge." I looked down at the ash-tombs again; their whiteness blurred under my tears. "That's why I was going to kill you."

Siward was silent, and then took another hesitant step toward me. "But your family . . ."

"I know." I closed my eyes, but the tears gushed out regardless. Presently, I felt a nudge at my elbow, and I turned to see that Siward was offering me the face-cloth.

I wiped my face, smearing Siward's blood on it in the process, as Siward said in a hesitant manner, "I think you're wrong, Adrian. I really think you should kill me; it's what you promised your god. But if you decide not to— If you let me go—" He paused, then said in a rush, "I won't tell anyone I saw you. Not until they ask me. That will give you time to escape."

I lowered the cloth, ignoring the chill breeze blowing down from the north. The coldness had left me; all that remained was emptiness. "What about your face? I marked you."

Siward shook his head. "Griffith won't ask me about that. I'm always coming home this way." He gave a weak smile that I remembered from the old days. "I'm an easy target for the others. You remember."

I did, and as I looked at him standing there, shivering with cold fear, with blood on his face and a smile trembling on his lips, it was a wonder to me that I had ever forgotten. Many times, I had been the one who came to his defense as a boy, though I was no larger than he was; it had been all too obvious that Siward would never be the sort of boy who could defend himself against enemies. What demon had entered me to make me think Siward was vicious?

I said, my voice suddenly calm, "I'm sorry I threatened you with fire."

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said in a resigned voice. "That's part of the punishment."

"Punishment?"

"The punishment the gods have given me. Felix said that death would be too easy a punishment for me. He said that I must live with daily reminders that I am a man of dishonor."

My breath caught at the back of my throat. In my spirit's eye, I was seeing Siward, walking submissively between his escorts like a captive between his guards.

I turned and went over to the corner where the torch had been. When I came back to the window, Fenton's blade lay across the palms of my hands. Siward stared down at the glinting gold and said, "I used it to murder a priest. Is it desecrated?"

"I don't think so," I replied. "I washed off all the blood." I stared down at the blade for a moment, then took a deep breath and said, "My father burned a letter that Fenton was writing to Emlyn. It said how much Fenton loved Emlyn and how – how he was looking forward to seeing him." I bit my lip to control myself, and then forced myself to continue. "Fenton really cared for Emlyn, so I think Emlyn should have his dagger, to remember Fenton by. Do you think Griffith would let Emlyn have it?"

"I'm sure he would," said Siward, continuing to stare at the bejewelled sheath. "If you left it at the doorstep of our hall—"

I shook my head. "I can't leave it in the dust; it's a sacred object. It has to be entrusted to a man of honor, someone who will care for it until Griffith has a chance to see Emlyn." I held out the dagger. "You take it."

For a moment, I thought that Siward would fall to his knees again. Slowly he reached out and took the dagger from me. A smile was trembling on his lips once more. His hand touched mine briefly, warming my body.

The moon was rising higher. I turned away, picked up my back-sling, and was walking toward the door when Siward's voice halted me.

"I won't ask where you're going, but . . . do you know where you're going? Is there a place you can go where you'll be safe?"

I looked back at him. He was still standing there, defenseless even with a blade in his hand, and for a moment I felt my determination drain for me. It would be so easy, so very easy. Siward wouldn't blame me, my family would praise me, and the gods . . . Then I saw, beyond Siward, the black rocks framing the sky, and I felt courage enter me, like wine warming blood. "Yes," I said. "I know a place to go where I'll be safe from my family."

I turned and left.

o—o—o

So now I am journeying away from Cold Run, and away from Mountside, which I will never see again. My thoughts, I know, ought to be on my family, and I ought to be grieving at the loss of them. But I cannot think of that today, not after what happened last night. For I did not tell Siward the whole truth of why I broke my vow.

The gods murdered Fenton. That is what I learned last night; that is what Fenton learned in the moments before his death. It must have been as hard for him to accept as it is for me, yet his words leave no doubt as to what he believed, and what he believed must be true, for he was the wisest man I ever knew.

I see now how, in an odd way, I was closer to the truth than he was. I feared that the gods would punish me for my blasphemous questioning of their ways; Fenton was sure that neither he nor I would be punished, for he believed the gods to be all-good – he thought that they, like he, hated the blood feuds.

How wrong we both were. I was wrong in believing that the gods would not punish Fenton; he was wrong in believing that the gods hated the feuds. Not until Siward stood before him with his blade did Fenton realize the truth: that the gods are blood-lusting demons who, if they could not have his unquestioning obedience to their cruel ways, would punish him with death.

Fenton spent his final words in comforting Siward, who was too blind to be able to see that he was a tool in the hands of tyrants. I think Fenton also said those words in hope that I would hear of them and be warned. Yet even so, I think Fenton must not have given up hope that the gods would forgive him. I can see him lying on the altar, with Siward's blade touching his heart, praying to the gods to show him mercy.

The gods gave him their answer, in blade and fire.

So now I am not simply fleeing away from my family, but toward something new: the other gift Fenton left me. For if it is true, as I now believe, that the gods' law is a brutal system designed to bring hatred and pain to this world, there remains another law that has not been tampered with by the gods' bloodstained hands. My mission now is to find it.

I only hope I can reach Emor before the Jackal discovers what I have done.

Law Links 2

THE SWORD

CHAPTER SEVEN

The twelfth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

I am in the mountains now, camped along the pass to Emor, beside a prickly mountain bush. It is dawn, and I have just finished eating some of the food that I bought yesterday. Ever since my last journal entry, I have been hurrying to escape Koretia, lest my blood kin discover what I have done and track me down. But I had to stop at Blackpass in order to buy more food and to wait until dark before crossing the border. I had no fears that I would meet anyone I recognized in Blackpass; it is a big town, nearly as big as Koretia's capital, I have been told.

I had only been to Blackpass once before, and that was several years ago. My father brought Hamar and me along when Blackwood summoned the priests and noblemen of the borderland – all of them, no matter what their kinship – to a full council about the changes King Rawdon was making to the gods' law. Since Hamar and my father were busy at the council meeting during most of our visit, I was free to wander the streets and marvel at how people could stand to live jammed so close together.

On that visit, I remember, I was struck by the fact that so many people in Blackpass spoke Common Koretian. Most of the people in our village know the language, of course, since we deal with so many tradesmen and peddlers from Koretia proper. But I had always assumed, without thinking about it, that Common Koretian was the language everyone used to make bargains in, while Border Koretian was the language that everyone talked the rest of the time. It was not until I visited Blackpass that I realized that most Koretians never even learn Border Koretian; it is as foreign a language to them as Emorian is to me.

Blackpass is in the borderland, I feel obliged to note for my Emorian reader, but it is visited by many Koretians from the rest of the land. Fenton did not accompany us on that trip, since he was living in the priests' house at that time, but when I told him last year about the trip, he had me compare some sentences in Border Koretian, Common Koretian, and Emorian, so that I could see how Common Koretian and Emorian are both descended from Border Koretian. Fenton says that it is mainly the borderland accent that makes Border Koretian hard for others to understand; otherwise Emorians and Koretians alike could probably understand Border Koretian to a certain extent, and it might become a trade language.

It is still hard for me to write about Fenton in this journal. A question arose in my mind a moment ago about whether Border Koretian is ever written down; all the documents I have ever seen have been written in Common Koretian or Emorian, which use the same alphabet. I found myself thinking that I must ask Fenton when I saw him again. Then I remembered, and it was as though I was watching him die again.

On this trip, it is the Emorians that I found myself watching and listening to. I met a group of them on one of the Blackpass streets, visiting Koretia on business, and I shamelessly tracked them halfway across town, eavesdropping on their conversations. I was delighted to find that I could easily understand what they were saying, which is not surprising, since I had Fenton to teach me the language. I did realize, to my embarrassment, that Emorians use many contractions in their speech, whereas I have been using almost none in these journals. For some reason, I had assumed that Emorians were always stiffly formal in the way they talked. Now I am— Now I'm going to try to write this journal closer to the way I heard the Emorians speaking.

At the end of my hunt, I went up to the Emorians and greeted them casually, as if I were simply interested in welcoming visitors to my land, though in fact I wanted to see whether they could understand my Emorian.

They could, though I thought for a moment that they would ignore me altogether. But one of the men noticed the silver edging along my tunic and muttered something about this to the others, so that they all ended up giving me a stiff version of the free-man's greeting. It so happens that they were noblemen, but I don't see why that would have made a difference as to whether they answered a friendly greeting. But perhaps they come from the Emorian capital. I understand that city dwellers are more careful about matters of rank.

This did remind me, though, that my tunic was too obvious a clue as to who I was, so I spent the last of my money to buy a lesser free-man's tunic, one that was black, so that I would blend in with the mountains.

The tunic came in handy when I crossed the Koretian border a few hours ago. I stood for a while near the border yesterday, watching the guards at the entrance to the mountain pass. I soon came to the conclusion that they posses no authorization to do anything except stop people travelling along the pass, so it was easy in the end to cross the border. I simply waited until after dark, and then I climbed over the side of the mountain next to the pass. I could see the guards in the moonlight below, and they gave no indication that they heard me, even when my foot slipped and I sent a shower of rocks down the mountainside.

I wish that I could believe that getting past the mountain patrol will be that easy.

o—o—o

It's nearly dusk, and I must hurry to finish this entry before the sun sets, for I dare not build a fire yet, though my flint-box will come in handy if it grows unbearably cold in the mountains. So far it feels pleasant; it's warm here, like at home.

It's very quiet here, aside from the winds and the mountain birds that travel the winds, sending their cheerful chirps down toward me. I've seen only one beast since I arrived here – a jackal that had strayed from its usual territory – though I've seen a large number of birds and insects. The blood-flies are growing lesser in number the further north I go; Fenton once told me that Emor is too cold a place for the flies to survive. I hope that Emor isn't too cold a place for a homeless Koretian to survive.

But first I must worry about the border mountain patrol, and since there's nothing else for me to do as I walk, I spend my time practicing softly the whistles Fenton taught me. I don't think that I've forgotten any of them. I've also been remembering everything Fenton ever told me about the patrol, and have been trying to use that information to formulate a plan.

The patrol is made up of a single unit of twelve men, I remember, and this is divided into a night patrol and a day patrol. The night patrol is led by the lieutenant of the unit; the day patrol is led by his sublieutenant. I spent a while debating with myself whether to try to breach the Emorian border in daytime or nighttime. Obviously, I would have the advantage of surprise in the nighttime, since it's likely that most of the Koretians that the patrol encounters aren't as good as I am at moving through the mountains at night. On the other hand, Fenton said that the patrol tracks border-breachers mainly through sound, so a lack of light wouldn't give me any advantage. I finally decided that it would be better to try my skills against the sublieutenant, who would be less of a challenge than the lieutenant.

Then there's the question of where I should travel. If I stay along the pass, I'm sure to be sighted by the patrol eventually, but if I travel along the mountainsides next to the pass, it will take me weeks to reach Emor, and I don't have enough food to last that long. In addition, the sound of my travel along the rocky slopes will probably alert the patrol to my presence in any case.

I rejected without inner debate the idea of going further into the mountains. I have Fenton's example to dissuade me against that idea.

I'm beginning to understand why so few people make it past the patrol. Obviously, the only way in which to do so is by a trick. One idea I have is to try to pass the patrol while the guards are busy pursuing another border-breacher, but I suspect that in such a case, the guards would simply split into two parties.

I have another day in which to think before I reach the first of the patrol points that Fenton told me of.

o—o—o

The thirteenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

It's dawn again. I awoke in the middle of last night covered in sweat, as I have every night since I left Cold Run.

The dream is always the same – always vivid, like a memory. I see Fenton, and he is standing next to the altar, his back naked to Cold Run's hunter. I cry out to him and try to warn him, but when he turns to me, his face is already afire, being eaten by the Jackal.

The image fills me with such horror that I fall to my knees, gasping. Then I become aware of dark shapes around me – trees, I think at first, but then I realize they are hunters. Not Cold Run's hunters – Mountside's hunters, seeking me. I try to stand, and then I realize that my hands and feet are bound. I am already captured, and the priest is pronouncing the curse over me.

Then I hear my father's voice; he is kneeling behind me, speaking to me. I feel a rush of relief, but before I can beg him to help me, I feel a cold blade touch my throat. The blade is my father's.

That is when I awake. I only wish that I could believe that the dream is an imagining rather than a shadow of the future.

o—o—o

I reach the patrol tomorrow, so all day I've been frantically trying to think of a new plan. Just when I was about to give up, one came to me, as though sent by the gods.

I'd been thinking of myself as the prey until now, pursued by six jackals, which is not good odds. But what if I were to reverse the picture? What if I were to become the jackal and pursue one of the guards? Two of the guards, I mean; Fenton said that the guards patrol in pairs. If I stayed close to my prey, the other guards would attribute any noise they heard from me to the guards I was following. As for my prey, they would assume that I was a wild animal, for they couldn't imagine that any Koretian would be bold enough to follow closely behind them.

Fenton says— Fenton said that the guards patrol up and down the pass in an area close to the border. Thus, if I follow a pair of guards on their patrol, and if we aren't interrupted by another border-breacher, I will be able to come close enough to the border to make my break.

Tomorrow I see whether my plan works. I must remember to pray to the Jackal for my safety tonight.

o—o—o

I had closed my journal and placed it in my back-sling before I realized what nonsense I had written above. I'm going to Emor to get away from the Jackal and the other gods. In any case, I imagine that I'm too close to Emor now for any prayers to reach the god.

o—o—o

The fourteenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

My plan fell to pieces before I could even try it, for the simple reason that I miscalculated how far I had travelled, so the patrol guards heard me before I heard them. I will never forget – assuming I live long enough to have any memories of this – the chill that went through me when I heard the faint sound of the Hunted is Heard whistle and knew that I was the hunted.

I'm still on the run, and have paused only long enough to eat and rest, as I mustn't grow exhausted. Thus I will not record in detail here my efforts to dodge the patrol, and my realization that the efforts were not working when I heard the signal for Form the Circle.

There are many more whistle-codes than Fenton taught me, but the ones he did teach me seem to be the important ones, and they helped me to know what was happening. Even more important, I knew where it was happening, and when I heard the Acknowledgment whistles for the sublieutenant's order, it was easy enough for me to identify the gap in the forming circle and to race through it. That's how I was able to escape, at least momentarily.

All of my running was back and forth along the mountains, so I'm no nearer to Emor than I was when I was sighted. Now I'm going to see whether I can tell where any of the guards are and try again to carry out my plan.

o—o—o

A second failure, this time a more dangerous one, for the guards reached the point of closing the circle on me. As I saw them coming forward, I was greatly tempted to draw my blade, but I remembered what Fenton had told me and instead identified the weakest guard along the chain closing in on me. He was about my age, and it was easy enough to get past him; he was no better than Drew at his hunting.

The other guards are considerably better, though I'm surprised by how young they are. The eldest is the sublieutenant, and he looks only a few years older than me. I didn't come close enough to him to see any identifying mark of his rank on his uniform, but I could tell that he is the sublieutenant because he gave a brief whistle as we came forward. I have been hearing his whistles all day, and I'm beginning to realize how distinctive a man's whistle can be.

So now the patrol has seen me, and there's no chance of my being able to go up to the guards now and pretend that I have legitimate business in Emor. I'm closer to Emor than I was, but I still have—

o—o—o

I broke off the last entry because I was able to identify for the first time where a pair of guards was located. For most of today, I haven't been able to do this, for the guards climb the mountains as quietly as I do, except when they are in pursuit.

I tracked the noise, and found to my delight that I had located the sublieutenant and another guard. Nothing could be better, for no Koretian in his right mind would try to hunt the sublieutenant of the border mountain patrol. (Whether I am in my right mind in trying all this is a matter I will leave to my Emorian reader to decide.)

I hid in a hollowed-out area next to a ledge where the two guards were standing. The hollow was easy to hide in, for it was screened by one of the mountain bushes that grow to a man's height and are thick with twigs and needles. I have scratches all over me now. I was in a shadow so dark that I could barely see myself, but I could catch glimpses of the sublieutenant and the other guard, who were standing on the side of the mountain, trying to listen for me.

It was my first close view of Emorians, aside from the ones I saw in Koretia. They don't look much different from Titus and Fenton, except that the Emorians I've seen before this all shaved their faces, and these men had beards. I suppose that it's hard to find time to shave yourself if you are a soldier. The sublieutenant is a red-haired man, so white of skin that I wondered briefly whether he was sickly, but he has given no indication of illness during his pursuit of me. He has a very odd smile, one that looks as though he's uncertain whether to smile, but his laugh, which I heard briefly, is quite energetic. He is light-framed, but I had already learned that this allows him to run faster than any of the other guards, and the muscles in his thighs and arms are hard. His voice, which I've only heard talking softly so far, is pleasant in timbre, and is less distinctive than his whistle, which has an emphatic tone to it.

The other guard, whose name is Fowler, is less remarkable in appearance. He appears to be about a year younger than the sublieutenant, and he has sandy-colored hair. He seems to be on friendly terms with the sublieutenant, for he addresses him by his name, without his title.

I was interested in overhearing their conversation, not only so that I would be able to find out how they planned to hunt me, but also in hopes that they would mention the man named Quentin whom Fenton thought might have joined the patrol. But though they mentioned the names of several other guards, that name never passed their lips.

Eventually, Fowler went off to the other side of the mountain, while the sublieutenant remained on the ledge, listening. I stayed very still during this, and apparently succeeded in making no noise, for when Fowler returned and said, "Any luck?" the sublieutenant shook his head.

"I surrender," he said. "We're going to have to bring the expert in on this." Without any more words, he let out a whistle.

It was a name-whistle, I knew; whenever the sublieutenant sends an order to a particular guard, he precedes it by a whistle that always begins with a trill. I identified these trilled whistles eventually as names, and by now I know the whistled names of every guard in the day patrol. But this was a whistle I hadn't heard before.

The acknowledgment came immediately, though it was faint. Fowler said, "By the spirits of the dead Charas, I'm tired," and he and the sublieutenant sat down on some rocks overlooking the slope and began chatting. Their backs were to me.

I was intent on hearing when the so-called expert arrived, but I never did. I saw him first, sliding along the side of the mountain so quietly that not even the two guards heard him coming. As I shrank further back into the hollow, I caught a glimpse of his face: it was light brown, and set into it were two sky-blue eyes.

For a moment I was simply confused. This could not be an Emorian, not with skin that dark. Then I remembered, and nearly laughed aloud at my puzzlement. Of course – this man was from the borderland, just like me. Not the Koretian borderland, but the Emorian borderland, where Emorians and Koretians intermarry, just like at home.

He was immediately behind the two guards now, but they were still unaware of his presence. He had a way of putting his feet down as gently as a mountain cat lowers its velvet paws; if I had closed my eyes, I would not have known that he was there. Yet there had been no tentativeness to his climb around the mountain; he had placed his feet with decisiveness and accuracy, exactly on the rocks that wouldn't give way under him. He hadn't been running, but he had moved almost as quickly as though he had been doing so.

I felt my heart beat inside me. The guards who had been hunting me were skilled, but until now, I had been certain that I was the best jackal here. Now I knew that I had met my true rival.

"What is the problem, sublieutenant?" The man had the softened vowels of a borderlander, but his words were spoken with an Emorian accent to them; he sounded like Fenton. The other guards stood and turned, but did not appear startled. Apparently they were used to being crept up on by this man.

"I apologize for disturbing your sleep, sir," said the sublieutenant. "We have a stubborn breacher on our hands – we have been chasing him all morning."

The lieutenant paused before replying. His face was very serious, with no trace of a smile to greet the two men smiling at him. He had a scar down his left temple and another along his neck – once I started looking, I could see that he had scars over most of his body. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties.

"Are you seeking my advice, or do you wish me to take over the mastership?" he asked. His voice was so quiet that it blended in with the wind, and I had to watch his lips to tell what he was saying.

"I would be grateful if you could take over the day patrol for this hunt, sir," replied the sublieutenant. "It is not a serious enough matter yet to justify calling out the night patrol, but the breacher has escaped us twice, and I fear that he is beyond my abilities."

The lieutenant nodded, then sent out a piercing whistle containing his name and another signal I could not identify, but that I tentatively labelled according to what the sublieutenant had said.

Four acknowledgment whistles chirped back; this has been occurring all day in the exact same regular manner, and so I've concluded that the guards are trained to respond in a particular order, though why this should be so is not clear to me.

"Now," said the lieutenant, "report."

The sublieutenant began telling him what had been happening all day. I was surprised when Fowler simply stood by, listening silently, but at the end the lieutenant said, "Report, Fowler," and I realized that this was a set routine known to the soldiers. I would have thought that it would have made more sense for Fowler simply to interrupt the sublieutenant's report whenever he had anything to add, but I reminded myself that Emorians probably have their own ways of doing things. It would be a great mistake for me to assume that Emorians always act like normal people; they are foreigners, after all.

(No, I am the foreigner now, I realized after writing the above sentence. I must adopt the Emorians' way of thinking and acting if I want to learn about their law.)

After Fowler had added his brief comments, the lieutenant said, "It sounds as though the breacher knows our signals."

"One of the King's spies, then?" Fowler said, lifting an eyebrow.

"Perhaps. It is too early to say." The lieutenant turned toward the slope overlooking the pass, and stood motionless, with his back toward me. Like all of the patrol guards, he wore a back-sling. These appeared no different from my own except that a leather strap hangs part of the way out of them; I had not yet figured out its purpose.

The lieutenant added, "He did not draw his blade, you say."

"No, though he had a chance to do so when we closed in on him," the sublieutenant replied.

The lieutenant nodded and turned back to look at the others; I caught another glimpse of his azure eyes. "Very well, then, we capture on sight. Every guard to stay with his partner at all times. We communicate by words only from this point on. If the hunted shows signs of drawing his blade, do not try to capture him by yourselves; retreat and call for help from the rest of the day patrol. Understood?"

The others nodded. Fowler said, "Our first problem will be finding the breacher, sir. He is as silent as a hibernating burrow-bird at the moment."

"I will take care of that," replied the lieutenant. "Spread the word to the others – and for love of the Chara, remember to stay with your partner. Just because this Koretian has refrained from drawing his blade yet, that does not mean he will refrain from changing his mind. I do not want any of you ending up like Byrd."

The sublieutenant gave one of his half-smiles, drew his sword, and held it flatwise against his face. I'd seen the soldiers at Blackpass make this gesture, so I knew it to be a salute. Then he sent out a series of whistle-signals to the other guards, none of which I could identify except for a request for locations. These locations the guards evidently gave, for the sublieutenant and Fowler were soon headed down the mountain in the direction of one pair of the guards.

The lieutenant resumed looking over the pass. His head turned slowly from one side to the next as he did so; after a moment, I realized that he was listening for the hunted. The sublieutenant had done the same thing not long before this, but something made me take shallower breaths and stay absolutely still.

He was a long time listening. It was hard staying still, and I could feel my nose beginning to drip. (I caught a cold last night, having finally reached a point in the mountains where the autumn air has already arrived.) I reached up and wiped the moisture from my nose, sniffing as I did so – then froze as the lieutenant's hand went to his sword hilt.

There was little sound as he drew his blade, for the sheath was made of leather. For a moment more, he and I stood fixed in our positions. Then he turned with a suddenness that made me jump, and walked swiftly and unerringly up to the bush.

"Come out," he said sharply in Common Koretian.

There was no use in pretending I wasn't there; he was close enough to see me now. I considered staying where I was and making him come in after me, but fighting amidst those thorns would do as much damage to me as to him. Better to appear to be a compliant prisoner.

I slid past the twigs, bowing my head, and trying to appear as much as possible like Siward in the moments after I bound him. I didn't look up at the lieutenant. All that I could see was his sword, pointed my way. I said in a trembling voice – it was not hard to produce such a tone – "Please don't hurt me."

My act worked; the lieutenant's voice was gentler as he said, "Turn around, sir."

He spoke this time in Border Koretian, having identified my accent from my few words, and it was clear from the ease with which he spoke that this was his native tongue as well. I was standing with my back against a cliff wall. Slowly I turned away to face the wall, but not before allowing a few tears to drip from my eyes – again, this effect was not hard to produce.

I even managed to tremble as he took my limp wrists and pulled them back behind me crosswise. He did so firmly but without any harshness. I felt the touch of leather against my wrists; this was the meaning of the strap in the back-sling.

A cold touch against my wrist told me that he was still holding his sword, but I knew that he would be doing so lightly, now that he was absorbed in binding his passive prisoner. I waited for the moment at which he began to draw the first knot together; then I brought my right elbow back hard against his stomach. In the same moment, I grasped the blade of his sword with my left hand.

I cut my palm in the process, of course, but I succeeded in wrenching the sword away from the lieutenant. I swung my left side around in order to force the lieutenant to back up to avoid being sliced open by his own blade. For a moment I caught sight of him; he was bent over from the pain of my jab, but his eyes had turned hard, and he did not appear frightened at what I had done. Then I threw the sword high and heard it clatter down the mountainside. I had no interest in harming anyone in the patrol; I simply wanted to disarm this guard, above all the others.

By the time the sword fell, I was already at the edge of the ledge, preparing to climb further down the slope. At the moment of my descent I looked back to see where the lieutenant was. He was standing where I had left him, still panting to regain his breath, but his right hand was raising the edge of his tunic with a smooth motion. Something brown was wrapped around the top of his right leg, and his hand touched it; then he withdrew his hand, and afternoon sunlight flashed off of a tiny object in his palm.

I had never before seen a thigh-dagger, but I had heard what injuries it could inflict. For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether I had been wise to strip the lieutenant of his sword.

Then there was no time to think, for I was scrambling down the mountain with the lieutenant in close pursuit behind me. He did not whistle to his men, but I knew that the sound of the hunt would alert the other guards to where we were. Somehow I had to find a hiding place before the others caught up.

I nearly discovered the place by falling into it. I had encountered this sort of ravine before, though, while travelling through the mountains near Mountside. Everything in the border mountains is black, but nothing is blacker than these fissures that occasionally occur between two mountains. If you aren't on the lookout for them, it is easy to fall straight into them, and Hamar and I had found pleasure in tossing pebbles down them and seeing how deep they were. Some were so deep that we never heard the pebbles strike the ground.

These clefts are deep, but they're also very narrow. As a result of some experimentation (and lots of dares), Hamar and I learned that it was possible to go down into these ravines by bracing our backs on one side of the cleft wall and propping our stretched legs against the other side; with a narrow enough ravine, we could work our way up and down without trouble.

I used this fact to my advantage to plan an elaborate practical joke on my brother one day: I ran straight into the path of a cleft and disappeared into the hole with a cry, leaving Hamar to surmise my death. Actually, I had caught the edge of the ground at the last minute and jammed myself into position, but it's impossible to see far into these ravines, even when you're standing straight over them. I nearly killed myself trying to keep from laughing when Hamar came forward to peer into the hole . . . until I looked up and saw his face turned moon-white. When I emerged from the hole, Hamar gave me the worst fist-beating of my life, but I never grudged him it.

Now I gave no elaborate thought to what I was doing, having done it before. I stripped off my back-sling, since I needed my back bare for this feat, and flung the sling under a narrow overhang at the foot of the mountain. Then I ran back around the curve of the hill to see where the guards were.

The lieutenant was very close behind, so close that I could see the razor-edged dagger in his hand. Not far behind him were the sublieutenant and Fowler; the rest of the guards were beyond sight, but I could tell from the sound of their footsteps that they were closing in fast.

I waited until I was sure that the lieutenant could see me; then I turned and began running around the mountain, toward the ravine, throwing my back-sling in a narrow opening between the rocks as I did so. I heard the lieutenant shout something behind me, but I paid no heed to his words, for I was concentrating on the difficult task of sliding, jumping, screaming, catching, jamming, and – hardest of all – freezing.

The panting of my breath nearly obscured the thunder of steps. I forced myself to take longer and shallower breaths and then looked up, despite the fact that I knew I shouldn't allow my reflective eyes to chance catching a bit of light.

The lieutenant was staring down the ravine; he was joined in the next moment by the sublieutenant and Fowler. Fowler took a long look at the black pit below, then backed away. I heard him say something to a pair of guards who had just arrived. The sublieutenant looked over at the lieutenant and said, "Anything?"

I resisted the temptation to hold my breath; any change in sound might alert the lieutenant to what had happened. The lieutenant was standing motionless. His thigh-dagger was now in his left hand, and his right hand was curled in a ball. After a moment he said quietly, "He's breathing – but it makes no difference. These ravines are too deep; we will not be able to get him out of there."

The sublieutenant glanced down at the lieutenant's hand, then reached into the lieutenant's back-sling and took out a face-cloth. He handed it to the lieutenant, who absentmindedly wrapped it around his right hand. As he opened his palm, I saw that it was covered with blood; he must have accidentally cut himself with his thigh-dagger during his final effort to reach me before I fell.

"Shall we call down to him?" asked the sublieutenant.

"No." The lieutenant's voice had turned flat. "There is nothing we can do for him. He has his dagger; he will use it when he realizes his situation."

"If he has the courage to do so." This comment came from Fowler, still standing beyond my view.

"He has it." The lieutenant's voice was clipped short. He glanced over to the side as another pair of guards arrived, their voices raised with queries. He cut short their questions with a decisive whistle.

It was an End of Hunt whistle that Fenton had taught me . . . although, he has explained with a half-smile, I would never hear it used if the hunt for me ended this way. The whistle means, "The hunted is captured dead."

"Return to patrol," the lieutenant added, and turned his head back to look down the hole. His face was in shadow, but what little I could see of it appeared to hold no expression.

There was soft murmur as the guards began to depart. Soon only the sublieutenant remained, still standing beside the lieutenant.

The latter said, without looking his way, "I said, Return to patrol."

"I was wondering whether you needed help in finding your sword, lieutenant," the sublieutenant replied in a matter-of-fact voice.

After a moment, the lieutenant said, "Thank you, yes. He dropped it down the north side of Mount Skycrest; I will be there to search in a minute."

The sublieutenant nodded; then he disappeared from my view. I heard his retreating footsteps and his whistle as he signalled something to his partner. The lieutenant remained where he was, staring down at me – to his knowledge, he was now alone. So only I saw his eyes close and his hands form into fists, and only I heard him whisper, "May I die a Slave's Death."

Then he walked away.

o—o—o

I've written all of this in my latest hiding place. When I worked my way out of the ravine and went over to place where I'd flung the back-sling, I found that the narrow opening between the rocks led to a tiny hollow that could barely be dignified with the title of cavern; it seemed to be the sole chamber of a cave. I've spent all afternoon here, at first because I needed to bandage my cut hand, then because I was too shaken by my experiences to move, and finally because I realized that I couldn't make it to the border before sunset, and I didn't want to be on the move when the lieutenant led his night patrol out.

Tomorrow morning I think I will have a good chance of reaching the border. Everyone here thinks I'm dead; as long as I remain quiet, I doubt that they will ascribe to me any sounds that they hear. So tomorrow I will be in Emor.

I haven't yet thought about what I will do when I get there. I will need food while I'm searching to know about the law, and that means I will need to seek out some sort of work. The obvious place to look for a job is in the Emorian borderland, where I won't be conspicuous, but I'm not sure whether the law is to be found there. Perhaps I should go to the capital city. I know that it isn't far from the border, and perhaps many visiting Koretians go there.

It seems too much to hope for: that I should make it past the patrol without being harmed, that I should reach Emor, and that I should actually have my chance to learn what the law is.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The seventeenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

This is the first day that I have been well enough to write, and just sitting up causes me pain enough, but I have so much of importance to write about that I can't keep myself away from this journal any longer. I find myself smiling as I read the end of my previous entry, for nearly everything I hoped there failed to come true: I am not in Emor, I am not free from the patrol, and I have been badly injured. And yet my greatest hope has come true at the same time.

It was my curiosity that caused all this to happen – my curiosity on not one but three occasions, and the disastrous consequences of not following my common sense. But I need to go back to the start of the story. It was dusk three days ago, I was lying in the cave and trying to sleep in the cold, and I was listening with half an ear to the sound of whistles in the distance.

There had been whistles earlier in the afternoon when another border-crosser was sighted, but the hunt ended almost immediately, so I surmised that either the border-crosser had legitimate business in Emor – or Koretia, if he was going the other way – or else he was a far wiser breacher than me and had surrendered immediately. After that, there was quiet except for the periodic sound of the sublieutenant sending out a certain whistle that was routinely acknowledged by the other guards. I decided that this must be the way for the sublieutenant to tell that his men were still safely patrolling, and as I ate the last of my food, I found myself listening for the sublieutenant's signal when I expected it to come.

So it was the patrol's silence that drew me out of the cave, and it was the muffled sound of laughter that drew me cautiously around the mountain, toward the pass.

The laughter was coming from the other side of the pass, but the noise was so faint that I could not pinpoint its location. A half-moon was up now, and I stared at the mountains opposite: they were blacker than the night, reaching up to touch the vault of the sky. Aside from the muffled voices, I could hear nothing in the mountains but the sound of an occasional mountain bird. No slight rattle of rocks indicated that the guards were still patrolling.

Then, like a death spirit walking through walls, a guard emerged from the side of the mountain opposite. I was positioned in shadow, and I flattened myself against the rock I was leaning back against. The guard took no notice of me. A moment later, a second guard emerged, and then, in short order, three more guards. After that, there was quite a long delay, and I began to think that I should retreat to my cave before I was discovered, out in the open. But finally a sixth guard walked out of the mountain. I could not see his face, but I recognized his whistle as he signalled another guard: it was the lieutenant.

This was obviously the moment at which to retreat. The lieutenant was on his night-prowl, and anyway, I had learned as much as I needed to know. The mountain patrol had a secret hideout where the full patrol gathered at dusk; presumably, this would happen again at dawn, and during that valuable interval of time I could be well on my way to Emor. The best thing to do was to return to the cave and get a full night's sleep.

I waited until I was sure the lieutenant must be far away on his patrol. Then I walked forward to find the entrance to the hideout.

I justified it in my mind, of course; I told myself that I wanted to eavesdrop on the day patrol to learn what their plans were for the following day. But the truth was more complex. I had become intrigued by the patrol, and especially by its lieutenant and sublieutenant. I wanted to know what these men were like who spent their days hunting border-breachers in the mountains. And I wondered whether any of the guards might say something while off-duty that would tell me more about the law.

Even though I had seen the men emerge from the mountain, it took me a while to locate the entrance. This consisted of one rock wall overlapping another; though I am slender, I could barely squeeze my way through the entrance. The tunnel behind was wider but dark; I couldn't see any light at the other end. I began walking forward, first steadily, then more and more slowly as something about the echo of my footsteps made me uneasy.

At a certain point, the rock path beneath my feet began to tilt downward. Feeling my feet slip slightly, I stepped back and got down on my stomach to feel the ground ahead.

It was very clever; if I had been less cautious, I would have fallen straight into the trap. The tilting slab of stone which had been set in place was so slippery with algae that any attempt to back up would cause the visitor to slide forward instead, straight into the pit that had been dug for such intruders. I threw a pebble into the pit and ascertained from the sound of its fall that the pit was deep enough to trap a man, but not deep enough to kill him. Being captured, though, was a fate that had become as fearful to me as death, so I spent several nervous minutes ascertaining how far I would have to jump in order to reach the other side of the pit.

I managed the jump, but just barely; it was hard to be sure at what point I should leap into the air. Clawing at the wall of the tunnel to keep myself from falling backwards, my hand discovered a wooden plank. This, I supposed, was used when the guards brought visitors to their hideout.

I walked forward, the tunnel curved, and soon I could see light ahead and hear voices. Stepping soundlessly through the tunnel, which now flickered with golden-red light, I cautiously edged myself up to the exit of the tunnel. Then I stood a moment in the shadows, looking out at the scene.

There before me, like a cupped hand raised toward the sky, was a green hollow in the mountains. On all sides, the naked mountains rose in steep walls; down below, unlike any other part of the mountains I had seen, the ground was covered with grass and autumn flowers. A stream, splashing down in a waterfall from the mountainside, cut across the far end of the hollow before disappearing into the earth. Near it, a small and windowless stone cottage stood, barely more than a hut. Its door was open, but its interior was black with night.

I could see all of this, not only because of the moon's glow, but because a large balefire blazed to the side of the hut. Sitting around it in pairs were the six guards of the day patrol, drinking from flasks and idly tossing wood chips into the fire. One of the guards was saying something, but he was being interrupted by periodic interjections and laughter from the other guards.

It was very cold by now, and I found myself shivering; I hadn't possessed money enough to buy a cloak before starting on my journey north. The wind whistling into the hollow pushed toward me the sweet scent of smoke and the warmth of the fire, as though it were breathing upon me. I strained to hear what the guards were saying, but all I could catch were tantalizing phrases tossed my way by the wind. I stepped out of the entrance.

No one noticed me; the guards were absorbed in their conversation. Looking around, I saw that the hollow was ringed by a garland of thorny bushes like the one I had hidden behind on the previous afternoon. There were gaps between the bushes; through one of these I stepped. Then I began my silent crawl toward the guards.

I did not have to worry here about my body making any reverberating sound on the rocky ground; the grassy carpet went up to the edge of the mountain wall beside me. I concentrated on making as little sound as possible, and did not allow myself to pay attention to what the guards were saying until I had come within a short distance of the fire. Then I peered through the bare branches of the bush as though I were staring through the bars of a prison.

Directly opposite to me was the sublieutenant and his partner; the others I recognized from their one attempt to close the circle on me. I knew their whistles, and since I had heard the sublieutenant describe their hunt for me, I also knew their names. The guard to the right of Fowler was just finishing what sounded to me like a mysterious incantation, while the others applauded and cheered. The guard turned red as I watched, in the manner that light-skinned men do.

"By the souls of the dead Charas, Iain, you are a true lover of the law," said the sublieutenant, leaning forward to warm his flask over the fire. "I pity you, Fowler, trying to better that performance. What is your pleasure, Iain?"

"The Law of Interpretation," Iain replied promptly. He was sitting cross-legged, balancing his flask on one knee, and pulling his cloak closer as he shivered in the wind.

"The Law of what?" yelped Fowler; whereupon he endured the laughter of the other guards.

"It is the interpreters' law," said the sublieutenant, grinning as he sipped from his fire-warmed flask. "You know that one; I taught it to you last summer."

"You taught me six dozen cursed laws last summer," muttered Fowler.

"Watch your language," said the sublieutenant. "We have a child in our midst." He ducked in a mock manner, as though to avoid the wrath of the guard sitting on his other side, the one my age who had been unable to stop me from escaping from the day patrol's closing circle.

Iain had already begun saying, "'And being as it is more grave that a man talented in tongues should reveal secrets which are given to him under the shield of interpretation—'" He stopped and looked expectantly at Fowler.

There was a pause, and the guard named Jephthah suggested, "Turn the chain, Fowler."

"No, I remember this one," Fowler replied, stretching out his legs toward the fire. "'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or branding or death.'"

"Death! Is that right?" said the guard named Hoel. Iain nodded, and Hoel asked, "Why death?"

"Listen to the Justification," said the sublieutenant. "Jephthah, if you flick one more piece of wood in my face, I swear that the next time you call for help, I'll leave you to your doom."

Jephthah, smiling, tossed another wood chip in the sublieutenant's direction as Fowler said, "For those who have been entrusted with the work of interpretation, and who have therefore been allowed to hear secrets which they could not otherwise lawfully hear, have a greater duty than most men to remain silent, even when threatened with pain or death. For the interpreter is an intermediary between men of different lands, enabling the Chara and his people to spread knowledge of the Law to others in the Three Lands and beyond. And should the interpreter fail to keep to his duty, the Law will— It will—' Oh, may you die a Slave's Death, Iain. Complete the link."

It took a while for Iain to be heard over the laughter. Finally he said, "'And should the interpreter fail to keep to his duty, the Law will die in the end, for the Lawmaker ordained that the Law should be given to all people. This is Emor's gift to the other lands, and so the interpreter, because he stands between two lands, is granted a role almost as great as that of the Chara, since he alone has the ability to show Emor to other lands, and other lands to Emor.'"

"Did he get that right?" Fowler turned for confirmation to the sublieutenant, and then sighed heavily and dramatically as the sublieutenant nodded. Fowler dragged his body back until it was outside the tight circle of guards surrounding the fire.

The sublieutenant said, "One link missing, but you relinked the chain nicely, Iain. It is Jephthah's turn again."

"Not again!" protested Jephthah, who was sitting beside Iain. "I swear, sublieutenant, you arrange it this way every time: the chain always turns when it reaches you, and you win the game purely because it is never your turn."

"It makes no difference if the sublieutenant does play," said Hoel. "He never breaks a link."

The sublieutenant gave a faint smile. His smile still intrigued me: one half of his face turned upward while the other remained serious. "I have broken more than enough links in my time," he said. "Just ask the lieutenant. But I will be glad to take the next turn if you insist. Iain?"

"Hold your attack," said Iain. "I still cannot think of a linking law."

"The Law of Ambassadors," suggested Hoel, turning his flask upside down to confirm that it was empty. "That is another law about intermediaries."

"The Law of Peace Settlements," offered Fowler from outside the circle. "Ambassadors are mentioned in that one."

"Only in the Definition, not in the Justification," said the sublieutenant. "What about the Law of the Border Mountain Patrol, Iain? I am sure that I cannot remember that one."

His suggestion was hooted down amidst the laughter. Iain said, "No, I know which one to use; there is a mention of interpreters toward the end. I have been saving this one for you, sublieutenant – you will never complete the link. 'And being as it is gravest of all that anyone should disobey the Great Chara—'"

"It is bound to fail, Iain," said Jephthah. "He knows all of the Great Three by heart."

"Not entirely," said the sublieutenant, "and I still have to memorize most of the Law of Grave Iniquity. But I know the subsection that you are going to cite."

"You only think that you know it," said Iain. "Subsection Thirty-Four, 'On Obedience of Witness.'"

The sublieutenant smiled and tossed a twig into the flames. Through the fire I could see his eyes, bright green like the grass around him. There was an odd intensity about his gaze as it rested upon Iain – odd because his voice was light as he said, "'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or enslavement or the high doom of death by the sword. Subsection Thirty-Four. It is also important that at all times the Emorian people give true witness to the Chara, not only in his court, but even when he speaks with them outside of the court. And this remains true if a man should meet with the Chara in private—"

Iain's howl cut short the sublieutenant's recital. Hoel said, "I have no memory of that sentence."

"The Chara revised the subsection last year," said the sublieutenant, patting Iain on the back with a show of commiseration as the guard buried his face in his hands. "He changed it so that it would conform with the proclamation he issued in connection with the charge brought against the court summoners' clerk who lied to him. It was the first time that the Chara had been obliged to interpret whether this subsection should be applied to private conversations."

"Is that the clerk whom Neville replaced?" asked Jephthah.

"Neville told me about the revision," Iain said, tossing his head up. "He said that the revision hadn't been published yet, and he swore that he hadn't told you about it. May the high doom fall upon you, sublieutenant – how did you know about the change?"

The sublieutenant replied calmly, "Because unlike the rest of you, I spend my winters studying the law rather than dissipating my time in wine, women, and song. I do not waste my evenings in taverns filled with crooning bards singing sickly sentimental songs about murder and suicide – unlike a certain guard I could mention." His gaze turned toward Jephthah, who silently toasted him amidst the laughter. "Nor do I spend my time hand-in-hand and lip-to-lip with loose women, as does our junior-most guard, judging from the volume of letters he receives—"

"We are betrothed!" the youngest guard said indignantly.

"The more fool you for getting yourself betrothed when you could be spending your leisure time practicing swordplay and the law."

"We all practice swordplay during the winters, sublieutenant," volunteered Fowler from the half-light where he sat.

"I assume so, or you would all be dead," replied the sublieutenant. "But if Chatwin does not spend more time learning the law and less time sighing over his betrothed's picture, he is likely to take another misstep into lawbreaking one of these days. I swear, Chatwin, you know as little law as a god-loving Koretian."

Chatwin's partner, Hoel, looked angry, but Fowler interjected his voice first. "Be gentle on him, sublieutenant. He has only been with us for three months. Anyway, you still need to finish your link."

"Do not bother," said Iain, pulling himself out of the circle. "He knows the rest of the subsection; I have heard him recite it. What is your next link, sublieutenant? The Law of False Witness is an obvious choice."

"I am not sure I know that one," said Chatwin in a subdued voice.

He was staring at the ground, and the sublieutenant looked his way, then smiled again suddenly. "This one you know," he said. "'And being as it is more grave that a soldier should be disobedient to his official—'"

"'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or reprimand or beating,'" Chatwin replied promptly. "'For however small an order it may be that the soldier refuses to obey, his obedience is necessary in all things . . .'"

I was beginning to feel very cramped, crouched as I was behind the bush. Part of me knew that I should leave while the guards were still absorbed in their conversation; it was clear by now that they would not be discussing their patrolling plans. But nothing could have driven me from where I was. Here at last I had found what I was seeking: information about the law. And though I didn't understand most of what was being said, I knew two things: that the mountain patrol was learned in the law, and that the patrol's sublieutenant was more learned in such matters than anyone else here.

At that moment, the sublieutenant, still listening to Chatwin's recital, leaned forward to throw a few final drops of his flask-liquid onto the fire. As the flames sizzled and steamed, his eyes rose, and for a brief moment I thought that he could see me, but his gaze continued to rise until he was staring straight up at the stars above, leaning back on his hands.

There was a pause in the conversation. Chatwin had finished his recital; now he said, "Did I get that right?"

"Quite right," said the sublieutenant, still staring up at the stars wheeling above. "Except that you said 'obedience toward the Chara' rather than 'to the Chara.' That makes a great difference in the law, you know."

"How so?" asked Fowler.

The sublieutenant finally looked down again to stare at his empty flask. He made no reply to his partner's question, but said, "I am out of wine, and so is Hoel. Will you fill our flasks, Fowler?"

"Let Hoel go," responded Fowler. "I want to hear what the difference is."

Again, the sublieutenant did not reply, but he hummed a short phrase of music that sounded vaguely familiar. The other guards' heads swivelled in the sublieutenant's direction, and after a moment, Fowler grinned and said, "Oh, very well, I will take on the duty. Where did Devin put the new cask?"

"At the south end of the storeroom, in the direction of the door. If you are going to open a cask, though, you had better clean that blood-dirtied blade of yours."

Fowler obediently came up to the fire and held his blade over the fire to cleanse it, then sheathed it once more as Iain said between yawns, "Good hunting in finding that cask, Fowler. The way Devin hides our goods, you will be at it all night."

"Five minutes at most," said Fowler, looking toward the hut. "I place a day's wages on it."

"Wager accepted," said Iain as Fowler walked away. "All right, sublieutenant, I surrender. What is the difference between 'to' and 'toward'?"

The sublieutenant tossed his empty flask to one side. "As a term of the law, 'to' indicates a difference of rank: we are obedient to the Chara because we are all subject to him. But if you were obedient toward the Chara, that would imply that you were of the same rank as he was, and that your obedience to him was voluntary. That is why, in the Law of Vengeance—"

All of the guards present groaned, and Jephthah said, "Not the Law of Vengeance again. I thought we would be able to spend one evening without hearing you mention that law."

"It is relevant." The sublieutenant glared at Jephthah. "In the law's Justification, in the passage on the burdens of the Chara, it is stated that the Chara has no equals, but it also says that the Chara is obedient to the law of which he is the embodiment. That shows that not even the Chara is as high as the law, and that even he must be obedient to its consequences. Thus the Chara's only master is the law, just as our greatest masters are the Chara and his law . . ."

We were reaching here closer and closer to the center of all my questions: what the law was, who decided what it said, why it existed. Yet something continued to tap at the back of my mind, and in a single instant I recognized the two thoughts that were trying to break through to my consciousness. One was the realization that Fowler had not taken any flasks with him when he walked away from the fire. The other was the realization that I knew what tune the sublieutenant had been humming: it was a whistle-code, and it meant, 'The hunted is sighted.'"

I stood and whirled, but it was too late; Fowler was standing beside me, blocking my path to the tunnel. His sword was out, and in the dim shadows where we stood, I could see that he was smiling.

"So you are back from the dead," he said in strongly accented Common Koretian. "Well, you will have no further opportunity to trick us, Koretian."

I had only a moment to think. Behind us, the sublieutenant had stopped talking; I knew that he and the other guards were poised to leap forward. I couldn't climb the sheer wall next to me; if I went toward the fire, the guards would capture me; if I ran toward the back of the hollow, there would be no place for me to hide. My only hope was to reach the tunnel, and Fowler was between me and the tunnel.

I had only a moment to think. Then I was past him, and in my hand was my dagger, now wet with blood.

I did not pause until I reached the point where I would break out of the bushes and reach the tunnel. I could hear that the guards were just starting to run forward in response to Fowler's grunt; now I looked back to see how far ahead of them I was.

I barely noticed the guards near the fire, for what I saw was closer than them: the sublieutenant, leaning over Fowler, his hand drenched with blood as he tried to staunch the wound in the side of his motionless partner. He looked up. For a moment I thought that he would pursue me and that he would succeed in catching me, since he was so far ahead of the others. Instead, from his shadow-dark lips there emitted a sound unlike any I had ever heard a human make. It was a whistle, but it was as high and blazing as a shooting star in the sky. It pierced the still night air with such force that I thought the mountains would crack, yet it was higher in tone than any bird's call.

Fenton hadn't taught me this whistle, but I could guess its meaning. I turned, and began my escape from death.

By the time I reached the other end of the tunnel, a deluge of whistles was pouring through the mountain air, all overlapping each other so that I could barely tell where they were coming from. Above them all, I could hear the whistle of the lieutenant, close to where I stood. I turned, and ran in the opposite direction, toward Koretia.

It didn't take me long to realize my folly. I might save my life in this way, by returning to Koretia, but of what use was my life if I spent it in a land where I would never learn about the law? Stubbornly, I turned and began racing east into the mountains. The whistles around me were closer; my only chance was to do as Fenton had done and leave the safe territory of the mountain passes.

The guards around me were racing toward me much faster than they had throughout the day. No attempt was being made to safely encircle me; no caution was being shown toward me any more. Every guard, I could guess, now had his blade drawn, and every one of them was prepared to use it on me the moment I was captured. I had drawn deep blood; I was as much in danger now as I had been when I hunted in Cold Run.

I ran, I swerved, I dodged, and at a certain point I found myself in a narrow cleft, with three mountain walls around me. I turned, and found the lieutenant at the entrance to the cleft.

The moon had risen high, and though the shadows draped darkly upon us, I could see the moon's glitter upon the lieutenant's eyes and his sword. He had paused, but the angle of his sword told me that he was on the point of attacking. The pause was longer than it had been when I faced Fowler, and this time I felt pain well up inside me, and the feel of the trap's jaws close upon me. I must kill him, or be killed. I had no choice, no choice at all.

I had only a moment to think. Then I flung the dagger from my hand, and with a sob escaping from my throat, I turned and tried to climb the mountain wall.

I was no more than an arm's length up the wall when I felt my collar seized, and I was flung onto the ground, back-first. My head hit the rock, and for a moment I lay stunned. Only one whistle-code echoed through the air now, one that sounded familiar. With my head still sick with dizziness, I tried to rise, but something sharp against my chest held me back. I opened my eyes and saw the lieutenant, calmly pressing his sword against my heart.

The hunt was ended; the hunted was captured alive.

CHAPTER NINE

The eighteenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l. (entry continued)

I lay very still. My hands were still raised above my head, the way they had been when I tried to climb, and I felt my wrists and ankles being pinned to the ground by unseen guards. I didn't resist them. I was afraid that if I moved in the slightest, the lieutenant's sword would miss the spot he was aiming for, and I would die a more painful death than already awaited me.

There was a pause while a soft shuffle of footsteps gathered round me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that there were more than six guards here; I had been right in thinking that the full unit was after me. My gaze, though, was on the lieutenant, staring down at me with dark hatred in his eyes, and my one thought, outside of terror, was my growing concern as to how long he was going to make me wait like this before he finished his deed.

Softly he said, "Search him."

Instantly, on both sides of me, I felt hands touching my body, swiftly and firmly. I resisted an impulse to flinch away, mainly because I was uncertain as to what they were doing. What did it matter to them whether I had another weapon? I'd have no chance to use it. The hands ceased to touch me on my front, and then I was rolled over onto my stomach, and I could feel myself being touched again. Still I did not move, for now I could feel the lieutenant's blade against my spine.

God of Mercy, I thought. Is he really going to kill me in the back? For the first time I felt the impulse to speak – not to plead for my life, which was clearly forfeit, but to ask the lieutenant to give me an honorable death. Then I stifled the impulse. What did I know of Emorian honor? Perhaps in Emor there was no shame attached to being stabbed in the back, as a fleeing man might be killed.

"He is naked," said one of the guards, meaning of course that I was unarmed. There was another pause, and my shoulder-blades began to draw toward each other, bracing for the moment.

Then the lieutenant said, "All right, get him up. And bind his eyes too; we take no chances with this one."

My momentary bewilderment was ended by sharp pain as one of the guards jerked down my upraised hands down and began to bind them behind my back with a leather strap. Another guard was tying a cloth over my eyes. Then I was pulled to my feet.

This was worse than I had expected; I was not even going to be granted the quick death I had dreaded. They were going to take me some place where they could give me a slow, painful death – perhaps they would torture me for days. I felt myself begin to shiver once more, and this time I knew that it wasn't from the wind.

Given the fact that I had been travelling in near darkness, I ought not to have had any trouble travelling eye-bound, but there is a great difference between walking forward in the darkness on your own feet and being propelled forward without having a chance to feel the ground beneath you. I never fell; the hands holding me on either side wrenched me upward each time I stumbled. After a few minutes of this, I discovered to my fury that moisture was forming at the edge of my eyes. Death I could accept, pain I would endure somehow, but this march of humiliation seemed calculated to break my spirit.

Presently the hands released me, and someone pushed me sideways, then forward. On either side of me I could feel rocks brushing against my arms; from the hollowness of the footsteps before me and behind me, I could tell that we were in the tunnel leading to the hut. The patrol guards must have marched me over the wooden plank across the pit, for the echoes of my footsteps ceased. I felt grass under my feet for a while, then the hands took hold of me again, and I travelled through open air for a short space before being suddenly thrust forward. I stumbled and fell to my knees, just saving myself from falling entirely to the floor. The ground beneath me was dirt, the air felt warm, and there were low voices speaking around me that had a hollow tone to them. I must be in some sort of enclosure again.

I heard the lieutenant saying something soft to his men. I was raised to my feet, less harshly than I had been thrown forward, and the cloth was removed from my eyes.

I found I was standing in a small room – this must be the hut I had seen in the hollow. Immediately in front of me was an open hearth-fire that was the sole source of light in the room. Beyond it, most of the soldiers were crowded around a dark, open doorway. Then they stepped back, and from the room beyond the main chamber stepped the sublieutenant.

He took no notice of me. He went over to the lieutenant, who was standing near me, and pulled his sword from his sheath. For a moment, he held the blade flat against his face; then he sheathed his weapon once more.

"How is he?" asked the lieutenant in Emorian.

"He will live." The sublieutenant's gaze wandered over toward me for the first time, and his brows dived low. "He caught Fowler's side – the wound is bad, but his life's blood has not spilled without measure. Gamaliel says that he should be taken back to the city. He doubts that Fowler will recover before the snows fall."

The door in the back was closing, and the other soldiers had begun to turn my way. The lieutenant was looking at me now as well; his expression had not grown any lighter since he first captured me. I felt my lungs being squeezed short at the same moment that my breath quickened. Now, I thought, they will begin.

"Very well, sir," said the lieutenant to me in Common Koretian. "You obviously wanted badly to cross the border. You may as well tell us why."

I must have gaped – at least, that was what I was feeling inside. But perhaps my expression came across as defiance, for the next thing I knew the lieutenant had me pinned by both shoulders against the wall. "Listen, Koretian," he said, his voice still even and cool, though his hands were pressed hard against me, "you just wounded one of my best men. I am not in a mood to be patient. You will answer the questions I ask you."

My voice came out in a feeble sort of tremble. "You won't believe me."

"You have nothing to lose by telling me the truth," said the lieutenant, still very cool. "You have a great deal to lose by not speaking."

Blocked from my view by the lieutenant, the sublieutenant said, "He is probably going to say that his gods made him do it. That is what Koretians always say when they break the law."

The one, small part of me that was still functioning rationally put out an urgent message that I must not mention the gods in my reply. This created a difficulty – I had never before tried to censor all reference to the gods in my speech – but the lieutenant was clearly not prepared to wait long, so I switched over to Emorian, which gave me an excuse to stumble slowly through my speech. "I wanted to be Emorian," I said. "I knew that you wouldn't let me into your land without a letter of passage, but I wanted to become one of you. I wanted—" I hesitated before remembering what Fenton had said about the law. This was how I could find a substitute for speaking of the gods. "I wanted to take a vow of service to the Chara."

There was a good deal of murmuring going on between the soldiers now, but the lieutenant didn't move his gaze. He still had me pinned to the wall, and his face was but a hand's span from mine. "I see," he said. "Is there any particular reason you were so eager to do this?"

"My family is in a blood feud."

The side of the lieutenant's mouth quirked up, though his eyes remained angry. "You fled to Emor so that you would not be murdered?"

"No. So that I wouldn't have to murder."

The lieutenant made no reply; he still hadn't released me. I thought wildly to myself that I would never be able to explain. He must have heard of blood feuds, but he couldn't understand what it was like to take part in one. I wouldn't have understood if it hadn't happened to me. I might as well remain quiet and let them do whatever it was that they planned to do to me.

But I found myself saying, "I wanted to live in a land where there are no blood feuds. I heard about the Chara's law – about how murderers in Emor are brought to judgment, and no one has to kill out of blood-lust. I wanted to find out more about this law. It seemed to me that it must be more worthy of honor than—" I faltered, then concluded, "Than the gods."

The murmuring in the room had died out. The lieutenant straightened his elbows so that, while he was still holding me, he was further back from me now. "Carle," he said.

The sublieutenant's head appeared over the lieutenant's shoulder. "Sir?"

"Is he telling the truth?"

The sublieutenant looked into my eyes, peering as closely at me as I used to look at Emorian writings I was trying to translate. Sublieutenant Carle said slowly, "Yes, sir, I believe he is."

The lieutenant released my shoulders with a suddenness that startled me. "So you like the idea of Emorian law, do you?"

I nodded mutely.

"Do you think what you did just now was lawful?" asked the lieutenant softly.

I swallowed; my throat was so tightly closed that even that was painful. "I don't know, sir," I said. "I don't know any Emorian law."

"Let me try another question. Do you think that what you did was just? Do you think that it was right?"

"He has no understanding of justice, sir," said Carle with disgust. "He does whatever his gods tell him to do."

I could feel myself growing dizzy with bewilderment again. Was it right for me to have attacked a man who had been keeping me from doing what I wanted? The question would never have occurred to me. If I were in my village— No, that wouldn't do; if I were in my village, I would either be dead or undergoing torture by now. There must be some reason that the lieutenant was asking me these questions. Well, in the old days, would I have thought that the gods would approve of what I did? Despite Carle's statement, it seemed to me that that was closer to what the lieutenant was asking me, but I was still unsure of an answer.

"I don't know, sir," I said. "Perhaps it wasn't."

In the silence that followed, I could hear the crackle of the fire and the moan of the wounded man in the next room, but nothing more. Then the lieutenant said, "I will give you a choice, then. You can return to Koretia now and start your life over again. Or you can undergo judgment by Emorian law for what you did. The maximum penalty for your crime is death."

It wasn't clear to me what he was offering. On the one hand, he seemed to be offering to let me go, as long as I went back to Koretia . . . and that was a fate that I was not prepared to contemplate. On the other hand, he was asking me to accept certain death – or was it certain?

"Did you say 'maximum penalty,' sir?" I asked.

"Yes. You could be given a lesser sentence." Then, seeing my blank look, he added, "A lesser punishment. But I cannot promise that; you might be sentenced to death."

"The question is not which penalty is worse," said Carle. "By the law-structure, lieutenant, is it not clear that this boy has no understanding? He is just trying to find the easiest way out. He cares nothing about what he has done."

Somehow, Carle's words made it clear to me what I was being offered. I felt a burst of joy and said, "Will you do that? Will you show me how the law works?"

"It would not be a game," said the lieutenant. "You would be on trial for your life."

"That doesn't matter," I said impatiently. "I'd rather die than go back to Koretia. But if I could just know first what the law is—" I stopped, thought back to the words I had heard Carle speak at the fireside, and added, "It would be worth dying, to know what the law is and to be obedient to its consequences, even for a short time."

The soldiers' murmuring returned once more; I heard one of them mutter, "Heart of Mercy," but I did not hear the rest of this mysterious oath. The lieutenant was exchanging looks with Carle. After a moment he said, "Very well. What is your name?"

"Adrian son of Berenger," I replied.

"Adrian, since you are in the black border mountains, you are under my care and therefore under my judgment; I will be the judge for your trial. Carle, who is the witness?"

"Myself, sir."

"Devin, you are the herald, Payne is the clerk, and Sewell is the summoner; we may as well do this properly for the benefit of the prisoner's education. As for a guide— Adrian."

"Yes, sir?"

"Since you know little of the law, you are entitled to a guide to answer your questions during the trial and explain to you what is happening. Sublieutenant Carle is appearing as a witness against you, but he also happens to be the man in this unit who knows the most about Emorian law. Are you willing to accept him as your guide, or would you prefer that I appoint someone else?"

I looked over at the sublieutenant uncertainly. He no longer looked angry, but I couldn't read his look; it was as if a mask had appeared over his face. "He would be fine, sir," I said, "if – if he wishes to be my guide."

The lieutenant raised his eyebrows toward Carle in query. Carle said, with phrasing that appeared deliberate, "I would be glad to undertake this duty, sir. I want him to have a fair trial."

"Let me know when you are ready, then. I will be in the storeroom in the meantime." And the lieutenant, without looking my way again, walked over to the room in the back.

I looked around uncertainly. Most of the guards had withdrawn to the other side of the hut and were standing there, talking in low voices amongst themselves, but two guards came forward to join Carle and me. One, who appeared to be struggling to keep anger from his face, barely glanced at me as he pulled off his back-sling and rummaged in it. From it he took a pen, an inkwell, and a small wooden board that had paper pinned to it.

He knelt down onto the ground to open the ink, but my attention was distracted by the other guard who had come over to stand by us. His face was white, whiter even than Carle's, and his hair was the color of sun-bleached cloth. Even his eyelashes were blond, as though all bodily color had been stolen from him. He said, with an accent I could barely understand, "What is your pleasure, sublieutenant?"

Carle glared at him, as though the guard's light words were unfitting for the occasion. "I request a charge, Sewell," he said shortly. "I wish to charge Adrian son of Berenger, lesser free-man, with the murder of Fowler son of Serge, lesser free-man."

"Murder!" I exclaimed, taking a worried look at the door through which the lieutenant had left.

"Attempted murder," Carle amended. "It is the same charge, under the law."

"But—" I stopped to look at Sewell, who was watching the other guard scribble down some words as he rose to his feet, pen and paper in hand.

Sewell glanced over at me. "Do you wish to dispute the request?"

I looked uncertainly at Carle, who said, "He is not asking you whether you dispute the charge – whether you are innocent or guilty. He wants to know whether you think that he should charge you with a lesser crime. Sewell is the court summoner, and it is his job to decide whether you should be charged with a crime. The lieutenant, who is judge, can overrule Sewell's decision, but only if he justifies his actions to the higher courts."

"The higher courts?" I said in some bewilderment.

"There is only one court higher than the mountain patrol court," said Sewell, leaning over Payne's shoulder to see what he had written. "That is the Court of Judgment, the Chara's court. If the lieutenant overruled me, he would have to tell the Chara why he did that, so it is unlikely he will overrule me."

I stood where I had been this whole time, pressed against the wall, my hands bound behind me, and feeling increasingly foolish. My life depended on my saying the right words now, but I felt as though I had been asked to learn an entire language in just a few minutes. Sewell waited expectantly for me to reply, then raised his yellow-white eyebrows at Carle when I did not.

"Let us try it this way," said Carle. "Are you surprised that I would charge you with attempted murder? Is that the crime you were expecting to be charged with?"

"I wasn't trying to kill Fowler," I said in a small voice.

Around the hut, the mountain winds continued to whistle. One of the guards went to the door, which had been closed during this time, and opened it a crack before returning to where the other guards stood, murmuring together and occasionally glancing our way. The central fire painted leaping light upon Sewell's face as he said, "Sublieutenant, I am going to have to question the prisoner in private, since you are presenting testimony against him. You can give Payne your witness in the meantime."

Carle nodded, and I watched with concern as my guide and the pen-bearing guard went over into another corner. As they left, Sewell said softly, "Whatever you tell me won't be used in your trial. I just want to determine whether the right charge has been requested against you. What sort of charge did you expect the sublieutenant to make against you?"

"I wasn't trying to kill Fowler," I repeated. "I just wanted to get past him. I did wound him, but I tried not to hurt him badly."

Sewell nodded. "Then you believe that you should be tried under the charge of striking a free-man."

"Striking?" I said tentatively.

Sewell smiled suddenly. "It's a law term. It means any injury that isn't intended to kill."

I nodded wordlessly, and Sewell said, "Very well. You must be skilled with your blade to have breached Fowler's guard. If you didn't kill him, I'll assume that it was because you didn't intend to do so. In the name of the Chara, whose law I am sworn to serve, I charge you under the Law of Assault. The sentence for such a crime is mercy or beating or branding."

I felt what remained of my supper curdling within my stomach. Branding – and not a brand I could hide, as Fenton had hidden his old slave-brand under his sleeve, but a brand on my cheek, to show everyone I met that I had committed a terrible crime. If Emorians were great law-lovers, as Fenton had said, what hope would I have of being accepted in this land when I was branded with the symbol of my lawbreaking? The patrol might as well send me back to Koretia.

I said, struggling to keep my breathing even, "How does the judge decide which sentence to give me?"

"Carle!" The sublieutenant, who had been speaking all this while to Payne as the latter scribed words on the paper, raised his head as Sewell called to him. Sewell said, "The prisoner has a question about his sentences. Are you through there?"

Carle nodded. As he came over to stand by us, Sewell added, "I am charging him under the Law of Assault. Do you wish to appeal my decision to the lieutenant?"

Carle wordlessly shook his head. Then, to my dismay, he reached down to his thigh-pocket. I pressed myself further back against the wall, and a humorless smile flickered across the sublieutenant's face. "Be at peace," he said as he pulled out his thigh-dagger and turned it so that its hilt faced me. "You are not in Koretia – no one is going to murder you. I am releasing your hands. Prisoners are not bound unless they have been charged with a crime that carries a sentence of death. What is your question about the sentences?"

As he pulled me around and used the slender dagger-hilt to pry open the knot in the strap, I repeated my question. He replied, "The judge can find you innocent, or he can find you guilty to varying degrees. If you wounded Fowler willfully and with clear understanding – if you knew what you were doing and you had no excuse for doing it – then the lieutenant will sentence you to a branding. If you wounded Fowler without clear understanding – if you did not realize what you were doing when you committed the crime – then he will sentence you to a beating. If you wounded Fowler under provocation – if something or someone made you do it – then you will still be found guilty, but the judge will show mercy to you and will not sentence you to punishment. Is that clear? You have to decide how to plead your charge – whether or not to admit your guilt, and if you admit it, then to what degree you will say you are guilty."

I considered this as I rubbed my numb wrists. Finally I said, "Saying that something made me do it – what does that mean?"

Carle glanced over at Sewell, who had been murmuring to Payne as the other guard rapidly scribed words on the paper. Sewell looked Carle's way, raised his eyebrows again, and continued speaking to the guard who was acting as clerk.

"Well, you cannot blame your gods." Carle's voice, which had been neutral until now, took on a tinge of sarcasm. "Self-defense is considered provocation; if you thought that Fowler was going to attack you even if you surrendered yourself to him, you could use that as a way to defend yourself against the full charge. Or if you thought that the patrol was going to kill you unlawfully, that is a defense. For that matter, if you thought that you would be murdered in your blood feud if you returned to Koretia, you could use that as a defense." He would have spoken further, but I nodded quickly, and he said, "That is what you will plead? Guilty, but with provocation?"

"Yes," I said. "And then the lieutenant decides on my sentence?"

"After he has heard our witnesses. Devin, I think we are ready." He said this with raised voice to a guard standing next to the storeroom door, then added immediately, "No, wait. Listen, Adrian, we are informal in the patrol court; we use no more ceremony than a village court. But I know what informality means to you Koretians. You cannot just talk whenever you feel like it. You can ask me questions, and if you do not understand what I say, you can ask permission to speak to the judge. But otherwise, you only speak when the judge tells you to. Understand?" I nodded, and Carle said, "The prisoner is ready, Devin."

Devin opened the door a crack, murmured something across the gap, and then closed the door again and said in a booming voice, "All rise; the judge approaches."

Everyone was already standing, but I saw the other guards stiffen and fall silent as the storeroom door opened. The lieutenant looked different from when I had seen him last. He was wearing a cloak, though he had worn only a tunic a short time ago, and he was also wearing a gold chain that lay flat against his chest as he came over to stand against the far wall of the hut. But the greatest change was in his face, which was now drained of all anger and any other emotion. His eyes, cool and reserved, rested upon me briefly before settling upon Devin.

Devin, who had apparently been waiting for this signal, promptly proclaimed, "Let it be known that the Court of the Border Mountain Patrol in the Empire of Emor is now opened. This is the fifteenth day of October in the nine hundred and fortieth year after the giving of the law. The judge for the day is—" He hesitated, looked over at the lieutenant, and said quickly, "The Lieutenant of the Border Mountain Patrol is the judge. Let all who speak in this place do so with truth and with reverence for the law."

I waited for the lieutenant to speak then, to ask me why I had done what I did, but it was Payne who stepped forward and said, "Adrian son of Berenger, you have been brought here to answer a charge made against you by Carle, Sublieutenant of the Border Mountain Patrol. The charge is that you did willfully and with clear understanding strike a free-man, namely Fowler, Soldier of the Border Mountain Patrol. The witness in this charge is Sublieutenant Carle, and the sentence for such a crime is mercy or beating or branding. Do you—"

I had been trying for some time to interrupt; now I said rapidly, "Yes, I know all this. Soldier Sewell explained—"

I stopped; Carle had thrust his elbow into my ribs. I took a quick glance at his glowering face; then I looked over at Sewell, who had raised his eyes and was studiously watching the smoke disappear through a small hole in the ceiling. I bit my lip shut.

Payne said, as though I had not spoken, "Do you deny the charge?"

I looked hesitantly over at Carle. He nodded slightly, and I said, "I'm not sure— That is, I know that I'm guilty, but I wounded Fowler— I mean, I struck him under provocation. I think I did, anyway."

Carle hissed, "Do not look at me. Look at the judge."

I turned my attention back to the lieutenant. He was standing as still as before; only his cloak rustled from a breeze whistling through the doorway. Beside him, Payne said, "The prisoner pleads that he is guilty but states that his crime was done under provocation. Let the witness against the prisoner be called."

"Carle, Sublieutenant of the Border Mountain Patrol!" cried Devin in a booming voice.

Carle took one step forward, and I waited for him to speak, but the lieutenant's muteness seemed to have carried over to him as well, for he stood silently as Payne shuffled through some sheets in his hand. Then Payne said, "The witness against the prisoner is as follows—"

After a moment, I realized that Payne was reciting what Carle had seen after I attacked Fowler. The witness was dry and concise – so concise that it was over almost before it had begun, and Payne was soon saying, "Is this your witness against the prisoner?"

"It is," replied Carle in a voice as dry as his witness.

"Step forward, then."

Carle did so, and I watched with bewilderment as he took the scribing board and pen Payne offered him, and wrote something short on the page Payne had been reading. Then Carle stepped back and rejoined me.

My head was beginning to spin with uncertainty. I almost wished I was back in Koretia, being placed under trial for my broken vow. There, at least, I would have known what I was facing: a long, three-way argument between myself, my father, and the gods' representative, Fenton's successor. There would have been much shouting and no doubt tears as well, before the matter was settled, but at least I would have had the opportunity to defend myself. I was beginning to doubt that I would be allowed to do so here.

"Does any other witness stand in this court?" Devin paused, and I glanced to the where the other patrol guards were standing, but all of them continued to watch the proceedings silently. Devin cried, "The prisoner may offer his witness!"

"Address the judge," Carle whispered into my ear, perhaps doubtful by now that I could follow instructions unless they were repeated. "Keep to the point. Tell him only the relevant facts."

I wondered what the relevant facts were. I took a step forward awkwardly, cleared my throat, and said, "Sir, I—"

"Call him Judge," hissed Carle.

We proceeded slowly, me explaining that I had taken a blood vow to avenge the death of my blood brother, Carle correcting the manner of my witness at intervals. When we reached the point of the breaking of my blood vow, I hesitated, knowing that my next witness would condemn me in any trial of the gods' law. But I was here because I believed that the Emorians' law was a just law, so I told the entire tale of the breaking of my blood vow and of my decision to flee to Emor. I skipped forward to the moment when I struck Fowler with my dagger; then, having described that, I hesitated, uncertain.

The room was silent, but for the whistle of wind. The door of the hut had been eased further open by the wind's hand during the proceedings, and only the faint warmth of the fire ate away at the chill in my body. Yet sweat ran down my back.

The lieutenant had been utterly still during my witness, with no change of expression to help me assess what he thought of my tale. Now, in a voice as level as an altar, he said, "I wish to question the prisoner."

"The judge may interrogate you or the other witnesses if he has questions about the witness that has been given," Carle explained in a whisper.

Still with no movement but that of his mouth, the lieutenant asked, "If you had settled in another Koretian village, would your life have been in danger?"

I looked at Carle. He nodded, and I said, "If it was a village in the borderland, my family might have found me in the end. But if I'd travelled farther south— No, probably not."

"So you had a choice besides breaching the Emorian border."

I felt a lump forming in my throat, but I forced myself to say, "Yes."

"So you did not need to enter Emor in order to save your life."

"I didn't just come here to save my life— It was everything— I had to know— It was because of the law—" I abandoned my efforts and said in a dull voice, "No, I didn't have to enter Emor in order to keep from being killed."

The lieutenant allowed Payne barely enough time to scribe these words before he said, "You gave witness that you did not intend to harm any patrol guards. Why, then, did you strike Soldier Fowler?"

"I didn't mean to," I said miserably. "I was just frightened and – I didn't think. If I'd had time to think, I wouldn't have hurt him."

Another pause followed. Payne, I saw, was continuing to scribe all that the lieutenant and I were saying, while Devin appeared alert, apparently sensing the approach of the trial's end. Two of the guards had wandered over to the open doorway, as though fearing that I would attempt flight. There was a pause.

"I wish to give witness," said the lieutenant in a flat voice.

I stared. At my ear, Carle said, "The judge normally does not give witness, but if he believes that a judgment is in balance and that his own witness will tilt the balance, he is duty-bound to speak. You will have the opportunity afterwards to dispute the witness."

I acknowledged Carle's words with a nod, but my gaze had already fallen to the floor. I knew what witness the lieutenant would give. He was the only man who had seen me, not once, but twice with a blade drawn against him. This was the proof needed to condemn me as a dishonorable lawbreaker.

"On two occasions, the prisoner held a naked blade in his hand in my presence," said the lieutenant, his voice still curiously flat. "On both occasions, the prisoner discarded the blade rather than attack me, despite the fact that he was in imminent danger of capture. I offer this witness in support of the prisoner's witness that he did not intend to harm the patrol, and that his crime was undertaken without clear understanding of his deed."

Devin had been watching the lieutenant throughout his speech; now he turned to look at Payne and raised his eyebrows. Payne gave a slight shrug. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the other guards exchanging glances.

I felt moisture trickling down from my mouth and realized that my mouth was hanging open. I rubbed my face against my sleeve, began to speak, and closed my mouth again hastily.

I missed whatever signal the lieutenant gave Devin. Devin announced to the far corners of the hut, "The prisoner may speak."

"I don't understand," I said. My eyes were now on the lieutenant, trying to read from his expression or his pose what his thoughts were. "You spoke for me. You didn't have to say what you did. You could have remained silent. Yet I nearly killed one of your guards. If we were in Koretia, you'd have killed me. Why . . ." My breath failed me momentarily. "What made you do this? What made you help me?"

"I could have spoken out of fear," the lieutenant replied in the same formal voice he had used before. "If any of my men knew or suspected that I was omitting important witness in a case I was judging, they would be duty-bound to place a charge against me with the Chara's court summoners."

I was already shaking my head before he finished speaking; I had seen the guards exchange glances again. "I don't think it was that," I said. "I don't think you told the others what happened between us – at least, not about the last encounter between us. Nobody else knew – not the soldiers, not the Chara. No one knew, so why did you tell?"

I could not have said whether the lieutenant's voice was still formal, for when he replied, it was in a soft voice that barely reached me. "I knew," he said. "And if I had broken my vow to the Chara, I would have known."

The door must have blown all of the way open at that moment, for I felt a chill cover me as though the famous northern snows had fallen upon me. I understood then what Fenton tried to tell me a month ago: I knew then why it was that the Emorians had no need for vengeful gods. What were the gods but the creators and upholders of the gods' law? And what kept men from breaking the gods' law? Not fear of the gods and their vengeance – that hadn't stopped me from breaking my vow.

What kept men from breaking the gods' law was desire for honor. I knew that, I who had stripped myself of all honor five days ago and had lived in dishonor ever since. I could never have had the courage to do that if I had not suspected that a greater honor lay beyond the gods' law. Here, in the land where I had fled to, so great was men's sense of honor that they did not even require gods to peer into their spirits and bring vengeance upon them if they went astray. Their own sense of honor kept them from breaking the law – the true law, the Chara's law.

The lieutenant had been watching my face all this time. Now he said, "I will not give you false witness as to the nature of Emor; Emorians exist who will lie in court. Lying occurs in this land, and murder, and all the misdeeds you know in Koretia. This is the Land of the Living, not the Land Beyond; you will not find perfection in Emor."

"I'm not looking for perfect men," I said, my throat tight. "Just a law that makes men try to be perfect. I'm looking for a law worthy of honor."

The lieutenant simply looked at me. I could not tell whether or not I'd said the right thing. I no longer cared whether I said the right thing. I'd said the truth – and here, here in this court where truth meant honor, that was all that mattered.

o—o—o

He found me guilty through lack of clear understanding and sentenced me to forty lashes. I had half expected that, after the witness he gave me on my behalf, but even so I felt a mixture of sickness and relief when he handed down the sentence: Sickness that, so new to this land, I had already committed a crime. Relief that I had not been judged to be worse.

"Do you wish to appeal my sentence to the higher court?" the lieutenant asked as he slipped off his cloak and chain and gave them to Devin. In exchange, Devin offered him something that flashed grey-bright, like a lake. As the lieutenant pinned closed his neck-flap, I saw what the clasp was: a silver brooch, whose open metalwork depicted a mountain barred by a sword. Now that I looked closer, I could see that the same picture was faintly woven upon his right sleeve, black against black. And all of the other guards here – I saw at a quick glance – wore the same brooches, though the metal differed from person to person: either copper or dull iron. Carle wore a copper brooch. Only the lieutenant wore a silver brooch.

I looked back to see that the lieutenant was watching me levelly, and I remembered the question he had asked me. I had a sudden vision of myself in the Chara's court, being stared upon by the ruler of the Emorian Empire, his expression as cold as the lieutenant's, or even colder . . . "Please, no!" I blurted out.

Devin put his hand over his mouth, and for a moment I even thought I saw the lieutenant's mouth twitch. But the lieutenant simply said, "Then wait outside, please. Carle, a word with you." He turned aside from me.

I looked round, but everybody was avoiding looking at me. After a minute of staring uncertainly, I followed the order I'd been given and left the hut.

When I got outside, I went to the corner-post of the cottage and leaned against it, shivering in the sharp wind as I remembered all the beatings I had witnessed as a child. There weren't many; beatings are a serious matter in Koretia, inflicted only on serious criminals, such as thieves. I remember one such thief, sobbing as the whip lashed open his bare skin.

The sky was turning grey with dawn. I wondered whether any Koretians were taking advantage of this moment to slip over the border. Then I wondered why I had been allowed to leave the cottage alone. Surely I could easily slip away from the patrol and escape my punishment.

But no, if I travelled in the direction of Emor, the patrol's sharp-eared lieutenant would surely catch me again. If I travelled in the direction of Koretia . . .

That was why the lieutenant had allowed me to come out here alone, I realized: to give me the opportunity to run away, to turn my back on the Chara's law. I straightened my spine and waited.

After a few minutes, patrol guards began to leave the cottage, one by one. None of them looked my way. They disappeared into the tunnel, four of them; then there was a space of time in which I waited for Sublieutenant Carle to leave for his daily patrol as well, but he didn't come. I wondered whether he had decided to spend the day sleeping, after his exhausting hunt the night before.

The cottage door opened again, and a man exited. It was Carle. In his left hand was a flask, and in his right hand was a whip.

My breath left me all of the sudden, and my knees felt as though they would give way. So quickly departed the courage I had hoped would sustain me. Carle reached me just as I was sure I would fall to the ground. With a grim look on his face, he took hold of my arm, so hard that I yelped. His look turned to contempt.

He pulled me round to the side of the cottage. There, crammed between two rocks high up on the cottage wall, was a rusted whipping ring. Carle released me, and I looked hopefully at the flask; was it perhaps drugged wine, meant to dull the pain of my punishment? But Carle simply placed the flask on the ground and ordered me to strip to my loincloth. When I had done this, he bound my wrists to the ring with the now-familiar leather strap. I had to stand on my toes to reach the ring; its creator had evidently assumed that all prisoners would be of a full-grown height.

I looked over at Carle, who had shifted to the side in order to inspect his handiwork. There was nothing reassuring about his expression. He looked like a dueller who plans that the first blood he draws should be the last.

His gaze dropped down to me. "The lieutenant showed you pity," he said. "Expect none from me."

No reply could be made to such a statement, and so I remained silent. Carle stepped back. I was shivering hard now from the chill of the autumn wind against my bare skin.

Then his lash bit into my back, and my body blazed with pain.

Forty lashes, the lieutenant had said. I tried to count them, as a way to focus my mind on something other than the red pain that gnawed at my back like a hungry animal. Soon I was gasping; then I was sobbing; and then, without warning, night swept down upon me.

In the next moment, I learned the purpose of the flask, as Carle dashed the flask-water into my face. I came back to my senses, sputtering from the water that had made its way into my nose and mouth. I opened my eyes to see Carle looking at me. This time, his contempt took the form of a dark smile.

"What weaklings you Koretians are," he said. "The lieutenant, in his pity, gave you twenty fewer lashes than he would have given an Emorian, and you cannot even bear those."

I mumbled my reply, and Carle's smile disappeared. "What did you say?"

I was afraid that, if I wasn't clear this time, I would not have the courage to say it again, so I shouted my reply: "Give me sixty lashes!"

Carle's face was like a thundercloud. He moved out of sight, and his whip whistled through the air before it tore into my back.

I counted the lashes till they reached forty, and then I kept counting, and then I lost all awareness of anything but the lash, slicing into my flesh with sickening thoroughness. Somewhere, dimly, I could hear a voice, calling upon the God of Mercy, and I realized with horror that the voice was mine.

o—o—o

I don't remember how Carle got me back inside the cottage. He must have carried me, I suppose. The next thing I remember is hearing myself scream as my back touched the pallet. Somebody said something, and I was lifted. Wine was forced into my mouth, and I choked on it but forced myself to swallow the liquid, because I could taste the heavy drugs that I knew would ease my pain.

I was pushed back onto the pallet, gently this time, being placed on my side rather than my back. After a minute, I opened my eyes.

Carle was nowhere in sight. A patrol guard I hadn't seen before was kneeling beside me, cutting out bandages with his dagger. Above him, looking down at me, was the lieutenant.

"Well, Adrian," he said, "what do you think of the Chara's law now?"

There was no mockery to his tone. With effort, I whispered, "Will you let me enter Emor?"

I could barely hear my own voice, but he nodded slowly. "You have earned the right."

I wasn't sure what he was saying – whether he was saying that my punishment had earned me the right, or that my conduct at the trial had earned me the right. It didn't matter. For it had come to me that, whether or not he let me enter Emor, I had known the Chara's law, and had seen its justice. That was all that mattered. I could die now.

I said something of this, I don't know what – I must have been incoherent. But whatever I said caused the lieutenant to suddenly kneel by me and put his hand on my shoulder. He looked over at the guard beside me. "Gamaliel?" he said.

"He will live." Gamaliel didn't look up from where he was cutting bandages.

The lieutenant's hand tightened on my shoulder, as though the other man's answer truly mattered to him. Then he looked back at me. "Sleep, Adrian," he said. "Nobody will send you back to Koretia against your will. I swear that."

He was not the sort of man, I knew, to treat an oath lightly. I felt myself relax, and my head began to swim, and then I fell into the deepest sleep I had ever known.

CHAPTER TEN

The nineteenth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

I awoke this morning feeling well enough to get up and walk around. Gamaliel, who is the patrol's physician, grudgingly allowed me to do so; he has been clucking his tongue each day as he tends my back. He keeps telling me that he has seen beaten men with much worse wounds, but one time when he said this, I looked over my shoulder and saw him glaring in Carle's direction.

I'm becoming accustomed to the rhythm of the patrol schedule: the times when the patrol guards sleep, the times when they work, the times when talk and entertain themselves, and the times at dawn and dusk when the full unit gathers together to exchange information. During my first day spent in the patrol hut, I was barely aware of this rhythm, for I drifted in and out of my drugged sleep like a burrow-bird bobbing his head in and out of his earth-hole. Occasionally I heard snatches of conversation or laughter. Once I opened my eyes and saw all the guards except the lieutenant and sublieutenant standing stiffly against the hut wall; even the sublieutenant, though he was apart from the others, was poised as straight as a nobleman's blade as the lieutenant spoke. Such interludes, though, were brief. The bitter wine soon pulled me back into a blackness where I was grateful to flee, for my back felt as though it were being ridden by the sun.

My first full wakefulness, then, came a day and two nights later, when the hut was silent except for the soft snore of a guard nearby.

Some time during my sleep I had been transferred onto a cot, for I was several inches from the floor. I was still lying on my side. I shifted my eyes – the only part of my body I could bear to move – and looked around me. All about the room I could see the dark shapes of men lying on the floor on thin pallets, covered by the same sort of rough blankets that now covered my back and scratched at my wound bandages. Red embers, as small as demon's eyes, glowed from the central hearth, casting a light as dim as twilight shadows. I was placed close to the fire, facing toward the open hut door that pulled wind-whistles in from the mountains. A sound behind me, as soft as a sigh, almost caused me to jerk my head around, but in the next moment, the source of the sound came round to my front, looked down at me for a moment silently, then sat down on the floor in front of me. He was holding two cups and two long flasks, as tall as pitchers.

"Wild-berry or wall-vine?" asked Carle, holding the flasks forward for my inspection. "We drink both here in the mountains; you have your choice."

"What is wall-vine?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as low as Carle's so that I wouldn't wake the others.

"It's an Emorian wine."

"I'll take that one," I replied quickly. I was aware that I was being tested, but I would have made the same choice in any case. My father has no taste for Emorian wine, so this was the first time I had been granted the opportunity to taste an Emorian vintage.

It was hard to tell from Carle's expression whether I had passed the test. He handed me the flask; it was so warm to the touch that I knew he must have heated it by the central hearth-fire nearby, which was filling the room with a mist of smoke. Somewhere above us, the smoke-hole whistled from the night wind.

Carle was sitting to the side of the cot, so I had not even needed to raise my head in order to see him. Now, with a movement that sent pain down my spine like white lightning, I propped myself up on one elbow and sipped from the flask.

I tasted green meadows. Green meadows, and dew shining under the dawn sun, and just a touch of the sweetness found in white clover. I looked up at Carle, who was sipping silently from his own flask, and I said with surprise, "This is good!"

He didn't quite smile, but I thought I saw a spark of satisfaction flare in his eyes. "I've always thought so," he replied. "Of course, it takes some Koretians a while to adjust to wall-vine wine. A lot of them think that the taste is too bland."

I shook my head, sipping from the flask again. The wine was like cool water compared to the fire of wild-berry wine; it blended well with the soft breathing of the sleeping patrol guards and the hushed sigh of the wind. Faintly on the border of the wind, I heard a short whistle, and the whistled reply.

"I lied to you, you know."

My gaze returned to Carle. He had set the flask upright on the floor and was sitting more stiffly than before. When I made no reply, he said carefully, "Emorian judges have leeway in how hard a sentence they impose. The lieutenant could have given you anything between twenty and sixty lashes. He chose to give you forty lashes; it had nothing to do with you being Koretian."

My mind was still befogged with the drugged wine; I groped toward a coherent thought. When I still did not speak, Carle said, with his spine now as stiff as a black mountain, "I told the lieutenant afterwards what I'd done, and he called the patrol together so that he could give me a public reprimand. He said that, the next time I disobeyed his orders in such a manner, he'd have me stripped of my rank." There was a pause, during which a fire-breath of smoke passed between us; then Carle concluded, "He didn't tell me I must apologize to you, but that was obvious enough. So I'm sorry. I behaved in a manner unworthy of one of the Chara's soldiers."

I couldn't think of anything to say at first. I had thought that Carle was approaching me of his own free will, but now it appeared that he was talking to me only out of a sense of duty toward his official. Carle was still sitting as rigidly, as though he were pinioned to a wall, though, so I finally said, in a stumbling manner, "Well, that's all right. It doesn't matter."

Carle's face grew as dark as the Jackal's face. "Of course it matters!" he said in a voice that might as well have been a shout, though both of us had been speaking softly all this while. "I disobeyed my army official. My crime is greater than yours, since you owed no duty to Fowler."

"No, I mean— I only meant that I've done things wrong before too. Gone against my duty."

Something melted in Carle's spine. He reached forward for his flask, though his gaze remained upon me. "You mean your broken blood vow?" he said. "Would you like to tell me about that?"

I did, very much – that is to say, I had wanted for days now to ask another person's opinion of what I had done. If I had still owed any duty to the gods, I would have sought out a priest before this. Still I hesitated, not wishing to bore a stranger with my life's troubles.

In the end, I gave him the minimum he needed to understand my tale: my friendship with Fenton, Hamar's death, the blood feud, Fenton's death, my father and the blood vow, and finally, my moment of revelation concerning the gods. By the time I was through, the fire-logs had settled lower in their bed, and Carle had his legs spread out upon the floor.

He was silent for a while after I finished, and I felt a tightness in my chest, wondering how he regarded the revelation of how far my dishonor extended. His gaze remained fixed on his flask, untouched for some time, and then rose to meet mine. "I was thinking about Fenton," he said. "He was a good man; he didn't deserve to die that way."

"Well, yes . . ." I stopped, bewildered. Something deeper than sympathy for a stranger's death was etched into the lines of Carle's face.

He started to raise the flask to his lips, then abandoned it, saying softly, "Fenton was my father's slave. I'm the boy that Fenton told you about, the one who helped him escape." He took hold of the flask again, but did not raise it. "The lieutenant is Quentin, the other boy Fenton mentioned . . . though I don't advise you to call the lieutenant by his name. He comes from a long line of patrol guards named Quentin, and I don't think he likes to be reminded of his heritage."

"But . . ." My bewilderment had reached its peak; I had forgotten, now, the fire burning my back. "But Fenton said that his master's son lost his opportunity to join the patrol."

Carle shrugged. "The patrol is more forgiving than its reputation suggests; you've witnessed that for yourself. Of course, it helped that Quentin was willing to speak on my behalf."

I stared at Carle. His body was being licked by the flicker of the fire, turning his skin golden and highlighting the copper in his hair. There was a watchfulness to his eyes I had not noticed before, a patience that I guessed had been hard learned. I felt a shiver join the pain along my back as I remembered where I had seen that watchfulness last. I ought to have noticed before his resemblance to Fenton.

"But—" My voice staggered to a halt.

"Yes?" Carle turned his gaze toward the men around us. One of them murmured in his sleep, while another snored softly. At the front of the hut, the door was open a crack, and the smoke was edging through it.

"It seems so odd, you helping Fenton to escape to Koretia, then Fenton helping me escape to Emor, and us meeting this way . . ."

Carle shrugged, picking up his flask and running his fingers along the leather. "It's not so strange if you think about it. The patrol is the key in both cases. I was able to help Fenton escape because I wished to join the patrol, so I'd memorized the patrol whistles. You were nearly able to pass the patrol because of the patrol whistles I'd taught Fenton. It's just a coincidence." His gaze returned home to me. "I hope you're not going to say that it was the will of the gods that we met."

His brows were drawn low now; I wondered whether this was what lay behind his watchfulness. "I'm not a servant of the gods any more," I said quickly, as though that answered his question.

Carle nodded. His gaze fell to his flask, and he began tracing its outline once more. After a while, he said, "So . . . you've refused to murder an old friend, which means that your family believes that you've been cursed by the gods. If your family finds you, they'll murder you in order to please their gods. That's what it comes down to in the end?"

It was odd, hearing him describe my dilemma that way. Having witnessed for myself how the Chara's law worked, I could see now how the workings of the gods' law would appear to an Emorian, yet dimly I felt that Carle wasn't being entirely fair to the Koretian perspective on what I had done.

My hesitation must have seemed like unwillingness to speak of the shadow of my fate, for Carle didn't await an answer, but instead added, "So you're emigrating to Emor, both to escape your family and to live in a land where blood feuds are forbidden."

"Yes," I said, relieved that Carle understood. "I want to live under the Chara's law. The lieutenant . . . Quentin . . . he hasn't changed his mind about letting me enter Emor, has he?"

Carle shook his head, his gaze still carefully fixed on the flask. "Have you decided what you'll do there?"

"Find out more about the law," I said promptly.

The side of Carle's mouth twitched slightly. "I meant, have you decided what sort of work you'll take up? Are you trained for a trade?"

"No," I said, "not really." This was a matter that had begun to worry me in the day before I met the patrol. Absorbed as I had been by Fenton's tutoring, and confident that my family would continue to support me once I came of age, I had thought that there was no great rush in deciding upon my life's work. Then, with Hamar's death, it had seemed that the matter was decided for me. Now I was beginning to realize, with a chill, that I was in a position frightening for a young man of my age: I had no special skills, nor any money by which to apprentice myself. Could I perhaps work the fields, doing some lowly manual labor? And if so, would that leave me enough time to learn about the law? For my experiences at my trial had only whetted my appetite to learn more, and I was rapidly realizing that my need for food to feed my body was less than my need for the law to fill my spirit.

"We've been talking about you while you were asleep."

I looked up, startled out of my silence, to find that Carle's gaze was now speared upon me. He must have read the confusion in my expression, for he added patiently, "The patrol. We've been discussing you. Disagreeing about you."

"Oh?" I said faintly, unsure what this disagreement signified. Could it be that Lieutenant Quentin did not have the power alone to allow me to enter Koretia? Did the whole patrol have to vote on the matter?

"Yes." Carle's gaze rose up toward the rafters, where the smoke was rising. "We can't agree, you see, on your character. The majority of the guards are most impressed by your skill with a dagger, and by the way in which you almost managed to fool us. They say that your character is shown by your boldness and your determination. Quentin, though, disagrees; he thinks that your character is best shown by your behavior during your trial. He says that he has never before placed on trial a prisoner who showed so much honesty and so much thirst for knowledge of the law. As for myself— Well, you can guess what impressed me most."

He paused, and I wondered whether I was coming down with a fever; my skin had turned as hot as an oven. With his eyes still tilted up toward the dark ceiling, Carle concluded, "Though we can't agree on whether you're most distinguished in honor by your resolve or your love of the law or your courage, we're all agreed about one thing: that you should be offered the opportunity to join the patrol."

"The patrol?" My voice, which was still in the process of taking on manly tones, squeaked as I spoke, causing the guard nearest me to sigh and turn over. I lowered my voice and said, "But how could I—? I mean, I attacked a patrol guard— Surely it can't be that easy to join the patrol."

"Oh, it's not." My reaction had evidently reassured Carle, for he looked back down at me and sipped from his flask. I could see a spark of amusement in his eyes. "The Chara's border mountain patrol receives more applications for entrance than any other unit in the Emorian army; even though nine out of ten of the applications are rejected immediately, we still make it hard for qualified candidates to be accepted. For one thing, youthful vigor is needed for this sort of work, so all applicants must be between their sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays. You're qualified that way, aren't you?"

Something in his expression told me that he was hoping I would lie if I wasn't. "I am," I assured him. "The day Hamar was killed – that was my coming-of-age day, my sixteenth birthday."

Carle nodded. "You need to be skilled with your blade. Well, Fowler can give witness that you are qualified in that respect. You need to speak Common Koretian and be familiar with Koretian customs; that eliminates most of our candidates, but of course that isn't a problem for you. You even know the Border Koretian dialect, which few Emorians do. You need to be the sort of man who would show supreme loyalty to the Chara—" He stopped, reading something in my face, and said in a softer voice, "That's not something any of us can judge for ourselves. Quentin says you're qualified in that respect, and he's the best judge of men I know. . . . There are several dozen more qualifications, but I'll save time by saying that you qualify in all of the ways that matter. The question is . . ." He placed his flask on the floor and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "The question is whether you would want to join the patrol."

I suppose that my face must have been expressive, for Carle chuckled lightly. "I don't want to leave you with the impression that the border mountain patrol is like a light game of Hunter and Hunted."

I had no idea what he was talking about, but feared showing my ignorance, so I simply said, "I realize that the consequences for dealing poorly with a border-breacher can be deadly."

"Well, yes." For a moment, there was a twist to Carle's mouth that made my breath catch within my throat; then Carle turned, threw back onto the fire a branch that had slid off – we were that close to the flames – and said, "But the danger doesn't just come from the breachers. Adrian, the border mountain patrol is the oldest army unit in the world. Our origins go right back to the earliest days of Emor. So we have traditions, and we have a reputation to uphold. As a result, you're not going to find it easy to accept the strictness of the patrol's discipline. Quite frankly, even I find it a trial sometimes, and I'm as pure-blooded an Emorian as any man can be."

I was so stung by this implication that I lacked the necessary blood to be a patrol soldier that I said, without thinking, "There are no pure-blooded people in the Great Peninsula, other than in Emor's dominions. All of us share blood, right back to ancient times."

Carle lay down on the floor then and laughed. His laughter was quiet, and breathy, and a little sad. "Oh, my," he said finally, sitting up and brushing dust out of his hair. "It has been eleven years since I heard Fenton speak those words. How that brings back memories. . . . He was right, of course. I hear tale that some of the men in the Dominion of Marcadia set great store by the pureness of their family's blood, but there's less of that nonsense down in Southern Emor. Oh, I won't say that you'll be entirely free of taunts about your skin color or your accent or any number of other things. But it's not as bad as it would be in the dominions, where whether your hair is white or merely light blond really does make a difference in your standings among other people."

"I expect," I said, comforted by Carle's words, "that the dominion dwellers don't have a borderland to remind them of the old days."

Still brushing dust out of his hair, Carle said, "I meandered from the subject. What was I speaking of again?"

"Discipline," I replied. And then I added on impulse: "The patrol's law."

From the flash of the smile that Carle gave me, I knew that I had provided the right response. He began to talk then about the Law of the Border Mountain Patrol – of how, being isolated from the rest of Southern Emor, the patrol has the high honor of serving, not only as a unit of capture and discipline, but also as a court. The lieutenant holds the same role in the patrol as the Chara does in the empire, and the lieutenant's men serve like the Chara's council. Indeed, the lieutenant is required by law to formally consult with his men on matters of severe discipline of a patrol guard, before passing sentence.

"But the lieutenant tries to keep matters from reaching the point where he must place high discipline upon a soldier." Carle fiddled with his wine flask; he hadn't drunk from it since our conversation grew more serious. "I'll give you an example. There's a certain soldier in the unit; I won't give his name—" He stopped, smiled, and said, "No, I will. If you're joining us, you need to know such matters. Chatwin just became a member of the unit this summer – he's our newest member – and on his first hunt, he balked at an order that the lieutenant gave him that would have placed him in danger. Sheer nerves; all of us undergo this at some time or another. But that left the lieutenant with a difficult choice: he could beat Chatwin for his disobedience, or he could rebuke him."

So absorbed had I become in Carle's tales that I had nearly forgotten the bodily pain that weighed me down, like a heavy blanket. Now it came upon me again, and it was a moment before I could find the strength to say, "A rebuke doesn't sound like much of a punishment."

Carle emitted his soft chuckle. "You've never been rebuked by the lieutenant. But yes, it was the lesser punishment . . . in a way. In a way, Not. For the army laws say that, if a soldier is rebuked and then commits the same crime again – in this case, blatant disobedience to orders – he must receive the highest possible punishment for his crime. Otherwise, you see, the lieutenant has more flexibility in choosing how high a sentence to give to a prisoner he is trying."

He was trying to avoid my eye now, which made me smile. "That's all forgotten. You've had your rebuke from the lieutenant; I'm not going to give you another one."

My voice must have sounded firm, for the look Carle gave me then was a mixture of amusement and respect. "I was wondering when that diffidence of yours would begin to peel away."

"Oh. Well." I scraped at the dirt floor with my fingernail, suddenly shy again. "It's proper for me to be diffident, isn't it? If I'm to join the patrol, I'll be the lowest-ranked member of the unit."

Carle shrugged. "Maybe."

I began to rise up to see his face better, then immediately regretted it as pain clawed its way down my spine. "Only maybe?" I said breathlessly as I lowered my body.

"In the patrol, rank is based on merit rather than seniority. Quentin's partner Devin is third in rank here, even though he only joined us last spring."

I understood what he was saying: that it was unlikely I would ever rise above the lowest-ranking position in the guard, having had the disadvantage of not being raised as an Emorian. But that didn't matter to me; just to join the patrol was privilege enough. So I couldn't resist saying, "You're second-ranked. How long have you been in the patrol, in relation to the others?"

He glared at me then, as though I had just pulled a slave-mask from his face. "I'm nineteen," he said gruffly. "That's all you need to know."

That meant he had been in the patrol for three years, which was, I was quite sure, less than some of the other patrol guards I'd seen, if they all joined the patrol when they were sixteen. I kept my mouth shut, since it was clear that Carle's own distinguished service as a soldier was the one topic he was not prepared to discuss.

After a moment more of pulling out the stopper in his wine flask, pushing it in, and examining the leather, Carle said, "You'll need a partner."

"Does the lieutenant assign me one?" I asked.

"No. That's one of the patrol traditions. The new patrol guard must find a guard who's willing to take him as his partner. It's a serious choice. Even though the lieutenant juggles around the partnerships whenever needed . . . Well, it's like being married at a time when warfare is taking place. That's the only way I can describe it. Your back is bare to a border-breacher's blade unless your partner is willing to protect you. The trust needs to be high between two guards who partner together, or else they're all too likely to fall into the most common patrol tradition."

"Which is?"

Carle's mouth quirked. "Death. Most patrol guards die within two or three years. Are you sure that you want to join a unit where the odds are against you surviving?"

The firewood settled in its bed. One of the patrol guards was snoring lightly. Through the door, I could hear faint whistles in the wind. And very far off, I thought I could hear the howl of a jackal.

It's odd how death has become so close a companion to me since my birthday. I never expected it to be that way. I grew up on tales of feuds and duels, yet I had always thought of myself as immune from the Jackal's reach. Others might need to pass through that fire, but not me.

I've heard that the presence of death exhilarates some men. Presumably, such men haven't angered the Jackal. The thought of meeting his claws in just a short time, of feeling his fire – or, since I would reject the cleansing of his fire, to be sent to eternal coldness. . . .

"Being a man means seeing death on the horizon and not flinching," I said softly, more to myself than to Carle. "Fenton met his death without flinching. And I . . . I think I could bear anything except seeing the execution dagger in my father's hand." I looked up at Carle, who was sitting very still and silent through this recital. "Carle," I said, as though we were old friends sitting around a fire reminiscing, "I know that I'm the last person who should ask for this honor . . . but would you be willing to be my patrol partner?"

Carle was silent for a minute longer, long enough for me to realize my audacity in asking such a favor from a soldier whose partner I had nearly killed. Then slowly, ceremonially, he held out his flask of wine.

I had no idea what type of ceremony he was alluding to. But the basic message behind his gesture was clear. I reached out my hand and took the wine and drank from it.

And that is how I joined an army unit where my life is not likely to be long. But it was a clean decision, pure and joyful, unlike my decision to become a blood-feud hunter.

Law Links 3

GOD OF MERCY

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The twenty-second day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

Carle and I are on our way to Emor. Carle says that the Capital City of Emor isn't far from the border – only half a day's walk – but we're forced to proceed slowly, as we are pulling a cart that carries Fowler.

Gamaliel drugged Fowler for the journey, for which I am grateful, as I'm sure that I'm the last person Fowler would want as his escort. It's necessary that I accompany Carle on this trip, though, because I must be approved for the patrol by the Captain of the Home Division.

"It's purely a formality," Carle assured me as we reached the final ridge leading down into the Emorian borderland. "The patrol selects its own guards and takes care of its own. Captain Wystan's only duty is to intervene in important disciplinary cases. I'm sure that the captain is more than happy to leave the patrol's activities in Quentin's hands; Wystan already supervises three divisions. The Home Division," he explained, without waiting for me to ask. "That's the division which guards the city and palace if the vanguard should be withdrawn from the palace grounds due to war. The Border Division – not just the mountain patrol, but all of the border guards of the empire. And the Division of Disclosure – that's made up mainly of spies."

"Spies?" I said, turning my head. We've been taking turns driving the hand-cart: one person pulls at the front while the other pushes at the back. Carle's face was covered in sweat, and his red hair had turned black where it clung to his forehead.

"Spies," said Carle with a grin. "You'll meet those eventually. So what do you think of our palace?"

I swung my head around, as rapidly as though I had heard a breacher creeping up behind me. There, falling away under our feet, was the final stretch of bare mountain, followed immediately and abruptly by a carpet of autumn-brown fields, neatly divided by stone walls. Not a tree was in sight – this was the first thing I noticed, as I suppose it is the first thing that any newcomer to Emor notices. But my puzzlement was soon replaced by a hollow pit in my stomach, for spread across much of the horizon was the curving grey wall of the Emorian capital. The city was built on an upswelling of the land, and I could see little grey houses clustered within the great walls. Rising above them all, ringed by two more walls, was a steep hill of immense proportions. It looked as though it could house all the armies of the Three Lands and still have room for the barbarian armies. Yet the whole of its crown was capped by a shining white building. It looked, I thought, like the palace of the gods within the City of the Land Beyond.

I became aware that Carle was standing beside me; he was pulling from his pack the food for our noonday meal, while watching me, a smile on his face. I cleared my throat and said, "It's a bit larger than the buildings I've seen before."

Carle laughed then and said, "A bit more intimidating, you mean." I nodded. "Well, you'll have to overcome your fear soon," he said. "This time tomorrow, you'll be standing inside that building."

I gulped and looked back at the palace, blazing white like the sun at noonday. "We're going inside the Chara's palace? Why? I thought you said that the army camp was located next to the palace."

"On the northern side of the palace grounds," Carle confirmed, leaning over the cart to check on Fowler. "But of course we have to enter the palace. You still want to give your oath of loyalty to the Chara, don't you?"

His face was serious; his expression mildly inquisitive. Perhaps he was wondering, from the expression on my own face, whether I was going to faint on the spot. "Carle," I whispered, "you don't mean . . ."

"Oh, didn't I mention that?" he said lightly, handing me my share of the bread. "Border mountain patrol guards, like all other members of the special divisions, have the honor of being under the Chara's immediate care. Strictly speaking, Captain Wystan isn't our high official; the Chara is. Naturally, one can't expect the Chara to supervise the everyday activities of the division; Captain Wystan does that, in the Chara's name. So you'll never meet the Chara – except when you give him your oath. It's no worse than meeting the King. You've done that, of course?"

"Carle, I've never— That is, when I was young— But I was only a babe in arms when my grandfather died and my father—" It is perhaps just as well that I lapsed into Border Koretian at this point, and no doubt incoherent Border Koretian, for in the next moment I noticed the laughter struggling behind Carle's face, and I realized that he was teasing me about my prior contact with royalty. So we both burst into laughter, and by the time we were through, the moment was past, and our talk had turned to other subjects. It occurred to me afterwards, though, that I gave Carle a very hasty summary of the events leading up to my arrival in Emor, and perhaps I didn't tell him as much as I should have. But there's plenty of time for that. Right now, my mind is too filled with the powerful oath of loyalty I will give tomorrow. Finally, and for all time, I will be free of the blood-lusting gods.

o—o—o

We've paused again on our journey. I had thought that Carle would hire a pony to pull the cart, once we reached the Emorian borderland, but we passed through the borderland without stopping at the villages, and eventually I realized the obvious. Quentin could easily have hired a merchant and his horse-cart to bring Fowler back to Emor's capital; merchants pass by us every day. He must have chosen this manner of travel so that Carle could test my physical endurance. This drove from my mind any temptation to complain about the heavy travelling.

We're taking the journey in easy stages, though, and we're presently sprawled under the afternoon sun, all except Fowler, whose cart is under the shade of the only tree we have passed during our journey.

Carle is an arm's length from me, lying on his back with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed, though I've no doubt that he would leap to his feet with blade in hand if he heard the slightest sound of danger. Between us is the flask of wine we've been sharing. It has occurred to me since I wrote my last entry in this journal that, while Carle doesn't know everything about me, I too know very little about Carle. Fenton almost never spoke of his slave years, and all that I know from him about Carle was that the young boy whom Fenton tutored was clever and loyal and courageous and affectionate in a reserved manner. I've learned all of that on my own. I wish I knew more about Carle – about his weaknesses especially – for I'm dreadfully afraid of doing something that will hurt him and build a wall between us.

Yesterday, for example, the patrol brought Fowler out of the hut's storage room, where he had been lying since his wounding. He was groggily conscious at that time, and I felt uncomfortable being in his presence, so I went into the storage room to see what lay there.

I'd never seen a room that was filled with so many items. Iron shelves jutted out from the stone walls, from floor to ceiling; I could dimly see them in the lamplight. Stacked on the shelves, in an orderly manner, were food supplies, bowls and spoons, fire-pots, swords, whetstones, boots, blankets, bandages and dried medical herbs, splints, fire-flints, firewood, a death mask . . .

I asked Devin about this last item when he entered the storage room a short time later, in order to fetch a fresh linen cloth for Fowler. "That is Sublieutenant Carle's notion," he explained, pouring wine into a flask from one of the kegs. "When we execute Emorian prisoners, we send their bodies back to Emor for burial, but we burn Koretian bodies here and spread their ashes. That is why the ground around the hut is so fertile – it contains a thousand years' worth of dead Koretians. The sublieutenant thought our relations with Koretia would be better if we burned the bodies in the Koretian manner: placing death masks over the corpses' faces, reciting one of Koretia's less disagreeable death rites . . ."

He gave a disarming smile as he said this. He was speaking in Border Koretian, which was kind of him, so I took the opportunity to ask him what it means when an Emorian shares his wine with another person.

His smile disappeared then, and he gave me a look that I could not interpret, but he answered my question readily enough, even though it took me time to realize what he was saying.

When he did, my breath was driven out of my body by the realization of what Carle had offered me. The Emorian reader for whom I began writing this journal, if he has not long since disappeared, must have been shaking his head during the past couple of entries, wondering at the ignorance of Koretian-born men. Truly, how could I have known? But I understand now what Fenton meant when he said that the Emorians don't take blood vows. After all, a life-binding vow need not be exchanged through blood. It could just as easily be exchanged through wine – and could be just as binding.

I was thinking all this through after Devin left, and was feeling the weight of what had happened fall upon me, when I noticed that Carle was standing at the door to the storage room, watching me with a serious expression. I was tongue-tied for a moment. What do you say to a new blood brother when you had not even known that you had exchanged blood? The matter was taken out of my hands a moment later, as Carle spoke.

"Now that you're well again," he said in a firm voice, "I suppose we'd better start your patrol training, and part of that training consists of learning the law. The first thing you need to understand is the concept 'without clear understanding,' which played such an important role in your trial. It's more than simply a trial sentence; it's a term that pervades the whole of the Chara's law. The premise behind it is that no man can be condemned by the full force of the law unless he deliberately breaks the law, and that requires him to understand that he is breaking a law. Likewise, no man can keep the law in full unless he understands the law that he is keeping. Thus, Emorian law declares that an oath is not binding upon a man if he does not understand, at the time of his oath-taking, what vow he is making . . ."

Carle continued in this vein for several minutes. Gradually, it dawned upon me that Devin had reported to him what I had asked, and that Carle was telling me, in as tactful a manner as possible, that I need not consider myself his wine-friend, because I had not understood what he was proposing at the time he offered me his wine.

It was an awkward moment. Because Carle had spoken in the way he had – rather than raise the subject overtly, as Fenton or Hamar would have done – I tried to answer in the same way, making clear to Carle, through my comments about the law, that I would have accepted the wine in any case and that I was honored and overwhelmed to learn that he wished us to be bound in this way. But I had no practice in this type of sideways speech, and after a while, I found myself falling into helpless laughter.

Carle looked deeply hurt at first, as though I had pulled my blade on him while his back was turned, but after I explained, he grinned and said, "I suppose there's something to be said for Koretian forthrightness."

So then I poured wine into one of the flasks from the shelves, and this time I was the one who offered the wine, and everything was all right after that. But it made me wonder in how many ways I have hurt Carle's feelings since my arrival, without clear understanding of what I was doing. I have so much to learn about being an Emorian.

o—o—o

The twenty-third day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

I'm writing this entry under candlelight; it is not quite dawn yet, though from where I sit, next to the window, I can see the sky turning violet above the stone houses of the city. A few men are walking about already, all unarmed; my ears still burn when I remember Carle's laughter yesterday when he noticed how I gaped at such men. Yet I think he understood my reaction better than anyone else would – certainly better than our host would have.

Yesterday evening, after we had delivered Fowler safely to the city physicians, I thought that we would proceed directly to the army camp, but Carle shook his head. "Never disturb an army official when he is off duty," he said. "That's the first rule you should learn as a bottom-ranked soldier. Of course, that rule doesn't apply to me and the lieutenant, since we're always on duty alert, but other army officials appreciate their leisure time. We'll see Wystan in the morning. In the meantime, I'd like you to meet Neville."

Neville, it turns out, is the palace clerk I heard Carle talking about several days ago; he was a mountain patrol guard for a year. "He's the eldest son of a town baron," Carle explained as we wound our way through the market, drawing stares from passersby who noticed Carle's uniform and sword. "He doesn't stand on ceremony, though. He considers himself to be just another patrol guard."

I'm glad Carle explained this to me; I never would have guessed otherwise.

We sat a little while later in Neville's living chamber, surrounded by a dozen lamps. Made of glass. I'd never seen glass before, but Carle assured me that that was what they were. Certainly the lamp-glass made the light much brighter than if the candle-flames had been shining through horn, which allowed me to appreciate in full measure the rich tapestries, satin cushions, gilded plaster, and jewel-spangled wine cups. No less than six servants hovered at our sides, offering imported Koretian wine, delicate pastries from Emor's Central Provinces, and Marcadian berries that exploded with flavor when one bit into them. The only missing objects of richness were Daxion nuts, and Neville apologized for their absence.

"My father has cut down on my allowance," he explained with a cheerful smile as he held his cup carelessly to the side. The servant next to him promptly stepped forward to pour the wine. "I think he wants to encourage me to work harder as a clerk so that I can win my elevation – hence the incentive. And here I've been promising for three years to introduce you to the delights of fine eating, Carle."

"There's no hurry, sir." Carle, much to my surprise, was sitting relaxed among the opulence, barely glancing at the servants, but his voice had taken on the same tone it did when he was receiving orders from Quentin. "This winter will be soon enough to begin my introduction to the decadent ways of civilian life."

Neville laughed appreciatively before turning to address one of the servants, who had brought forward a new wine bottle for inspection. I was sitting on a couch next to Carle; I took the opportunity to whisper into his ear, "I thought you said that Neville was a bottom-ranked soldier. Why do you keep calling him 'sir'?"

I decided afterwards that patrol-level whispers should be spoken only when the room does not contain third parties who formerly served as patrol guards. Neville turned instantly, his eyebrows shooting toward the mosaic ceiling.

His voice was even, though, as he said, "Rank is always a difficult subject for Koretians to master."

I felt Carle stir beside me, clear his throat, and then draw breath and hesitate, as though reviewing in his mind the text of a book entitled, "How to Rebuke the Man You Have Just Called 'Sir.'" His face must have reflected what he was thinking, for Neville quickly added, "My apologies. I meant 'Koretian-born Emorians,' of course."

"But we have ranks in Koretia," I said, then added belatedly, "sir."

Neville smiled then, the laughter lines crinkling in his face. He is eighteen, a year younger than Carle, but the wave of the hand with which he dismissed the servants was so authoritative that I began to wonder whether I had misheard what Carle had told me.

"Certainly you have rank in Koretia," he said. "You have slaves, lesser free-men, lesser . . . No, you tell me. What ranks do the Koretians recognize, and what do the titles signify?"

It was then that I began to feel acutely uncomfortable and to wish that I'd taken more opportunity to talk with Carle during our journey. But I replied obediently, "Slaves are . . . Well, they're slaves. Lesser free-men are free but not noble. Lesser noblemen are village barons and their heirs. High noblemen are rulers, lords, town barons, and their hei— Oh, I see." I felt my ears grow warm.

Neville made no further reference to the matter, though the look he gave me managed to convey the fact that he expected me to be grateful for his mercy. Instead, he turned his gaze toward Carle and said, "That reminds me, Carle. Last week, the Chara handed down a new decision which was meant to settle the question of whether honorary lords are equal in rank to council lords."

"But it didn't settle that question, sir?" Carle leaned forward; I caught a glimpse of the spark in his eyes.

"Apparently the Chara's clerk and the council law researchers have been working late into the night to try to decipher the implications of the decision. Part of the decision, you'll be interested to hear, cites titles given to members of the royal family over the years, and another part of the decision rests on the question of whether a younger son automatically becomes heir to a nobleman if the eldest son dies. Apparently that issue ties in with the question of whether honorary lords are under the care of the Chara or whether, as the lordship of dominion governors would appear to suggest, they are in fact under the care of the Great Council—"

"Was the decision of the Chara Rufus's reign mentioned, sir?" Carle broke in. "I understand the Chara cited that in a case eight years ago, when he confirmed that the heirs of cousins in the royal family normally cannot inherit nobility – not that that needed to be confirmed. But that case also dealt with the question of whether being under the immediate care of the Chara brings obligations of special duty—"

I lost track of what was being said after that. Instead, I was noting how swiftly Carle turned the conversation from the general discussion that Neville had begun, transforming it into a minute examination of past court cases dating back to the early years of Emor. Within a short while I was dazed, and I think Neville must have been as well, for he eventually leaned back in his chair, gave an indulgent smile, and said, "We don't want to discuss law matters too difficult for your partner to follow, Carle. Perhaps Adrian has a question or two about what we've been discussing?"

It was a generous remark, and it was aimed entirely, I could guess, at having me ask the ignorant questions that Neville himself was afraid to voice. I didn't dare look Carle's way, but I saw the steady manner in which he set down in his cup on the marble table before him, and I knew that he too had guessed Neville's motives for turning the conversation toward me.

It was in my spirit to ask Neville the question that was really bothering me – why he baroned his rank over Carle when Carle knows so much more about the law than he does – but instead I said, in a voice that was a tad bit too cool, "I was still wondering about Emorian rank, sir. Forgive me for my great ignorance of such matters, but I don't understand why what we discussed before has any application to this evening's conversation, since we're meeting in private and are not discussing official matters."

Neville lifted his eyebrows again; this time a sardonic smile was on his face. "Carle," he said, "can you make any sense of your partner's thoughts? I confess that his reasoning is somewhat high for me."

"I'm afraid I can, sir." There was genuine regret in Carle's voice, and I realized, with a lowering of heart, that this must mean I had acted the fool. "In Koretia, rank is linked with duty, so that when a nobleman is off-duty – when he is meeting privately with friends, for example – he will address the friends as though they were his equals."

"Ah." It was amazing how, in that single syllable, Neville managed to convey his full opinion of Koretian barbarities. "Well," he said, his voice taking on the tone of a schoolmaster, "matters are different here in Emor. Here in Emor, if you meet a nobleman— No, perhaps we should explain this by way of the law. Carle?" The largesse of his gesture conveyed the impression that he could easily explain the matter himself but was allowing his inferior guest the honor.

"Let's take a court case," Carle replied. "A lesser free-man strikes another lesser free-man. He is judged to have acted without clear understanding. What sentence does the judge give him?"

I felt warmth run through my body as though it were a Koretian summer night rather than a cool Emorian evening. It was not simply that Carle had mentioned the case without revealing to Neville that I had been the prisoner. It was that he had mentioned the only law I yet knew, thus allowing me the opportunity to display my knowledge before Neville, who was so sure of my Koretian ignorance.

"Twenty to sixty lashes," I said in a casual voice. "In most cases, forty lashes would be the sentence – unless, of course, the man was a soldier and had previously been sentenced to a rebuke."

I noticed the slight intake of Neville's breath, but he covered it quickly by sipping from his wine and then saying, "The same man has struck a nobleman, rather than striking a lesser free-man. What is his sentence?"

I hesitated, trying to guess the nature of this trap; I dared not look Carle's way. Finally I said hesitantly, "Sixty lashes?"

Neville allowed himself to flash a tight smile of triumph before replying, "Branding."

"But—" I stopped short, aware that any protests I babbled now would be scored on Neville's inner chart of victory. In the end I said, in a carefully controlled voice, "I see. The crime is considered worse because the man who has been attacked holds greater duties."

"No." To my distress, exasperation filled the voice of Carle. "The prisoner was given a higher sentence because the man he attacked was above his rank. That's the only reason. The nobleman in question could have been an imbecile, unfit to carry out any duties, and the crime would still have been considered great."

"But . . ." This time I turned toward Neville in genuine bewilderment. "Is that fair? The crime is the same in both cases. It shouldn't matter what title the victim holds."

Neville relaxed back into the softness of his armchair. I sensed that my consternation had cleansed him of his earlier annoyance. "It works the opposite way as well, though," he said. "If I struck you, a lesser free-man, then I would receive a higher sentence than Carle would if he struck you. My rank offers me greater protection against crimes against myself, but it also burdens me with greater responsibilities toward those of lesser rank. That's why you don't see Emorian noblemen being placed on trial very often," he added with a quick smile. "There just aren't sufficient rewards for committing a crime if you're a nobleman."

I sat staring at him in the flickering white light of the cut-glass lamps, watching sparks flare up periodically in the gilt of the plaster, and listening to the logs moan in the weariness of the late evening. Beside me, Carle said with urgent passion, "Adrian, listen. Tomorrow you will give your oath to the Chara. Would you strike him under any circumstances? Even if he were off-duty? And would you complain if you were given a higher sentence for a crime against him than you would receive for committing a crime against me?"

I felt a deep stillness enter into me then, one I hadn't felt for many weeks – one I hadn't felt since the last time Fenton and I spoke. I understood. Not for the reasons that Carle had mentioned; I understood because Fenton and I had talked about this many times. About loving the gods. About loving them without reserve and accepting without complaint the mercy and vengeance they gave. And most of all – this was something Fenton told me, and I doubt any other priest would have said it – about taking that love and acceptance and giving it to all the people around you, as a sign of your love for the gods.

All of that is false, I now know; the gods are evil, and they care nothing for love. For many weeks now that knowledge has been an emptiness inside me, longing to be filled. And now I had learned that what Fenton had said was true – not about the gods, but about the Chara. Fenton must have taken what he learned in Emor as a child and applied that knowledge to the gods, trusting them to be as honorable as the Chara who had once been his ruler. Fenton was wrong about the gods, but he was not wrong about the Chara, and now I could take all that he had taught me and put it to use.

"I see." I looked at Carle, forgetting that Neville was there. "You serve those above you in rank in the same way that you serve the Chara, and they care for you in the same way that the Chara does. To serve and care for each other is a way of showing your loyalty to the Chara."

Carle said nothing; he only smiled. I don't even remember how the conversation turned after that. But what I've decided – and I must finish this entry quickly, for I can hear the others stirring from their sleep – is that it doesn't matter what my life was like in the past, and I needn't tell Carle anything that might discomfit him. Anything good that happened to me in the past is here with me now, as I serve the Chara.

The rest can be forgotten.

o—o—o

The twenty-fourth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

I have had the greatest disappointment of my life: I am not going to be able to meet the Chara after all.

"His schedule is too busy at the moment, I fear," explained Captain Wystan when we met with him yesterday morning. "He is preparing for the wedding of his young sister – an important wedding from the point of view of the law, since the groom will become second in line for the throne, after the Chara's son. Or is he third in line? Carle, you know these matters better than I do."

He had raised his voice to be heard above the rain. Yesterday's storm came on with a suddenness that startled me; winds pulled dark clouds from the north as quickly as though they were a vanguard army on the move. Fortunately, the army tents are waterproof – the Emorian engineers are just as skilled as I'd always heard – so only a trickle of rain came though a gap in the tent where part of the cloth didn't overlap properly. The tent's brazier was blazing fiercely when we arrived, so that Carle and I, still soaked from the rain, were able to warm ourselves. This was in fact the first order I received from Wystan, which says much about the man who will be my high official.

Carle was in the process of hanging our wet cloaks from one of the interior tent poles. He turned immediately and said, "Second in line, sir, since the Chara Anthony has no brother. The line of succession is son, grandson, son-in-marriage, brother, brother-in-marriage, uncle, and nephew."

"And cousin," said Wystan with a smile. "We must not forget the Chara's cousins."

"The succession is unlikely to fall that far, sir," Carle replied stiffly.

Wystan raised an eyebrow, but merely replied, "Unlikely, yes, since the Chara's son will doubtlessly produce an heir of his own soon. At any rate, my old captain says that Lord Nicholas gives the appearance of being a happily married man." Seeing my puzzled look, he added, "The Chara's son, Lord Nicholas, is presently living in Marcadia, assisting the subcommander of the Marcadian Army. I am originally from that dominion, as you will have guessed."

I hadn't guessed, for I'd assumed that his white hair came from old age; Wystan appears to be approaching his sixtieth year. But now I remembered Sewell's white hair, and I realized that Wystan must be the second Marcadian I've met. I had a sudden vision of the whole of the Emorian Empire, stretching from Southern Emor on through the Central Provinces and up to the northern dominions of Marcadia and Arpesh, with nothing beyond them except the ice-bound mainland, where the barbarians live. . . . A moment later, I discovered that my breath was still caught by the wonder of it. All that land, bound in peace by the Chara's law. If only the lands to the south of Emor . . .

I woke from my dreaming then as I caught sight of Carle, cloaked once more, ducking through the tent flap, and I realized that Wystan must have asked him to leave so that he could talk with me alone. My stomach tightened.

In fact, the interview was relaxed. The hardest part was explaining about my blood vow. When I'd finished, Wystan nodded and said, "Your lieutenant is right in believing that your broken vow is no barrier to your joining the Emorian army. From an Emorian point of view, you showed more honor by breaking your vow than you would have shown by keeping it. In any case, the law takes no notice of crimes committed in another land, unless those crimes are against the Chara's law as well." He leaned back in his chair. We were both seated, and Wystan had moved his chair out from behind his small desk so that we would be closer together and so that our conversation could not be overheard by Carle and Wystan's orderly, who were conversing outside the tent.

"Do you have questions of your own?" Wystan asked. "I know that Carle is well qualified to answer questions you have about the patrol, but if you have any general questions about the army, I would be glad to answer them."

I frantically searched my mind for an appropriate question. Fortunately, the sun shone forth at that moment, and a shaft of light travelled through the tent gap, onto Wystan. His neck-brooch shone like a reflection of the sun.

"I was wondering about the brooches, sir," I said, with my eye on the gold brooch before me. "Most of the patrol guards wear iron brooches, but a few of them – including Sublieutenant Carle – wear copper brooches, and Lieutenant Quentin wears a silver brooch. I asked Sublieutenant Carle about this, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it."

"I am hardly surprised," said Wystan. "Your sublieutenant is a modest man." He rose to his feet, and after a moment I realized that I ought to do the same, and so I jumped up and watched as Wystan walked over to close the gap in the tent covering. As he did so, he said, "The brooches are awarded by the subcommander of the Emorian Army for honor and courage. The copper brooch is for great honor, and if a soldier should distinguish himself a second time, he is presented with a silver brooch for greater honor."

"And the gold brooch is for greatest honor," I said, keeping my gaze fixed on Wystan's brooch.

Wystan laughed then as he tossed dirt onto the brazier to douse the flames. "Do not assume that my brooch is higher in honor than Sublieutenant Carle's. Each unit in the Emorian Army establishes its own criteria for what constitutes honor, and the brooches are presented accordingly. I received my brooch in the regular army, which has lower standards than the special divisions – that is to say, the vanguard, the Border Division, and the Division of Disclosure. The highest standards of all exist in the border mountain patrol, with good reason. If we awarded brooches to patrol guards on the same basis that other soldiers are honored, every patrol guard would be awarded a gold brooch before the end of his first year. Those who were still alive, that is." His gaze slid over to me.

I recognized what he was telling me – not only that the honor of being a patrol guard was the greatest, but also that the danger was the greatest. I did my best to straighten my back and look like the type of man who fearlessly faces death. The results must have been amusing, because a smile flickered across Wystan's face, quickly suppressed.

I abandoned the effort and asked, "What type of act brings such an award in the patrol, sir?"

"Acts that are in the tradition of the patrol," he replied promptly, seating himself once more. "That is to say, acts which no man with the slightest amount of sanity would perform. If you were to fling yourself unarmed onto a blade-wielding breacher, without the faintest hope that you would survive the encounter, that might earn you an honor brooch. I say 'might,' because your act would need to have been witnessed by at least two other guards, while at least two-thirds of the patrol – including one of its officials – would need to have agreed that your act was a model for other patrol guards." He smiled as I reseated myself on a stool. "Even so, the border mountain patrol is the most heavily honored unit in the Chara's armies. The patrol shields its honor jealously, and it admits no man to its ranks unless the patrol believes that he will match the honor of past guards."

I thought of my broken vow; and of Fowler, lying wounded in the city physicians' house; and of myself, standing trial for my crime; and I felt the darkness of the day lower itself upon me. I was still trying to figure out how to save Wystan the words he must say next when he added softly, "Which is why I consider it one of my greatest privileges to welcome to the Emorian army those men whom the patrol believes meet those standards. Here is your own brooch, which, I assure you, shines more brightly in the eyes of the world than my own." And he placed into my hand an army brooch of dull iron.

So then he called Carle back into the tent to be witness, and I gave my oath of loyalty to the Chara by way of Wystan, and afterwards I couldn't remember why I had felt disappointed at the beginning of the visit.

o—o—o

The twenty-fifth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

Today I, Soldier Adrian of the Border Mountain Patrol of the Emorian Army of the Chara's Imperial Armies, was fitted for a uniform.

Actually, it doesn't look much different from the lesser free-man's tunic I was wearing before. I was also fitted for boots, and afterwards Carle took me to the armory so that I could select my blades.

"You have your choice," explained Carle, handing me a sword. "Have you ever had a close look at an Emorian-style blade?"

I examined carefully the sword. It was heavier than any I'd held before, and the hilt was guarded by curving metal that was evidently meant to protect the hand.

"I like this better than Koretian-style swords," I said, moving the sword from side to side to check its balance.

Carle nodded. "I thought you might. I prefer Koretian swords myself, because of their lighter weight. I suppose you've never fought with a sword before."

Actually, I had. Hamar used to let me borrow his sword, and he'd borrow Father's, and we'd practice together. But of course I couldn't tell Carle that, so I said carefully, "I have on a few occasions. The baron's son in our village was generous about loaning out his sword."

"Ah, yes; the baron's son in my village was the same way. Now, then—" Carle unsheathed his sword in a move that dazzled the eye, and held it in readiness. In the next moment, I had my new sword poised, and we began to fight.

The armorer watched us with a mirthful smile. We were in the cramped space of his tent, along with other soldiers who had taken shelter from the never-ending drizzle of rain. This is the third time it has rained since we arrived in Emor, and I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll ever see the sun again.

I concentrated my initial efforts on not killing accidentally any of the men standing nearby. Within a short time, my efforts were focussed on staying alive. The best bladesman I ever knew was my cousin Emlyn, but if he had met Carle, I think he would have hesitated before challenging Carle to a duel. Carle's sword sliced through my barriers as though he were cutting soft cheese, his blade-tip always withdrawing before it touched flesh. Obviously he was aiming for disarming rather than first blood, so I clenched my teeth and tried to follow suit. After three sweaty minutes, I finally succeeded in flicking my blade upward at the very moment that Carle's was sliding past.

His sword went flying, nearly decapitating a bottom-ranked soldier who was leaning forward to watch better. The soldiers had been chatting lightly with one another throughout the fight; now silence fell like a corpse upon the crowd. The armorer was no longer smiling.

The tip of my blade was touching Carle's throat. I hastily withdrew it and sheathed my sword, saying, "I'm sorry – did I use a forbidden move?"

Carle was breathing heavily from the fight; his eyes were unfocussed. Several seconds passed before he smiled and said, "Don't ask that question to a Koretian breacher. He'd geld you in order to teach you the meaning of 'forbidden moves' in Koretia."

Several of the men laughed, and everyone turned their attention away from us as Carle scooped his sword off the dirt floor. "I won't have to worry about whether you can guard my back," he said. "I should have guessed you'd be skilled. I suppose you received your first blade when you were seven or eight years old?"

"Six," I replied. "My cousin Emlyn gave me my first dagger as a gift when he moved south."

"I received my first blade when I was fifteen," said Carle; then he laughed as I struggled to control my expression. "It's the custom in Emor – and the main reason why so many patrol guards die in their first year. We're ill-trained in comparison to Koretian bladesmen, though fear of imminent death is an effective incentive to improve our skills." He reached under the edge of his tunic, and when his hand came into sight again, he was holding a sliver of metal. "This is one area where you'll need training," he said.

And so he explained to me how to hold a thigh-dagger and how to wield it in combat, and I listened impatiently until he handed me the dagger, and then we had to wait for the armorer to hunt up a bowl of water and strips of cloth, and after Carle had washed and bandaged my hand he told me again how to hold a thigh-dagger, and I managed to do it properly the second time.

The other soldiers were very amused.

o—o—o

The twenty-sixth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

This is our last day in Emor. We spent most of today doing tasks for Quentin that were easier accomplished by messenger than by message. Carle went over to the city physicians' house briefly, in order to check on Fowler and to confirm that he will recover within a month's time. At the end of the day – a day when it miraculously did not rain – we sat with our backs against the exterior of the inner palace wall.

From where we sat, we could see the sweep of the army headquarters just below us, nestled at the northern foot of Palace Hill: tents and banners and horses and milling men, squeezed tight together yet spreading, it seemed, halfway to the horizon. It's hard to believe that the headquarters houses only the Home Division and the vanguard, and that the greater part of the Chara's armies is scattered throughout the empire.

I looked over at Carle, but his head was tilted back, and I saw that his gaze was directed further toward the horizon. From where we sat, the line of the horizon was blocked by a series of low mountains – foothills, really – that interrupted the rolling fields of lower Southern Emor. One low mountain stood out from the rest, being slightly forward of the others, and I could see that immediately behind it was another mountain, slightly higher, and still another mountain behind them, though this was almost hidden by the haze at the horizon. The flattened peaks looked like the knobby spine of an animal.

"Those are signal-fire mountains," Carle said, seeing where my gaze was now fixed. "When a fire is lit on one of them, it can be seen on the next mountain in the chain. The signal-fire mountains reach all of the way up to the Central Provinces."

"Why are the fires lit?" I asked. "To warn of war?"

"On rare occasions," said Carle. "Tell me, what do you think it will be like patrolling the mountains when the snows come?"

I was unsettled by the rapid change of subject. A moment later, I was even more unsettled as I began to think my answer through. I've actually seen snow before; in the borderland, it snows occasionally, so I've witnessed the feather-fall of moist flakes from the sky. It always seemed quite peaceful on our side of the mountain.

On the other side, it was different. The mountain winds, howling almost ceaselessly through the mountain passes, whirled a wall of blinding whiteness against any passersby. Father had forbidden Hamar and me from visiting the northern side of our mountain when it snowed, and after one numbing, panic-raising visit, Hamar and I had complied with this order.

Carle had been watching my face carefully. Now he gave a short laugh. "Don't worry, our sacrifices to the Chara aren't that high. So few breachers try to cross the border during the winter that keeping us in the mountains isn't worth the number of patrol guards who would die if we were forced to remain there. The patrol is withdrawn during the snow season. The trouble is in predicting when that season begins."

As he spoke, the light wind continued to buffet our face. Above us, dark clouds rolled in endless waves across the skies. The shadow of one such cloud thundered silently past us, faster than a galloping horse.

I understood then. "So the signal fires are to warn that the snow is coming?"

Carle nodded. "The signal fires are the only messages that can move faster than the storm clouds; even the Chara's messengers aren't that quick. Of course, sometimes the storms halt before reaching the mountains, but Captain Wystan can't take that chance. As soon as he receives word through the signal fires of the storm's approach, he sends a sealed message to Quentin. Sometimes the warning arrives a few days ahead of the storm, and sometimes it arrives only a few hours ahead."

"Why a sealed message?" I asked.

One side of Carle's mouth twisted upward into a wry smile. "Because our lieutenant has the unenviable task of deciding when to withdraw us from the mountains. Late autumn is the time of year when any Koretian who knows what he's doing tries to breach the border, so we stay in the mountains until the final moment possible, in order that we can catch any Koretian making a last-minute trip. When to leave is the lieutenant's decision, and while he has never miscalculated our withdrawal, I don't envy him his job."

I considered this, stretching my legs out onto the damp grass and feeling the shadows of the grey clouds scurry over my body. The stones behind me were grey with old age, but new mortar kept them firmly in place. Everything below us looked newborn: the bright weapons, the attentive guards at the camp's perimeter, the crisp orders being shouted by a subcaptain. Yet all that I saw and heard was a thousand years old.

"Carle, why did you become a mountain patrol guard?" I heard myself ask.

Carle took the wine flask from my hand and sipped from it before saying, "Because of the Law of Vengeance, I suppose."

"The Law of Vengeance?" I felt my heartbeat increase. I've resigned myself to the fact that the law seems to have the same effect on me as a rich meal does on a glutton, or as a beautiful woman does on a lecher. "You mentioned that law once. What is it about?"

After a moment, I turned my head and found that Carle was gazing upon me with the sort of expression I might wear if he had asked me the names of the seven gods and goddesses of Koretia. His voice was matter-of-fact, though, as he said, "The Law of Vengeance concerns the third of the Great Three crimes that can be committed against the Chara – the crimes that the Chara alone may judge. The other two crimes are described in the Law of Grave Iniquity and the Law of Bloodshed. Some day soon I'll recite to you the Justification of the Law of Vengeance; the Justification is the portion of a law that describes why the law exists. That Justification's passage on the burdens of the Chara is one that every schoolboy in Emor is required to learn. Less well known, though, is the sixth division . . ."

"Wait," I said. "You told me yesterday that Emorian laws are divided into five parts."

"All except the Great Three." Carle's gaze was fixed on the nearest of the signal-mountains. He had not raised the wine flask to his lips for several minutes. His voice was soft as he said, "The Great Three are the oldest laws in this land, so they retain a division that all of the older laws must have included at one time: the sacrifice division, allowing any man to offer up his body or life in exchange for that of a condemned prisoner. The chronicles say that this division was treated with great seriousness on the few occasions when it was invoked. Not only was the man punished in the appropriate manner, but he took on all of the guilt and dishonor that rightfully belonged to the prisoner. The prisoner was freed of his pain, his death, and his shame. The other man bore all of this for the prisoner's sake."

The wind continued to buffet us with its hand; the black clouds hovered over us, low and heavy with rain. From the city walls to the mountains lay fields filled with sheep and horses, lazy under the patchy sunlight.

"You said that the division 'was' invoked," I said finally. "It's not used any more? No one today offers up their life that way?"

Carle smiled, saying nothing. Beyond the army camp, beyond the outer palace wall, lay the buildings of the capital city of Emor: law houses, market stalls, community halls, and homes. And beyond our sight, hidden by the palace that threw its shadow over the whole eastern portion of the city, lay the city physicians' house, where a patrol guard lay drugged, suffering from the pain of a blade inflicted by a law-breaking Koretian.

"I see." My voice was low. I was struggling with the knowledge of a burden taken on – the knowledge of how far the Chara's mercy extended, and who took on the weight of seeing that his mercy was carried out. I should have known, I thought, from the moment that Quentin bloodied his hand in his effort to save my life.

We sat a while longer, until it grew too dark to see the clouds hiding the stars above, and then we walked back to Neville's house as the rain began to fall on the green and golden fields.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The twenty-seventh day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

I am now a patrol guard. Oh, I know that I've been a guard since the moment I gave my oath of loyalty, but I didn't really feel it until this morning, when Carle and I arrived back at the patrol hut, and everyone ignored me.

We arrived shortly before dawn, when the day patrol was finishing breaking its fast. One or two of the other guards broke off their conversations to greet Carle, but no one said anything to me. I felt cold all through, wondering whether, in the time I'd been gone, the others had changed their minds about wanting me as a fellow guard. Carle, though, seemed cheerfully unaware of what was happening. He went over to chat with Iain while I spooned bean porridge from the pot and tried to pretend that everything was fine.

The night patrol arrived soon afterwards, all of the guards weary in body and face except for the lieutenant, who always looks quietly alert. None of them greeted me, not even Quentin. Instead, Quentin went over to talk to the day patrol while the rest of the night patrol gathered round Carle and started teasing him about the ladies they suggested he must have spent his time courting during his visit to the city. I was just beginning to wonder whether the porridge had been poisoned, for I felt quite sick to my stomach, when Carle glanced at the violet-pink sky and announced, "Time for work, I would say." Casually, as though he'd done it a thousand times before, he unsheathed his sword and passed its blade over the flames before sheathing it and walking slowly toward the tunnel that leads out of the hollow. He had not looked my way since our arrival back.

The other members of the day patrol did the same, and a couple of the night patrol guards, now gathered around the porridge, glanced their way and said, "Good hunting." Then, as Chatwin finished fire-cleansing his sword of old blood and turned away, a silence fell upon the patrol, and I realized that everyone was looking my way.

Even so, it took me a moment to realize why they were waiting. Then I stumbled hastily to my feet, almost cut my hand in my eagerness to unsheathe my sword, and held my unblooded sword over the flames. When I looked up, the entire patrol was spread in a line, awaiting me.

My face was now burning as hot as the Jackal's fire. I hesitantly stepped forward, and as I passed the first guard in line, Chatwin, he said, "Good hunting, Adrian."

I looked back at him, but before I could think of anything to reply, I had come abreast of Teague of the night patrol, and he was saying, "Good hunting, Adrian." After that, I was too busy trying to walk as quickly as possible down the line to be able to think of what to reply to everyone, aside from embarrassed mumbles.

As I reached the end of the line, Carle clapped me on the back as he said, "Good hunting, Adrian," but I hardly noticed him, for my gaze was upon the lieutenant, who had stepped into my path. He looked down at me for a moment, his expression serious, and then he said quietly, "Good hunting, Soldier. Take care of your partner today."

My chest was squeezed tight. I think that in the next moment I would have burst into tears if Carle hadn't rescued me by beginning to talk loudly about the dilatoriness of young patrol guards. He grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and pushed me forward, while several of the guards behind him chuckled. Then we were through the tunnel, and my first day on active duty had begun.

o—o—o

The twenty-ninth day of October in the 940th year a.g.l.

Eleven hours of climbing mountains is a good cure for sleeplessness. The first evening, I was ready to collapse onto my pallet the moment I arrived back at the patrol hut, but Carle quickly made clear that the time that the patrol guards spend talking together is considered just as much a duty as our patrolling.

I don't mind, especially when we play Law Links, which we do every night. I'm the first guard eliminated each time, of course, but I've already learned a dozen laws that way, and Carle has been tutoring me during the day while we're on patrol.

Even better than Law Links is when the full patrol gathers together at dawn and at dusk. At first, I wondered how many border-breachers must make their way past the patrol during this time, as I had planned to do. I soon realized that Quentin's hearing is so acute that he can even hear border-breachers from the insulated hollow. Twice he has broken the gathering short to send the next patrol out in pursuit.

Most of the time, though, we have a chance to exchange information about what has happened during our patrols, and we younger guards take the opportunity to ply Quentin with questions about our work.

Quentin must have great patience, for some of the questions he answers seem quite foolish. Yesterday, for example, Payne said, "I fear I fail to understand the rule on disarming, lieutenant. Our standing orders are to disarm Emorian border-breachers upon capture, but we are only supposed to disarm Koretian border-breachers if they draw their blades against us. Does that not make it easy for the Koretians to attack us?"

His gaze flicked over toward me as he spoke, and I could see the other guards eyeing me as well. There were five of us sitting around Quentin: me, Payne, Chatwin, Teague, and Devin. The other guards were gathered on the opposite side of the fire, quizzing Carle about the details of a new court case that Neville had told us about.

Quentin didn't look my way, but as he reached over to his side to pick up his water flask, he said, "Soldier Adrian, I know that it will be difficult for you to discard momentarily your Emorian way of thinking, but I would appreciate it if you would cast your mind back to the days when you were a Koretian and explain to Payne what you would have done if I had tried to disarm you before you had drawn your blade against me."

"I would have killed you." The answer was so obvious that I didn't pause to think, but a moment later, I felt my spirit jerk as though it had been torn in two, for it suddenly occurred to me that there was something odd about what I had said.

I did not have time to analyze the matter, for Quentin had turned his attention back to Payne. "In Koretia, Payne, the symbol of manhood is a blade. No Koretian man will disarm himself except for the gravest of reasons, and any man who tries to disarm a Koretian who has not threatened him will find his life in danger."

Payne's expression had been tightening during Quentin's speech. Now he burst out, "But that is barbaric! How can they be so childish?"

Quentin lifted one eyebrow, then glanced over at me, sitting with fists clenched, trying to keep control of myself. "Adrian, please tell Payne – passing your mind back to your Koretian past, of course – what you thought the first time you saw an unarmed Emorian man."

I was uneasily aware that I did not have to return as far as all that to find the answer to Quentin's question, but I obediently replied, "I thought he looked like a child."

Too late, I realized that Payne had put aside his sword. Fortunately, Payne's expression was so comical that the other young guards burst into laughter, and after a moment, Payne gave a weak smile.

"If Adrian could find room in his spirit to appreciate your manly qualities, despite your obvious deficiencies," Quentin said, rising to his feet, "I imagine that you can learn to appreciate the barbaric Koretians. . . . Sublieutenant, two men are approaching from the north." He said this quietly to Carle, who immediately abandoned his food and rose to his feet. I was at his side within a few seconds, and when the day patrol left moments later, I heard Payne say, "Good hunting, Adrian," although I had not had time to flame my blade.

o—o—o

The fifth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

Since arriving back in the mountains, I've continued to accompany Carle on patrols, though he has not yet allowed me to participate in a hunt; I'm supposed to watch from a distance and learn how hunts are conducted. Much of our work, I've discovered, consists of stopping legitimate border-crossers and asking for their credentials. We usually hunt at least one border-breacher a day, and sometimes several. If the hunted doesn't resist capture, we interrogate our prisoner on the spot and either send him back the way that he came, or – in the rare cases where the breacher has a legitimate reason for crossing the border – we allow him past us.

I was surprised, though, to learn that border-breachers who draw their blades are all treated in exactly the same manner as I was: they are hand-bound and eye-bound, roughly led to the patrol hut, and questioned in a harsh manner before being placed on trial for their crimes. I asked Carle about this, and he said that fear was the patrol's secret weapon.

"It's our only weapon in most cases," he said, speaking to me in a low voice because we were standing on a mountain overlooking the pass. "If the breacher doesn't attack us, and if he isn't a lawbreaker such as an escaped slave, then we can't punish the prisoner in any way. We simply scare him in hopes that he won't try to breach the border again. If the breacher is violent, we try to give him the impression that his life is forfeit in our hands, though in most cases the lieutenant only condemns the prisoner to a beating."

"So my trial was a sham," I said unhappily.

"No Emorian trial that I've ever attended has been a sham. You were in real danger of being executed at the start, and we were really angry at you for what you had done – but even if we hadn't been, we would have acted as though we were." Carle's head turned slowly as he surveyed the landscape below us. "The only way in which your trial was different from the others is that it was more formal, because part of your defense was that you had escaped to Emor to learn about the law. So the lieutenant was judging you partly on the basis of how you acted during your trial."

I discovered today that Carle was right when he said that most patrol trials are less formal. Our prisoner was a Koretian who held to my theory that it's better to find the patrol guards before they find you – only in his case, his motive for finding us was to cut our throats. This type of episode happens every few weeks, Carle assured me with a grin, and is the reason why patrol guards are trained to be the hunted as well as the hunters. It's also the reason why we patrol in pairs, and in fact it was Payne's patrolling partner, Gamaliel, who saved him from death and sent out the Immediate Danger whistle.

I had thought that I knew about moving fast before then, but I found that the implications of the danger whistles had been so firmly planted in my mind that I was beyond the doorway of the patrol hut before I even realized that I had awoken from sleep. We captured the hunted alive, brought him back to the hut, and then, with only a short preliminary of questioning, placed him on trial for attempted murder. This time there was no court summoner or herald or clerk, and the prisoner rejected the use of a guide. Only the lieutenant acted the same, wearing his gold chain and sitting in judgment with cold formality.

The prisoner's defense – such as it was – was that he wished he'd murdered the lot of us. Quentin's patient questioning failed to elicit any stronger defense. So, in the end, Quentin pronounced the sentence of death that could have been mine.

I don't know what I expected to happen after that – some sort of small ceremony, I suppose, before the prisoner was discreetly taken outside and executed. So I barely took in what actually did happen: Quentin asked the prisoner whether he wished to appeal the judgment and sentence, waited only the mote of time necessary to receive a negative answer, then pulled out his thigh-dagger, stepped over to where the prisoner was being held by Carle and me, and plunged his blade into the man's heart.

The Koretian wasn't expecting this either; he died with a look of surprise on his face. After I had managed to still my queasy stomach, I asked Carle about what had happened. He told me that Quentin was following Emorian law, which states that a prisoner must be brought to trial as soon as possible, and that his punishment must take place immediately after the trial.

"We Emorians think that the cruelest punishment of all is fear," said Carle. "We try to spare condemned prisoners that much at least."

Thinking about the fear that held Mountside in its frosty grip in the days before I left, I decided that Carle was right.

o—o—o

The sixth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

I'm beginning to realize how hard it is to think like an Emorian.

This morning, as we were waiting for the night patrol to arrive back from duty, I was taking my turn at tending the stew. The food in the patrol surprises me; from the stories I'd heard of army life, I'd expected a steady diet of blackroot nuts. The patrol, though, gets its food and other supplies from the merchants that pass over the border every few days, so we're much better fed than other soldiers – we dine as well as nobles, even eating meat. I've almost reached the point where I expect to be introduced to such delicacies as Daxion nuts.

I was saying as much to Carle and joking with him in our usual manner, when I realized that the other members of the day patrol were giving me dark looks. This puzzled me, as I couldn't think of anything I'd done to earn the other guards' wrath.

"Soldier," said Carle sharply, all of a moment, "I wish to speak privately with you."

I looked around to see whom Carle was addressing, and then realized with chagrin that I was the one he was glaring at.

He took me as far as the fall, where we could not be heard. I realize I must take a detour in my narrative here, because I haven't explained fully about the waterfall. It tumbles down the mountainside from one of the high peaks, where the snow lies year-round. From the fall we gain our drinking water and bathing water, and our latrine is located in the area where the water rushes underground.

Using the latrine at night is a chilling experience. Even more chilling is bathing under the fall; I always take care to do so when the sun is up. All of the guards do except Carle, who sneaks out to bathe when the rest of us are asleep. He receives a great deal of teasing for his bodily modesty.

Speaking low under the soft roar of the fall, Carle said, "Adrian, didn't anything Neville said to you penetrate your spirit? You mustn't call me by my name alone in front of the others."

I stared at him uncomprehending for a moment; then I felt the chill of the waterfall's flicking bite against my skin fade away as heat rushed across my face. I said stiffly, "I am sorry, sir. I thought . . . If I had realized . . . Sublieutenant, when may I address you by your name? You will always be above my rank, so will I ever be able again to . . . I mean, I thought the wine . . ." I fumbled for words, struggling to keep control of my voice.

Carle sighed and turned me away so that my back was to the other guards, who were watching us out of the corners of their eyes. "Strictly speaking, not until one of us retires," he said. "Army rank isn't carried over to civilian life, so we'd be free to address each other as equals then. But in reality . . . Curse you, Adrian; I suppose Emorian life isn't as orderly as I sometimes pretend it is. When I first joined the patrol, I tried to adhere to the rules of rank at all times; I was determined to be a good soldier. The lieutenant, though, soon cured me of my naiveté. He pointed out the folly of the two of us always addressing each other formally when we had to patrol together for eleven hours a day, every day of the week, for eight months straight. So now the rule I follow is to address my fellow guards in accordance with their rank, but only when we're in active pursuit, or when orders are being given and received, or when we're in the presence of others. But for love of the Chara, Adrian, I expect you to follow that rule as though your life depended upon it! Do you know what it looks like for you to call me by my name when the others cannot?"

I hadn't, but I understood well enough when I arrived back at the balefire, where the others were waiting in watchful silence. Still burning from my unofficial reprimand, I poured out soup for Carle and handed it to him, taking care to address him by his title – and immediately grins spread from one guard to the next, like a peace oath travelling swiftly from one town to the next. Not long afterwards, Iain put his arm around my shoulders and offered to tend the soup in my place.

Every time I stumble in my understanding of the law, I grow weak with fear of what I might do next. How far will go in breaking Emorian rules before I enter into serious trouble?

o—o—o

The tenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

Now I know.

As I mentioned before, I haven't yet taken part in a hunt. This can be frustrating, for I must watch the pursuit from afar and gain what knowledge I can from the tiny figures I see. By last week, I was already growing eager to put my knowledge to the test, but Carle, after reciting the names of all the patrol guards over the centuries who had died during their first hunt, put my request aside.

Today, as the sun was setting in the sky, Carle went a few paces ahead to speak with Hoel and Chatwin. Rounding the side of a mountain, I discovered a border-breacher making water against the rock.

That he was a breacher I had no doubt; he was wearing an Emorian dagger and was well past the point where we would have sighted him if he'd been travelling from Emor in the normal manner. I concluded that he must have travelled through the nearby mountains, somehow retaining his orientation, and that he now believed himself to have journeyed beyond our patrolling ground.

He very nearly had; if he went any further, a pursuit by the patrol would be hard, as we were less familiar with the mountain areas to the south of our patrolling ground. With no thought, only instinct, I quietly drew my sword, crept up behind the breacher, and placed my sword-tip against his spine.

He yelped but did not move his hand toward his dagger. I had doubted he would; I had already learned that most Emorian border-breachers are defiant only up until the moment of capture, whereupon they surrender quietly. And so, feeling the same triumph that a bridegroom might feel after taking his bride's maidenhood, I sent out the End of Hunt whistle.

Carle reached me within seconds. Hoel and Chatwin were not far behind, and I relished the look of Iain and Jephthah as they arrived two minutes later and saw who the captor was in this hunt. Carle waited long enough to be sure that the prisoner would not resist; then he pulled me aside. "What happened?" he asked. "Did he attack you?"

With eager joy, I explained how I had saved the patrol from a difficult hunt. Carle said nothing. Though Iain was leading the interrogation of the prisoner, I could see that he and the others were eavesdropping on what I said. When I had finished, Carle said only, "Let's deal with the prisoner first."

I was disappointed, but I told myself not to be foolish. Carle's matter-of-fact acceptance of my ability to capture a breacher single-handedly was a greater compliment to me than if he had shown amazement at my accomplishment. So I followed him over to where the prisoner stood, babbling forth his story.

As it turned out, I was wrong; the Emorian had not been leaving Emor but returning to it, and he had been armed only because he had been travelling amongst the dagger-wielding barbarians of Koretia. In fact, he had travelled from Emor to Koretia while Carle and I were at the army camp, and he was known by the rest of the day patrol to be a legitimate border-crosser.

This tarnished my inward triumph only slightly. Even if I'd been wrong, Carle had told me long ago that it was better for a patrol guard to be too zealous in his duty than to allow a genuine breacher past the border. I'd still saved the patrol from what might have been a perilous pursuit.

The sun had dipped behind the mountains; the birds were beginning to quiet in the scrubby vegetation that clings to the rocks, and the winds had gone still, as they sometimes do for several days on end. Carle, having apologized to the prisoner and released him, sent out the signal of the withdrawal of the day patrol from duty, though he usually waits for Quentin's signal that the night patrol is ready. Then, without looking my way, he began to walk back to the patrol hut.

I tried to talk more with him on the way about what had happened, but he didn't respond to my remarks. Behind me, the other patrol guards were speaking in low voices, the way they always do when the wind is so soft that their remarks might be heard by coming breachers. After several attempts to break past Carle's barrier of silence, I withdrew from his side, puzzled and hurt. Could it be, I wondered with horror, that Carle was actually jealous of me? Did he envy me so much for my daring capture – which surely no other patrol guard had achieved during his first hunt – that he would allow his feelings to poison our friendship?

I struggled with this unpleasant thought after reaching the patrol hut, and so I was not as aware as I might otherwise have been of the conversations taking place between the day and night patrols; nor did I pay much attention to Carle as he took Quentin aside and spoke privately with him.

My first warning of my change in fortune came when Quentin whistled the call for assembly.

It took me a moment to recognize the whistle; I had not yet heard it used, except in practice. Then I joined the other patrol guards lining up against the outside wall of the hut. The balefire flickered upon us, showering warmth and light. Just beyond the flames, several paces ahead of the other guards, Carle was standing so that he could see both the patrol and their lieutenant.

All of us stood at alert, our arms stiff, our eyes straight ahead, though I could not prevent myself from watching Quentin out of the corner of my eye as he slowly walked down the line, inspecting each man. When he reached me, he said in a colorless voice, "Soldier Adrian – step out of line, please."

I did so; my face was burning. This I had not anticipated. I tried to tell myself that this was no doubt part of the normal initiation into the patrol. Probably I would only be honored for my first successful participation in a hunt. I couldn't help wondering, though, whether my bold capture of the Emorian was substantive enough to earn me an honor brooch.

"Soldier Adrian," said Quentin softly. "I am told that you disobeyed Sublieutenant Carle's order and took part in a hunt. Is this true?"

I stared amazed at Quentin, then looked down the line at Carle, whose gaze was fixed straight ahead of himself. I said, "But I—"

"Soldier." At Quentin's voice, much softer than before, I turned my eyes back to him, then felt my stomach lurch from the look in his eyes. His face was only inches away from mine. "I asked you a question. Did you disobey Sublieutenant Carle's order?"

I swallowed in an attempt to moisten my dry mouth. "Yes, sir, I did."

The low wind brushed the balefire, sending sparks into the air. Next to me, I could not hear so much as a drawn breath from any of the other guards. Quentin took a step back, contemplated me for a moment as though I were a bound breacher, and finally said, "Very well. Report."

I did so, stumbling this time, and leaving out the words of exaltation and victory that I had spoken to Carle. When I was finished, Quentin stared at me coolly as my heart thumped louder than the growl of the fire eating the wood. Then the lieutenant said, "The fault is mine."

My heart thumped again, this time in astonishment. "Sir?"

"I should have taken you aside to give you special training in this matter. This is the first time that the patrol has ever had a Koretian-born guard, but I ought to have realized that this trouble would arise."

Not since my entrance into the patrol had Quentin made mention of my native origins in order to criticize me. I felt my face burn once more as I said, "Sir, if I lack skills because I'm Koretian—"

Quentin shook his head. "Not skills, understanding. Soldier, why did you disobey orders?"

I phrased my reply carefully. "Sir, I see that I was wrong in what I did, but at the time I thought I was saving the patrol from a difficult hunt."

"You say that you see you were wrong. In what way?"

I realized that I would not be spared the ordeal of a questioning. Something touched me then – my Koretian stubbornness, perhaps – and I said, "I don't know, lieutenant. I tried to save the other guards from possible danger. Why was it wrong for me to do that?"

Quentin's eyes flicked away from me toward Carle. A look passed between them, long and grave; then Quentin stepped back from me and addressed the line of silent patrol guards. "Soldier Gamaliel, step forward."

I turned my head to look as Gamaliel stiffly took a pace forward. He is the oldest patrol guard, older even than Quentin; he is only a few years younger than Fenton was when he died. As the light chiselled deeper the lines of somberness in Gamaliel's face, Quentin said, "Soldier Gamaliel, please recount for the benefit of Soldier Adrian the events leading up to Sublieutenant Shepley's dismissal from the patrol."

I heard a faint rustling behind me, as though several of the guards had shifted in their places. Gamaliel's chin rose as he said rigidly, "Yes, sir. Two springs ago, Sublieutenant Shepley was on duty, close to the patrol hut, with his partner, Soldier Byrd. Both soldiers sighted a man wearing the clothes of a barbarian mainlander. The mainlander saw them at the same moment and drew his sword. Soldier Byrd promptly issued the Probable Danger signal.

"Before the full patrol had time to respond to the signal, sir, Sublieutenant Shepley, jealous of your title—"

"Reword yourself, soldier." Quentin's voice was sharp.

"My apologies, sir." Gamaliel was silent a moment, then started again. "Sublieutenant Shepley, desiring glory for himself, immediately drew his sword and ran forward to capture the barbarian. Soldier Byrd had no choice but to follow. Just as Sublieutenant Shepley was on the point of reaching the barbarian, though, his foot slipped on some loose pebbles, and he fell to the ground, striking himself unconscious in the process.

"Soldier Byrd, seeing his partner in danger, responded by attacking the barbarian. Because he had only recently joined the patrol, Soldier Byrd's sword skills were not sufficient to allow him to defeat the barbarian unaided. The barbarian wounded him severely."

Gamaliel paused. The sun had set completely by now; cloakless, I was shivering in the evening wind, warmed only by the patrol fire flickering its glow upon us. Carle stood nearly outside the circle of warmth; only his face was alit.

"At that point, sir, you and your patrolling partner, Soldier Carle, reached the scene," Gamaliel continued. "As Soldier Carle is—" He stopped, his gaze sliding sideways over to me, then said, "As Soldier Carle was the best swordsman in the patrol, you ordered him to keep the barbarian occupied while you carried Soldier Byrd and Sublieutenant Shepley to safety.

"Unfortunately, the barbarian was well skilled with his blade. Although Soldier Carle was able to defend himself for a short while, the barbarian soon broke past his defenses and disarmed him. At that point, Soldier Neville and I had just come within sight, but we and the other guards were too far away to assist. You, sir, had returned from carrying Soldier Byrd to a secure distance and was just picking up Sublieutenant Shepley. In order to give you and Sublieutenant Shepley time to reach safety, Soldier Carle, now naked of blade, flung himself upon the barbarian."

My gaze jerked over to Carle. He was continuing to stand motionless, staring at emptiness; the copper brooch at his neck twinkled in the light. I let out my breath slowly.

"Fortunately, the barbarian was so startled by this action that he stumbled and fell beneath the weight of Soldier Carle," Gamaliel said. "Soldier Carle was able to prevent him from using his sword for the time it took the other guards to reach the scene. The barbarian was then captured by the remainder of the patrol."

"And the aftermath of this hunt?" Quentin hadn't looked at me since the report began; his gaze was fixed upon Gamaliel.

"The barbarian was placed on trial and was discovered to be a legitimate border-crosser who had not realized that the men attacking him were the Chara's patrol guards. He was granted mercy for his crime and was released to continue on his way. Soldier Carle was awarded the subcommander's copper honor brooch for his courage, and he rose to the sublieutenancy of the patrol. Soldier Byrd died of his wound, but in his dying hours, he gave witness to Sublieutenant Shepley's actions. Sublieutenant Shepley—"

"That is enough." Quentin's soft voice cut off Gamaliel, who promptly stepped back into line; the lieutenant's gaze had already returned to me. "Do you understand now, soldier?" he asked quietly.

I found it harder to swallow this time; there was an obstruction in my throat. "Yes, sir. By disobeying orders, Sublieutenant Shepley brought danger upon his fellow patrol guards." I nearly continued, then thought better of it and fell silent.

Quentin, though, had been running his dark gaze over my face. He said, "You have more comments?"

I took a deep breath; the chill of the mountain air bit at my lungs. "Only a question, sir. Sublieutenant Shepley disobeyed orders – but didn't Soldier Carle disobey orders as well? Aren't we under standing orders to retreat if we're disarmed?"

The wind, whooshing down the sides of the mountains enclosing us, stirred Carle's hair; otherwise, his body and eyes remained motionless. Quentin, who was now running his fingers over his sword hilt, kept his gaze fixed upon me until I felt my knees beginning to melt. Then he said, "Yes, Soldier Carle disobeyed orders, in the most blatant manner possible. When, Soldier Adrian, you understand the difference between what he did and what you did, you too may disobey orders. Until then, your judgment is not sufficiently mature to allow for that."

I said nothing. The wind whistled around the hollow. Somewhere in the distance, a bird of prey screamed.

The lieutenant stepped back. "The mistake was mine, as much as yours. I should have taken your background into account. We will let the matter rest there."

"Sir—" I stopped, biting my lip, until Quentin gave an impatient gesture. Then I said, "Sir, I'm an Emorian now, and I should be held to Emorian law and custom as much as any other Emorian. I would rather that you dealt with me the same as you would any other soldier in this unit."

I couldn't tell, from Quentin's expression, whether I had said the right thing. After a minute, though, he replied, "Very well. As it happens, we have a special discipline for this type of episode – a test that should teach you not to make this mistake again." And then, as I let my breath out in a sigh, he added, "If you survive."

o—o—o

The eleventh day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

Carle took me into the mountains today for my test. He was very cheerful.

"Have you seen the seal yet?" he asked, after we'd walked for about an hour.

"What seal?" I asked as I stubbed my toe and stumbled.

"Watch out here; this path is rocky," Carle reported belatedly. "The Chara's seal. It's plastered everywhere in the palace, but since we didn't go inside the palace— No, wait, move a bit to the right. You're about to fall into a fissure."

I hurriedly crowded up against Carle's body. My eyes were bound; I had long since lost all sense of which direction we were going in. All I knew was that we must be far away from the pass, for I could no longer hear the whistles of the patrol.

Our journey was like an eerie replay of my first arrival at the patrol hut, but this time my hands were unbound, and I could even have dispensed with the aid of a cloth over my eyes, if I'd been sure I could keep my eyes closed. Not wanting to take any chances, I had requested to have my eyes bound.

Other than that, I was dressed as I ordinarily would have been for a day's patrol: I wore my army tunic, my thigh-pocket with its hidden dagger, my boots, my sword, and my back-sling, which held my water-flask, binding rope, and noonday meal. Also my journal and pencil, which I had received permission from Quentin to bring with me. "Recording your thoughts may be of use to you in seeing your way clear to the solution," he said, when speaking of my test.

Now Carle said, "Vengeance, mercy, judgment."

"What?" I swung my face toward him, as though I could see him.

"Those are the attributes of the Chara, and those are what are depicted on his seal. The Sword of Vengeance. The Heart of Mercy – that's shown as a wounded bird. And the Balance of Judgment."

I hesitated a moment before replying, then decided that I really did not want to tell Carle that vengeance, mercy, and judgment were the three attributes of the Jackal as well. "The Balance of Judgment holds the bird and the sword in its scales?"

"Precisely." Carle sounded pleased at my reply. "But judgment is a much greater matter than that. Take the Court of Judgment, where the Chara hears his cases. First of all, it's unlikely that the man the Chara is trying is being tried for the first time. More likely, the man has been judged by the lesser courts, the case working itself up the ladder of the courts as it becomes clear that the case offers some problem that the lesser courts haven't dealt with before. By the time the case reaches the Chara, he not only has the prisoner's witness to consider; he also has the judgments of the previous judges. And beyond that there will be witnesses – many witnesses in an important case. The Chara can't make a judgment on his own. He depends heavily on what is stated and judged by other men."

"I see." My mind was less on Carle's words than on the rocky ground that would have caused me to fall to the ground if Carle hadn't been gripping my arm. "So you couldn't just have a case where the Chara was alone with the prisoner—"

"Oh, that type of case happens occasionally. 'Private judgment,' it's called, and the Chara is the only judge in the land who is permitted to make private judgment, because of his high office. Even then, he'll invariably be drawing upon the written witness of men not present. . . . Here we are."

Carle pulled me to a stop. I strained my ears, trying to sense where we were. We had been travelling on the relatively level ground between mountains; I knew this from the number of times that Carle had pulled me back from stepping into fissures. I could hear no whistles coming from behind me, before me, or to either side of me. The wind shifted direction every few seconds. A few autumn birds twittered, but most had flown south at this time of year. Near us, a stone rattled down the side of a mountain.

My head jerked round; then I whispered, "It sounds like a breacher is near."

"We're too far from the pass for that," replied Carle, adjusting the cloth binding my eyes. "Most likely it's a cat."

"A mountain cat?" I tried to keep my voice matter-of-fact. "I thought they only lived in the dominion mountains, except when they're tamed. Do the wild cats travel this far south?"

"They don't come near the pass, but they'll occasionally roam these mountains, away from the pass. Don't worry. You may find that one is following you, but they rarely attack humans, unless the human is wounded. Now, then—" Without warning, Carle took hold of my shoulders and spun me round. By the time he stopped, I was thoroughly dizzy.

"Any idea which direction you're facing?" Carle enquired blithely.

"None at all," I replied, trying to keep from toppling over.

"Good. Now, here's how the test works. I'll leave you here. You count to a hundred. Once the count is over, take the cloth off your eyes and make your way back to the patrol ground."

"That's all?" I said cautiously. "It's just a test to see whether I can navigate through the mountains?"

"You can manage that, can't you?"

"Of course I can," I said quickly, though I was feeling uneasy, remembering Fenton's warning about sticking to the pass.

"Good. Keep in mind, Adrian: this test isn't meant to kill you. I don't want you to make the same mistake that was made by the only guard I know who failed this test. When you find that you can't locate the patrol ground, whistle, and we'll come fetch you."

I was stung by the lack of faith that Carle's "when" represented. "I'll make it back on my own," I said stiffly.

"Good hunting" was Carle's only reply. He said nothing more, and after a minute, I realized that he had left my side.

Taking a breath, I counted aloud to one hundred, keeping my count slow. I could not help continuing to strain for some clue of where I was. If Carle made any noise while walking back to the pass, I missed it. I thought, though, that I could hear the mountain cat, moving on some slope above. I had a sudden, nasty vision of what I must look like to the cat: an eye-bound man, easy prey.

Resisting the temptation to pull the cloth off my eyes, I pulled my sword instead. Perhaps the cat wouldn't recognize the significance of the eye-binding. On the other hand, perhaps the cat wouldn't recognize the significance of the sword either, if she had never encountered humans before. Not until she jumped me would the cat realize that I had a way to defend myself. And by the time I killed her, would her claws have mauled me sufficiently to make the killing mutual? I shivered.

o—o—o

I've been writing all this under a ledge in the tiny gorge where Carle left me. Evening had arrived by the time I removed the cloth from my eyes, and tonight the sky is too overcast for me to see the stars, so I will need to wait until dawn to figure out which direction I should take. I ate a little bit of my food and sipped a mouthful of my water, but I'm saving most of it for tomorrow. Surely I cannot be more than a day's walk from the pass; that's all the time that Carle spent in taking me here.

I haven't heard the mountain cat again. I'm hoping that she never saw me and has gone elsewhere to hunt.

o—o—o

The twelfth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

It's noonday; I've paused to rest. I had hoped last night that, by this time today, I would be halfway home – halfway back to the patrol ground. But something has happened that I hadn't anticipated: the sky is still covered with clouds.

I could tell this morning where the east was; the glow in the clouds told me that much. But as the day went on, and the whole sky lit up, even that much became hard to discern. It's not as though I can even see most of the sky; the mountains here are so crowded together that I can only sight the sky directly above me. I had hoped that I might at least be able to tell at noonday which direction was south, since the sun is always slightly to the south at noonday. But even that much information has been hidden from me by the thick clouds.

There has been no rain; I can be grateful for that. Or at least, I thought I was grateful until I realized how far my water flask was depleted. Then I began keeping my eye out, not merely for glimpses of the sun, but for pools of water.

I've seen none. What pools there might be are probably drawn into the fissures, which are so dark that I find myself in continual danger of walking into one unsuspecting.

Perhaps I will have better luck higher up on the slopes.

o—o—o

Trying to climb around the sides of mountains is exhausting and frustrating. I keep running into insuperable barriers: blocks of rock that prevent me from travelling further. Of course, such barriers exist on the mountains alongside the pass too, but the patrol has been doing its work for so many centuries that the guards know where every barrier is located and can pass on that information to new guards. Here I am like an explorer in uncharted areas of the mainland.

I did find a wild-berry bush this afternoon. It was a pathetic thing, shrivelled up from living so far north, but it had a few late-autumn berries on it still, which I plucked and placed in my back-sling. I have enough food and water until the end of the day; after that, I have no idea what I will do. Trap mountain animals? I can't imagine how to make a trap out of the one bit of rope I have, barely long enough to bind a man's hands. And though I'm sure a mainland boy would be taught how to hunt with blade alone, I never was.

I spent a long while this afternoon simply standing still, trying to determine through sound where I was. All I could hear was the wind, and what might have been the mountain cat, moving closer to me from a slope nearby.

o—o—o

The thirteenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

I've run out of water. I'm trying to remember how long a man can stay alive without drinking water.

The clouds still block my sight of the sun today, and they still refuse to drop any rain on me. Perhaps it's just as well; the wind is so chilly now that I regret not having asked to bring a cloak. I barely got any sleep last night, curled up on the cold ground of a cave I found, wondering whether the cat would attack me before dawn.

My toiletry in the morning was exceedingly unpleasant. I miss the patrol's latrine.

o—o—o

I've eaten the last of the berries, doing my best to suck out their moisture. The rest of the food I finished last night. It's not that I've been greedy; it's that the climbing I've been doing is so strenuous. I've been trying to climb high enough that I can see the pass. But the mountains are so high and so thickly clustered together that it's like trying to sight Capital Mountain when you're in the midst of the forest of central Koretia.

I heard the cat again today, her delicate paws sending pebbles down the side of a mountain. I couldn't see her, though. I don't suppose I'll see her until she pounces on me.

And even if I should succeed in killing her before she kills me, what then? I'll likely be so badly mauled that I can't travel any further.

This afternoon, for the first time, I felt the temptation to whistle to the patrol for help. I manfully held back from doing so.

o—o—o

The fourteenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

Another cold night, this time without shelter of the cave. I received no sleep at all.

I must admit now that I am thoroughly lost. For all I know, I've been travelling in the opposite direction that Carle and I came from and have been driving myself deeper into the mountains. There's no way to tell; the day is overcast again.

Am I even within reach of the patrol if I should whistle? Most likely not, if I can't hear their whistles. I haven't heard a whistle since the time Carle left me.

My mouth is very dry.

o—o—o

It's becoming harder and harder to travel; I keep having to pause to renew my strength. I find myself thinking of Fenton – of how Fenton looked when I first met him. Lying on the ground, barely alive . . . Only Felix's urgent ministrations saved Fenton from entering the Land Beyond.

I can see now why the cat hasn't attacked. She's waiting until I'm too weak to be able to fight back. That shouldn't be long.

o—o—o

Now I really am in trouble.

This afternoon, trying to make use of the last hours of daylight, I hurried up a slope in too careless a manner. I slipped. I swear I fell down half the mountainside before I managed to stop myself. I'm bruised from head to toe, and my arm is bleeding. That's not so bad; I've put my face-cloth on it to keep the blood from running out of me. But I think my ankle is broken. When I try to walk on it, my leg gives way.

It is time to admit that I have failed. Even expulsion from the patrol would be better than to die alone here of thirst, or to await the cat's attack.

o—o—o

I sent out the Probable Danger whistle three times but received no reply. Am I too far from the pass? Or is the penalty for failing this test death?

I can't bear the thought of never seeing Carle again.

o—o—o

The fifteenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

I managed, through sheer exhaustion from my tears, to sleep a bit yesterday evening after I whistled my danger. When I awoke a short time later, the clouds were red with sunset.

Carle stood over me, holding a wine-flask.

I sat up and greedily took the flask from him. "Careful," he said, crouching down beside me as I began to swallow the wine. "You'll make yourself sick if you drink too fast. Let me see that arm of yours."

I set aside the flask as Carle undid my face-cloth, washed the wound with water from his other flask, and covered the wound again with his own, clean face-cloth. "Just a scrape," he said. "Now let's look at your ankle."

It took him some time to pull off the boot; the ankle had swollen. He carefully inspected it. "Not broken," he announced finally. "Can you walk on it?"

I tried again, and found that, in the interval since my fall, the ankle had gotten better.

"Just twisted," Carle decided. "It's likely to be good enough to walk on tomorrow morning." He whistled suddenly, turning his head slightly to the right of the direction where I had been heading. From that direction, clear as a birdsong at dawn, came the reply of the lieutenant.

I stared, open-mouthed; then I understood. I had been near the patrol ground all along. The patrol guards had simply refrained from whistling their code during the time I took my test.

I felt the heat of shame cover me then. I had whistled for help – had whistled Probable Danger – simply because I'd twisted my ankle a bit. There was nothing wrong with me at all, aside from being a little bruised and a bit thirsty. I could have lasted the time needed to find my way back to the pass.

"Do you have any of those berries left?" Carle asked as he sat down beside me.

"No, I ate the last of—" I stopped, realizing suddenly how little time had passed since I had whistled. "Carle," I said slowly, "that was no mountain cat following me. It was you. You've been following me since you left me."

Carle raised one eyebrow as he rummaged in his back-sling. "I told you that the purpose of this test wasn't to let you die. What if you had knocked your head on a stone when you fell down this mountain? Someone had to follow you to make sure you'd be all right. —Ah, here we are." He handed me a hard biscuit.

I took it but did not eat it; I was feeling sour in my stomach. I had never been in any danger. Never. I had just let my fears get the best of me. "I'm sorry," I said in a low voice.

"Sorry for what?" Carle enquired as he inspected one of my bruises.

"For failing the test."

Carle rubbed a bit of dirt off my bruise to see it better. "Well, yes, you very nearly did. I was beginning to wonder whether you would whistle for help before you started dying of thirst."

The evening wind, sighing, slid over my skin. The sky was beginning to turn the color of my bruises. A sudden cloud-break showed the stars above me, shining sweetly.

"I was supposed to call for help?" I said.

Carle sighed as he leaned back. "Adrian, try to use that quicksilver mind of yours. Why were you punished in the first place? What lesson was it that the lieutenant wanted you to learn?"

I was still for a long while as the night chill settled into the mountains, like lowering mist. Then I said, "All that chattering you did on the way here, about the Chara needing aid in making his judgments . . . You were talking about the test, weren't you? You were saying that I couldn't make it out of the mountains unaided."

Carle shrugged. "Quentin might be able to make it back on his own. We know that Fenton managed it. But for us ordinary men . . . Adrian, there's a reason that the Chara placed twelve patrol guards in the black border mountains, and it's not just so that most border-breachers will back away in terror once they see how many opponents they're facing."

"None of us can survive here on our own," I concluded quietly. For a moment, I saw myself as I had been just a few weeks before, running alone through the mountains, questing alone for knowledge of the Chara's law. And then I saw myself as I now am: surrounded by fellow law-lovers, learning from them, and sharing with them my knowledge of blade-play.

"Come on," said Carle, standing up and offering me his arm. "This is no place to spend the night. I passed a cave below that will shelter us if any exceedingly foolish mountain cat should decide to attack two patrol guards at once."

I let him help me up, feeling no shame now at his assistance. "I'm such a fool," I said.

Carle grinned at me. "You and half the young men who enter the patrol. Why do you think we have this handy test available? You're by no means the first patrol guard to make the mistake of thinking he can hold back breachers on his own, believe me."

"Carle," I said hesitantly, "on our way here, you spoke of one guard who failed the test. What happened to him?"

Carle's smile broadened. "The lieutenant issued the worst possible punishment. He made me responsible for the lives of five other patrol guards." Still grinning, Carle helped me hobble my way down the mountain.

o—o—o

The seventeenth day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

I was permitted to take part in my first hunt today.

I killed a border-breacher today.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The twenty-third day of November in the 940th year a.g.l.

Carle and I had a short patrol this morning. The cause was a man we sighted riding on horseback through the pass, headed toward Koretia.

Carle saw him first. He caught hold of me and pointed, saying in a low voice, "What do you make of that?"

I looked down the mountain at the man, who was wearing the uniform of an Emorian subcaptain. His face was clear in the morning light: he had pale skin and looked to be about thirty years of age. He was accompanied by a man of about Carle's age who was dressed in the uniform of a bottom-ranked Emorian soldier.

"Well," I said, remembering my lessons, "the fact that they're wearing uniforms doesn't mean anything – they could be spies in disguise. And we have the duty to stop even high army officials unless we've been informed ahead of time of their journey."

I looked over at Carle. He was smiling as he looked down at the two men. "What sort of signal do we give?" he asked.

"If we recognize them as genuine soldiers or if they appear to be such, we give a regular signal of sighting. But if we think that the men may be spies, we give a Probable Danger signal, because spies are presumed to be dangerous. . . . Do you recognize them?"

"The older one," said Carle, "and I would say that he is quite dangerous indeed. In fact, he has his own signal." He communicated the whistle to me in practice fashion.

I felt my heart beat harder in anticipation. Only the most notorious border-breachers are assigned whistle-names; this would be my first encounter with grave danger. I asked, "Are you going to send the signal?"

Carle, still smiling, turned his head my way. "I'll leave it to you. Let's see how well you remember your whistles."

Flattered that he would assign me this task in such an important hunt, I sent out for the first time the pulsing rhythm of the Probable Danger whistle. As I did so, the man dressed as a subcaptain jerked his head up – a confirmation, if any were needed, that this man was not what he appeared to be, for regular army officials are not entrusted with knowledge of the patrol's whistles.

Quentin's response came immediately, faint in the winds around us. Doing my best to send the whistles low and quickly, since we were hunting a spy who might know what we were saying, I sent out the hunted's location and name. For a moment, there was no reply from the lieutenant, and I began to worry that I had whistled too softly. Then confirmation came of the night patrol's response and of Quentin's takeover of the patrol mastership from Carle.

I looked over toward Carle, but he was already running lightly down the side of the mountain, out of sight of the two men below. I paused long enough to check whether I would need to send rocks down to halt the horses, but the spy was apparently clever enough to know better than to flee on horseback. He and his companion were already dismounting, and the younger man was taking hold of the reins as the spy raised his head to scan the mountains with his eyes.

I ducked out of sight the moment before his gaze reached me, then followed the path that Carle had just taken. As I ran down the mountain, all of my thoughts were concentrated on the hope that, if a killing was forced to take place, I would not be the one duty-bound to carry out the death. I know – and the other patrol guards have told me this as well, since the incident occurred while the full patrol was closing the circle – that I had no choice but to kill the border-breacher who tried to murder me last week, but he still haunts my thoughts like a death-shadow. I have accustomed myself to the thought that I might die in service to the Chara; I had forgotten that I might have to kill in his service.

Carle, moving with the speed of a jackal, had already reached his position by the time I arrived at the foot of the mountain, as had the rest of the day patrol, but I caught up in time to join my whistle with those of the night patrol guards who had reached their spots. I was behind the spy and his companion, and so I didn't have to hide, as most of the other patrol guards needed to at this stage in the hunt. I could see the breachers clearly. The spy was apparently reserving his resistance for our arrival, for he hadn't moved; nor had he unsheathed his sword. His companion was stiff with fright and was clutching the horses' reins as though he expected a rescue to come from that quarter.

I heard the lieutenant's low signal; then I ran forward, helping Carle with the dangerous rear attack, the place where the spy was most likely to flee. The spy indeed whirled around to look our way, but after one glimpse of Carle coming forward with his sword raised, he turned back just in time to see Quentin emerge from behind a rock and come forward for the disarming.

Quentin slowed as he reached the circle of men surrounding the two imposters. Carle had hand-signalled me over to one side, so I could see that the spy's gaze was fixed on Quentin; there was a faint smile of challenge on the man's face. Then Quentin darted forward, his sword pointed toward the man's dagger hand at first. When it became clear that the spy was wise enough not to draw his blade, Quentin shifted the aim of his sword so that its point ended up touching the spy's throat. I could see the faint indentation it made on the skin, a pressure that was aimed to discourage the spy from changing his mind about fighting.

Carle had moved forward to prevent the spy from backing up, but he retreated again as Quentin signalled me to take his place. The younger man had already been trapped by Payne and Gamaliel and made no resistance as Gamaliel removed the younger man's sword and took the horse reins from his hands.

The spy, though, apparently merited more careful treatment. "Please do not move, sir, until I say that you may," said Quentin softly, taking a step forward and pressing the point of his sword harder against the spy's throat. "I would hate to have to slice off your arm because I misunderstood your intentions." He waited a moment to allow the spy to absorb this message. I could no longer see the spy's face, but he appeared from the back to be rock-steady despite what Quentin was doing to him. He must be a dangerous man indeed to remain calm in so desperate a circumstance. I could see that Carle, though he should have been helping guard the younger man, was watching the spy carefully, as though he knew that the hunt was not yet over – and indeed, Quentin had not yet sent out that signal.

"When I am finished speaking, you will do the following," said Quentin, his voice growing softer. "You will place your hand halfway down your sword sheath and unhook the sheath before dropping it to the ground. You will not allow your hand to come near the hilt at any time. If I see even a lone finger touch that hilt, I will cut your throat open. Now do as I say."

The spy, without hesitation, followed Quentin's instructions. When he was through, Teague began to come forward to take the sword from the ground, but Quentin whistled him away. Without removing his gaze from the spy's face, Quentin whistled me into position. I dashed forward, pulled the spy's arms behind him, into a painful and immobile position, and pulled him back so that his head was pointed mainly toward the sky.

"Sublieutenant," said Quentin, "your blade, please."

I could feel the man's arms muscle-tight under my trap-grip, ready to move the moment that he had his chance, but he would have no chance now. In the next moment, Carle's sword was pressed edgewise against the spy's throat – extra insurance that this very dangerous man would not try to escape.

"Now," said Quentin, turning his attention to the younger man, "let us see what manner of assistant you have."

Payne, without requiring the signal, pulled the younger man into the same position that the spy was in. The young man gave a yelp of protest, but was silent after that until Gamaliel's hands, searching his body, ran over his crotch. Then he tried to pull away, saying, "This is ridiculous. Don't you realize that the subcaptain is—"

The rest of his words were lost in a grunt as Payne drove his knee into the small of the young man's back. Quentin waited until the young man had his breath back before saying, "Nor will you speak until I give you permission. Mark my words – the next time it will be a blade that reminds you of what I have said."

"He is naked," reported Gamaliel, having finished his search.

"Unlike his master." Quentin turned his attention back to the spy. He paused a moment to take in the scene before him: the man trapped in my grip, with his head pointed upwards and his throat guarded with a blade. Then the lieutenant sheathed his sword, hurried forward, pulled up the spy's tunic, swiftly untied the cords of the thigh-pocket hidden there, and stepped back out of reach before the spy could have a chance to react.

For a moment more, Quentin looked at the spy, me, and Carle; then he whistled softly, and Carle stood back. I remained where I was, holding the spy.

"Adrian," said Quentin, "are you sure that your hold is secure?"

"Yes, sir," I said, puzzled that he would ask me such a question in front of a prisoner.

Quentin's gaze travelled over to the man standing unresisting in my grip. "Sir," he said, "you have shown great restraint until now, and I thank you, but I would appreciate it if you would demonstrate to my junior-most guard the error of his statement."

I had no time in which to ascertain the meaning of Quentin's words. At the next moment, the spy's boot swung back and struck me hard in the shin. For the barest of seconds, my grip slackened on the spy; then I felt myself shoved backwards, and in the darkness of the pain that followed, I was aware only of Quentin's whistle signalling the other guards to stay back.

When my vision cleared again, I found myself standing in the same trap-grip I had been practicing a moment before. The spy was holding my wrists with one hand; the other hand was holding my own sword, which was pressed edgewise against my side. I could see nothing except the sky and mountains above me.

A face appeared above me, smiling. It belonged to Quentin.

"Is that lesson clear, Adrian?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," I managed to gasp. "I should have kept my legs further back."

"Or else tilted my body more," said my captor, and he released me in the same moment, slipping my sword into my hand. Near me, Quentin was whistling the end of the hunt and the release of the remaining prisoner. By the time I straightened my back to its normal position, my captor was already busy strapping his thigh-pocket back on.

"I hope that you were not in a hurry to reach Koretia, sir," said Quentin solicitously.

"Not at all," replied the subcaptain, looking up in order to take his sword back from Devin's hand. "As a matter of fact, I was hoping that you would halt us. I wanted to see how you appeared in action these days. —Rolf, stop looking so sour-faced. If you are fool enough to resist the border mountain patrol, that is the sort of treatment you should expect." He flashed a grin at his orderly, who was rubbing the small of his back and looking at the soldiers around him with an aggrieved expression.

"Carle, you keep your edge nicely honed." The subcaptain reached up to touch his neck, which had a thin line of blood on it. "I had visions of meeting my end in the mountains after all."

"It is the only way to keep hold of a dangerous breacher like you," said Carle with an expression of mock seriousness.

"Iain, Gamaliel, Sewell." The subcaptain nodded his greeting to them. "The rest of your men are new to me, Quentin."

"It has been two years, sir," replied the lieutenant.

"Has that much time passed? That makes it – let me see – nine years in the patrol for you. You're pressing the odds, Quentin. I trust that you will be retiring next year."

"Next year is a long time away," said the lieutenant. "If all of us live until our winter leave, that will be achievement enough. Do you have time to stop and chat?"

"About old times?" The subcaptain's smile deepened. "I'm sure that we can find a more interesting topic than that. Yes, I'd like to spend the morning with you; I'm in no hurry. Carle, congratulations on your elevation. Quentin, here's a motive for you to retire: to allow Carle his chance at the lieutenancy, as I allowed you yours. By the Sword, my back hurts. Are any of your men good at back massages?"

The night patrol headed back to the hut after that, all except Gamaliel and Payne, who volunteered to patrol in place of Carle and me so that Carle could join in the conversation. Quentin introduced those of us who were new; the subcaptain's gaze lingered longer on me than on the others, but he greeted me with civility.

During the first part of the journey to the hut, the subcaptain regaled us all with humorous tales of Quentin's early days in the patrol, but as I began to slip back in the crowd, eager to ask Carle more questions, I found that the subcaptain had fallen back as well and was walking alongside me.

"Malise, Subcaptain," he said by way of introduction. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm well," I lied. "Sir, do you think you could show me how you escaped my trap?"

"Again? Heart of Mercy, you must be a lover of pain. I am growing soft with old age; being trapped once is enough for me. I have no desire to have you and Carle demonstrate your fine techniques on me again – at least, not for the next hour or so." He smiled at us.

"What takes you to Koretia, subcaptain?" asked Carle.

"The Chara wanted someone with a good knowledge of Common Koretian to serve as his ambassador to the King – and he chose me because he wanted someone with something close to a spy's training, who could tell him more about what the Jackal is doing."

Carle and I exchanged mystified looks. Malise added, "You have not heard, then? Well, I suppose it is not common knowledge yet, though there is no secret about it. There is a man travelling around Koretia, stirring up trouble. He claims to be the Jackal."

o—o—o

"This man appeared about six weeks ago," said Malise a few minutes later, as we all sat round the fire. "He walked into the sanctuary of the priests' house near the Koretian capital, while the priests were in the middle of a service – they were performing the Jackal's rite, apparently, and had just invoked the god. He claimed that he was the god taken human form. He was wearing the mask of the Jackal on his face, and he refused to remove it while he spoke."

"How did the priests react to this announcement?" Iain asked with a laugh.

"I suppose they would have thought it ridiculous, except that the priests had some sort of prophecy a few years ago that the Jackal God would come to Koretia soon and take over the High Priesthood. Some of the priests were impressed by the man; they said that he spoke like a god and had the presence of one. The others said that the man was simply an imposter who had heard of the prophecy and was taking advantage of it. They challenged the man to show his powers as a god, and he said that he could not use them in the presence of disbelievers."

"A convenient answer," commented Carle, chewing on a cool twig he had retrieved from the balefire. "I suppose he had an equally convincing explanation as to why he could not take off his mask."

"He claimed that he could not appear naked-faced to any man who refused to serve him, and that even among his servants, few would ever see his human face. Well, that convinced even more of the priests that this was nothing other than a pretender to the godhood. They threatened to place him under the gods' curse unless he abandoned his story."

"But he did not," said Devin, who was sitting with his chin on his knee, listening to the story with a serious expression on his face. I have discovered that the only men in the patrol who don't joke about the gods are the borderlanders. Even Quentin, though very Emorian in every other way, refuses to praise Carle's skeptical remarks about the Koretian religion.

"He abandoned the priests' house instead," Malise replied. "The Chara heard this story not long afterwards from one of the royal messengers who brought him news from the Koretian capital. Then, about three weeks ago, the man claiming to be a god turned up again, this time in the Koretian borderland. He was sighted late one night in the Village of Borderknoll – I am not sure where that is."

"Adrian?" Quentin, who had been standing silently apart from the rest of us, came over to crouch near me.

"It's in the borderland of Koretia, about a day's ride from Blackpass." It was also close to Mountside, but I didn't say this.

Malise, warming his hands over the fire, continued, "After that, he began to be spotted all over the borderland, but only a handful of people claim to have spoken to him. In every case, the Koretians say that this masked man calling himself the Jackal asked them to enter into his service, but the Jackal refused to tell them why until they had pledged their loyalty. I suppose that gods expect blind loyalty from their servants. Naturally, these Koretians were wise enough to refuse, but there is no knowing how many other Koretians have been tricked into serving this man. The Chara received a report on the Jackal's activities two days ago from one of his spies, and he is highly alarmed. There is already some sort of civil unrest occurring in Koretia, and if this Jackal-man adds fire to the situation through lawless activity, it could mean war, and that could affect our border."

Quentin was staring reflectively into the flames; I could see that his eyebrows were drawn low. Sewell, Teague, Devin, Carle, and the orderly were sitting close by Malise and were attentive to him; I was the only one who saw the look of concern on Quentin's face. He raised his eyes finally, saw me watching him, and said, "What can you tell us about this, Adrian?"

"I know about the prophecy," I said. "That happened when Fenton was at the priests' house. The prophecy didn't say anything about the god taking human form, though. It just said that he would come to Koretia and become the land's High Priest, and that he would destroy the Koretians' enemies."

Carle grunted and cast his half-chewed twig back into the fire. "Ominous news for Emor, if we should go to war with Koretia."

"What would it mean if the Jackal became High Priest?" Quentin asked.

"Well, the High Priest makes the final decision over matters such as the gods' law. At the moment, since there's no High Priest, the King has been making those decisions. I suppose you could say that the King has been Koretia's High Priest for the past seven years."

"So this man is a rebel," concluded Malise. "He wants to take the King's power away from him."

"Some of his power, at least," I replied uneasily, and looked over at Quentin. He had his chin on his knuckles and I could guess that, like me, he was worried about more than whether war would come to Koretia.

"You are Koretian."

I pulled myself away from my thoughts to reply to Malise, "Yes, sir. I joined the patrol five weeks ago."

"He is Emorian now, subcaptain," inserted Carle.

Malise gave a rueful smile and stood up to stretch his back. "Time was when I would scarcely talk to any man who had Koretian blood in him. When your lieutenant joined the patrol, my first thought was, 'Here's a brown-skinned dog sullying the fine tradition of the patrol with his slurring speech and superstitious ways.' I was sublieutenant then, and I was determined to drive Quentin out of the patrol by dirty means. I used every trick I could to get him transferred or even killed: I sent him against the worst border-breachers, I gave him orders that would endanger him if he obeyed me . . . He always obeyed me. Then one day – it was shortly after I had risen to the lieutenancy and had chosen a lesser man as my sublieutenant – I looked at Quentin and thought, 'When this man reaches his full power, he'll be a better soldier than I can ever be.' I nearly fell on my sword. Then I came to my senses and set about teaching Quentin to take over my job. I hope with all my spirit, lieutenant, that you never have to undergo such a disheartening experience."

"I think it unlikely that the lieutenant will ever meet anyone who might exceed him in skill," said Carle with a laugh, then turned the conversation to Quentin's acts of bravery.

I was closest to Quentin, so I was the only one who heard him say softly, "Don't be so sure." I looked over at him, and then my breath caught in my throat, for he was looking straight at me.

For a heartbeat, he held my gaze; then he stood up and went over to the other side of the balefire to examine the cut on Malise's throat. I was left alone on my side of the fire, wondering about the meaning of Quentin's look.

I've been wondering ever since then, and the conclusion I've reached is that it doesn't make any difference to my work whether Quentin thinks I'll be a good soldier or not, because I would work just as hard, no matter what level of skill or rank I was likely to achieve. Even so, I would like to believe that Quentin thinks well of me. I don't know why this is so important to me – it should be enough that I do my duty – but I suppose it does matter to me that he like me, since I admire him so much. I suppose it's all foolishness on my part.

I've spent so much time writing this entry that I have no time for further speculations, but of course one other thought remains in my mind as I go to bed: Has the Jackal God really become a man?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The third day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

I'm finding that I no longer have time to write in my journal regularly, since at the end of the day I'm too tired to do anything except sleep. By "end of the day," I don't mean when the day patrol ends its work, for I am usually awake for several hours after that, either playing Law Links – which is a duty for me, since I need to learn so much law – or spending the time in excruciating bouts of memorization.

There is so much to memorize as a patrol guard. There are many more whistles than Fenton ever guessed – hundreds, in fact – and I also have to memorize the names and locations of all the mountains near the pass, as well as the names and appearances of Koretians and Emorians whom I might encounter as border-breachers. These are people who have proved particularly dangerous or successful in the past twenty years; one day I found myself memorizing the description of a slave who could be none other than Fenton. I also need to learn of people who might try to cross the border in the future, such as the King's spies.

It's like being Fenton's student again, only much worse, for I've never been good at memorization. My only consolation is that Teague is far worse than I am. Carle says that he is an excellent guard otherwise, but that if his head weren't attached to his body, he'd forget to wear it every day.

It's becoming quite cold in the mountains. I wear my cloak every day now, except for last week when the winds ceased blowing for three days, as they occasionally do. Carle and I have been busy discussing our plans to rent a city house together when the patrol withdraws from the mountains at the end of the month. "If not sooner," said Carle, but when I asked why, he simply shook his head.

o—o—o

The fourth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Teague and Sewell have been sent back into Emor with the horse and cart. Sewell broke his leg during tonight's patrol, and Quentin thought the leg should be inspected by a physician.

It was Sewell's own fault; he and Teague were taking a shortcut back to the patrol hut after they met our mail messenger. Chatwin has been eagerly awaiting a letter from his betrothed, and they wanted to see his face when he received it. The lieutenant gave Teague and Sewell a lecture on safe climbing that made even my ears burn; then he cut up his extra tunic as a bandage for Sewell's bleeding, as we are short of supplies at the moment. Usually we have two weeks' worth of supplies on hand, but Devin, who is in charge of supplies, got into an argument recently with the peddler who delivers our goods, and I suppose that the peddler is taking his revenge by delaying delivery.

Carle helped Teague and Sewell to hook up the cart and came back swearing mildly about incompetence in young soldiers. Carle's twentieth birthyear begins this winter.

"After all that, Teague didn't even remember to deliver the letters," said Carle. "Well, if Chatwin dies of heartbreak before they remember to send the letters back, it will all be Teague's fault."

He grinned then, and we spent the next couple of hours memorizing laws. Carle has promised to start teaching me the Great Three soon.

o—o—o

The fifth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

I awoke at dawn today to find that it was a beautiful day: the sky was dark blue, and clear like spring water. Even with my cloak swept back so that my blades were close to hand, I was drowning in heat, and I was sorely tempted to drop the heavy cloth down a fissure. Carle reminded me, though, of the patrol regulation I memorized last month, about always wearing cloaks in the month of December, so I spent this morning sweating my way along the paths.

"You're lucky compared to the rest of us," Carle pointed out as we took a mid-morning break from our patrol, near the southernmost point of our patrol route. "You're a southerner; you'll be able to bear the mountain summers much better."

"And bear the mountain winters much worse," I retorted. We were lying on the side of a mountain, watching a flock of migratory birds make their way south.

"Ah, but we won't be here during the winter, so you have the better end of the deal," said Carle, swallowing with a gulp the remainder of our bread.

"Greedy man," I said with a laugh. "That was meant to last us until evening."

Carle grinned. "We'll dip back into the hut at noonday and pick up some more. Devin won't like it; he has been guarding our supplies this week like a hen guarding her chicks. I sometimes wonder whether Devin was meant to be a woman; he has a woman's obsession with these trivial details of domesticity. May the Chara preserve me from ever marrying someone—"

He stopped. I thought at first that it was because of the wind, which was blowing so hard from the north now that it was becoming hard for us to hear each other. Then suddenly he was on his feet, blowing one long note: it was the Immediate Danger whistle.

He followed this with a series of notes so rapid that I couldn't follow what he said. He must have guessed that this was the case, for he grabbed me and shouted, "Run! Back to the hut! I will meet you there!"

I have by now become accustomed to following orders without question and without hesitation. Even so, something made me pause when I reached the curve of the mountain, and I looked back at Carle. He was busy sending out the whistle demanding to know the locations of the rest of the day patrol, and the others were busy sending their replies back. His red hair, bright under the sunlight, made a striking contrast with the blue of the sky, but in the brief second in which I watched him, his hair was thrown into shadow as the storm-clouds rolled over us like deadly boulders.

I was racing through the tunnel when the snow arrived.

When I entered the tunnel, the first few flakes were beginning to whip against my face. By the time I reached the end of the tunnel, a journey of less than a minute, the world outside had become a wall of snow. I stood uncertainly for a minute, trying to see through the white blanket smothering the hollow before us. Then I realized that the snow was becoming heavier as I watched, so I took a blind step into the storm.

I have travelled this route eye-bound, I have travelled it at night, I have travelled it with the wind howling so hard that I had no sound to guide me – why, then, was it so much harder to find my through the snow? I suppose that in the past there was always some small sense to guide me: if not my eyes, then my ears; if not my ears, then the light cast by the stars. Now, though, there was nothing to show which direction I was headed in, and the winds kept blowing me off course.

I hadn't gone far before my face was raw from the cut of a thousand tiny ice blades striking my face. My feet were too numb to feel the ground beneath me; more than once I fell when I slipped on the snow beginning to coat the grassy ground of the hollow. I stumbled over something hard, and my heart beat fast with hope, but a moment's worth of groping showed me that I had missed the hut and was standing next to the fireside rocks. I turned around, willed myself to walk in a straight line again, and started again.

In the end, I think my lone salvation was the fact that I was in the hollow: I could not wander aimlessly forever, as I would have done if I had not reached the tunnel in time. I bounced from one end of the hollow to the other until finally, by pure chance, I found myself touching something large and flat. I raised my hands higher and touched the whipping ring.

The wind was pushing me against the wall like a bully sitting on his victim. There was a great temptation to simply stay where I was and recover my breath, but I forced myself to grope along the wall. So intent was I on travelling in this manner that when I reached the end of the wall, I forgot to turn the corner and would have wandered off into oblivion again, except that hands grabbed me and dragged me a short distance to shelter.

I nearly fell to the floor as the door closed behind me. The hut was thick with smoke from the fire – I learned later that the smoke-hole had been plugged to keep the snow out – and all that I could see was the others crowded beside me. Devin thrust warm wine at my lips, and I gratefully swallowed the few drops he allowed me. The lieutenant still had his arm around me, holding me steady. He waited till I had finished swallowing, then said in a sharp voice, "Adrian – where's Carle?"

I looked over at him in bewilderment. Gradually, my numb senses began to take in who was surrounding me: Devin and Payne and Gamaliel from the night patrol, and Chatwin and Hoel from the day patrol – the latter two must have outraced me to the hut. Carle and Iain and Jephthah were nowhere to be seen.

"God of Mercy," I whispered.

Quentin gripped my arm harder; the pain brought me back to my senses. I said, "He was on Mount Sword— No, wait." This, as Quentin began to slip away. I paused a moment, trying to recover, from the depths of my memory,

the whistles I had heard. Now of all times I must remember correctly. "Jephthah and Iain were on the eastern side of Mount Skycrest. Carle told them to go to the cave under that mountain – the one I discovered when you were hunting me. He said he'd meet them there."

The lieutenant whirled around, the edge of his cloak hitting mine; the snow that had clung to my cloak slid the warm floor. He was at the door to the hut before I knew that he had moved; the only reason I caught a glimpse of him at all was that he paused at the door, said, "Stay with the unit," and threw an object into Devin's hands.

It was not until he was gone into the blizzard that I saw what he had thrown, and then, like all the others present, I was stunned into silence. Quentin had given his partner the seal-ring of his lieutenancy. It is the ring he uses to seal official documents, and it is never to be removed from his hand unless he is in imminent danger of dying and needs to deputize his power to the soldier who will take command of the unit upon his death. Devin turned the ring over and over in his hand, as though he were examining a man's will.

It is five minutes from here to the cave. The lieutenant has been gone for an hour.

o—o—o

Two hours. We've all been sitting silently around the fire, except for Devin, who has been occupying his mind by counting up his beloved supplies in the store room. I've been spending the time thinking about Carle. Iain and Jephthah were on the eastern slope of Mount Skycrest, twice as far from the hut as the cave. Carle must have guessed that there would be just enough time for me to get back safely; if he had come with me, he would be safe too. Instead, he ran for the cave, where he could do no good except to be trapped there with Iain and Jephthah.

Try as I might, I cannot imagine Carle, being what he is, doing anything other than what he did.

o—o—o

Four hours. Chatwin and Hoel have been discussing how, several times a day, the mountain winds will stop for a few minutes before starting up again.

"If the lieutenant made it to the cave, that is what he could be waiting for," said Hoel. "The cave is close enough that the four of them might be able to make it back here during the break. The snow is not the problem; the problem is the winds blowing the snow around."

"Then why should the lieutenant risk himself at all?" asked Payne. "Carle and the others could make it back on their own."

Hoel shook his head. "The passes are tricky in the snow. You lose sight of your familiar landmarks. It takes someone like the lieutenant, who has grown up next to the mountains, to be able to find the way back from the cave."

"Then we can be sure that they will find their way back," Payne said confidently.

"If the lieutenant made it to the cave," said Devin without looking up from the supply list he was checking.

o—o—o

Seven-and-a-half hours. The winds died a short time ago, and everybody's head jerked up. Devin opened the door and stared out at the frosting of snow on the ground. The white blizzard blanket had fallen suddenly to the ground, and the air was clear of but a few steady flakes.

Devin was shifting from foot to foot. I could see that he was aching to leave in search of Quentin, but the lieutenant had placed the rest of us under his care. Devin dared not disobey orders while there was any chance that Quentin was still alive.

A minute passed, then another. Finally Devin said, "I am going to the tunnel. I can find my way back to the hut from there."

He left, and Gamaliel took his place at the door; he is next in rank after Quentin and Carle and Devin. The rest of us strained to look over his shoulder, trying not to be too obvious about it. There was a long silence, like a pause between the songs of a Daxion bard; then Gamaliel abruptly slammed the door shut, narrowly preventing the renewed winds from blowing out our fire. Gamaliel remained on the outside of the hut as he did so.

Payne told me earlier that this was the first time in his life that he ever wished he was Koretian, so that he could pray to the gods. Well, I have managed to keep from praying to the god I renounced, but in the five minutes that followed, it was a very close thing.

The door slammed open again, the winds screamed into the room like a wailing woman, and the four of us who had been waiting scrambled forward to help the figures stumbling in. As I threw my cloak over Devin, I counted automatically in my head, and then felt relief fall over me like sunshine. Six men had entered the room; everyone was back safe. No one had died.

Not yet, anyway.

o—o—o

The sixth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

We spent most of yesterday evening rescuing Quentin and Carle and Iain and Jephthah from frostbite. "It's cold in that cave," Carle said with a grin as I wrapped a fire-warmed blanket around his feet. "It makes this hut seem like a southern summer in comparison."

Carle is the only one who thinks so. The first thing Quentin did after he got back – before Gamaliel had even been able to persuade him to strip off his wet clothing – was to go into consultation with Devin about the supplies. Two minutes later, he smothered the fire with dirt; then he removed all but one of the logs and started a much smaller fire, one that Hoel says can barely be dignified with the name of fire-embers.

There was no evening meal. The reason for this became clear after Quentin, having submitted himself patiently to Gamaliel's doctoring, called us together in council. He had Devin read out the list of supplies. The list sounded long, but Devin followed this up by telling us how much food ten men can eat in a day.

What Devin's news amounts to is this: There is no telling how long it will be before the winds die down for a few days. If we keep the fire going at its present temperature – just warm enough to keep ice from forming in the hut – then we have enough firewood to last us three weeks. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have enough food to last us three days.

The lieutenant has put us on quarter rations: this means that every day we get a few gulps of wine, as much water as we want (we have plenty of snow to melt), a handful of nuts, and two large hunks of bread. Gamaliel is looking worried. I found him reading through his doctoring manual this afternoon; he was turned to the page discussing the need for men in cold climates to eat lots of food.

"When Teague and Sewell returned to the headquarters without the rest of us, Captain Wystan must have known that his letter of warning to me went astray," said Quentin. "There is nothing he can do, though, until the winds die down; nobody can reach us through these storms. The best we can hope for is that the captain will retain enough faith in us to send a search party when the winds die down, as it is likely we will be in no condition by that time to make the journey back on our own. Our duty, then, is to stay alive so that the search party's efforts are not wasted."

I decided that it was characteristic of Quentin to describe our desperate attempt to stay alive as our duty rather than our natural desire. If it wasn't our duty to stay alive, I think Quentin would have us feasting on the supplies right now, rather than condemn us to the prolonged death that awaits us.

o—o—o

The seventh day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Eleven days' worth of food left; we're still on quarter rations. We've all been squeezed up next to the fire today, trying to ignore the cold against our backs – all but Devin, who seems to find comfort in counting our supplies over and over, and Quentin, who keeps going outside to check on the weather. We slept in pairs last night, curled up against our partners so that we could throw two cloaks and two blankets over ourselves. I only woke up twice from the cold, but I think that's because Carle insisted that I face the fire and that he protect my back with his warmth. Like everyone else, he's worried that my southern constitution will prevent me from surviving.

We're all wearing our two uniforms double now, one on top of the other. Since Quentin cut up his extra tunic for Sewell, I tried to give the lieutenant my Koretian tunic, which I still have here, but he simply remarked that it was a good thing I would have extra protection. I didn't argue; it's amazing how quickly men become selfish in such situations.

Not all of us. Quentin isn't wearing his cloak, not even when he goes outside; he gave it to Iain, who has been suffering from a bad cold since his return from the cave.

o—o—o

The eighth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Ten days' worth of food left. I'm finding it hard to write; my hands feel like lumps of ice most of the time now, even when I'm sitting directly next to the fire, which is most of the time. We've been playing Law Links throughout today, and Jephthah, who has been to Daxis, tried entertaining us with some songs. But it turns out that all the songs he knows end with the protagonist dying, so the lieutenant made him stop.

Gamaliel has been spending most of his time with Iain, whose fever has grown worse. I heard him muttering something today about the need for isolation, but I'm not sure what he meant.

o—o—o

The ninth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Now I know; the rest of us have caught Iain's cold. Iain has taken a turn for the worse and is starting to become delirious. We all volunteered our blankets to Iain, but Gamaliel crossly said that having one patient was bad enough; he didn't want all of us dying from the cold. It's the first time Gamaliel has let slip his fears about Iain's state.

Nine days' worth of food left. I took an informal survey and found that five of us have fasted before: me, Quentin, Gamaliel (he says that it's part of a physician's training), Devin, and Jephthah. Iain may have fasted as well, but he wasn't in any state to ask.

o—o—o

The tenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Eight days' worth of food. Quentin caught Jephthah feeding his dinner to Iain and brought Jephthah up before the unit for disciplining.

"I know what this is going to lead to," said Quentin, "so I am going to stop it now before it spreads any further. Jephthah, you are under my command, and you are to follow my orders to keep yourself alive by eating. If I find that you have failed to do so, I will force the food down your throat. That goes for the rest of you as well."

He let Jephthah go with a reprimand; I don't suppose any of us could survive a beating at this stage. I feel absolutely no temptation to stop eating. It's all I can do to remember my honor and not take more than my fair share when the food is passed around.

o—o—o

The eleventh day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Iain died during the night. Chatwin and Payne are now quite sick; Quentin, after consulting with Gamaliel, has raised their food allowance to half our usual rations. However, because of Iain's death, we still have eight days' worth of food left.

Jephthah borrowed my pencil and a sheet of paper earlier. He said that he wanted to write a letter to his family in case we didn't survive, but that he didn't want to bother Devin by asking for writing supplies.

o—o—o

Devin just found Jephthah's body in the store room. Jephthah hadn't disobeyed Quentin's orders by starving himself; he had fallen on his sword.

Quentin had us lined up against the ice-cold hut wall within minutes. I've never seen him look so grim, not even when he captured me. He spent a brief period ascertaining that none of us knew what Jephthah had planned. I was racked with guilt, but the lieutenant said I couldn't have known what a simple request for writing materials meant. After he had questioned us, Quentin didn't bother to give us a lecture. He simply made every man in the room take out his blade and place his palm on the flat, swearing that he would not take his own life by any means. This is called a free-man's oath and is the Emorian equivalent of a blood vow, treated just as seriously.

Emorians are usually buried whole, but Jephthah asked in his letter that his body be used for fuel, so we had a warm fire tonight as we sent his spirit to the Land Beyond.

o—o—o

The twelfth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Nine days' worth of food left. The reason we have so much is that another man died during the night: Gamaliel, whom nobody even suspected was ill. As the unit's physician, he could conceal that information from us.

Payne and Chatwin are much better, thanks to Gamaliel's doctoring; the lieutenant has put them back on quarter rations. There are now seven of us left here: Payne, Chatwin, Hoel, Devin, Quentin, Carle, and me. Despite Quentin's orders, Carle has been trying to sneak portions of his daily meal into my rations, though I've caught him doing it every time. During the rest of the day, Carle entertains us with stories of the worst winters he knew as a boy. If he is to be believed, we are experiencing an exceptionally mild winter.

o—o—o

The thirteenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Eight days' worth of food left. Devin has been urging Quentin to let him try to make it back to Emor in order to lead the search party to us, but Quentin has refused to let him go. The winds continue to howl about our hut except during brief periods of silence that seem almost louder than the wind-blows.

Carle has been teaching me the Justification to the Law of Vengeance. I protested that my mind was in no state to be memorizing thirty pages' worth of law, but Carle sternly told me that I wasn't on convalescent leave and that I was to continue with my duty of learning the law. I didn't have the energy to argue with him.

Devin took Quentin into the storeroom with him tonight to consult him about the supplies. When it's used as a sickroom, a brazier is placed in there, causing the storeroom to be the warmest part of the hut. Now it's the coldest part, but all of us find ourselves wandering in there periodically to stare at our dwindling supplies.

o—o—o

The fourteenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Six days' worth of food left. The reason we have lost a day's worth of food is that Chatwin has been stealing food. Quentin, lying in wait, caught him during the night.

Emorian law is amazingly comprehensive. I never would have thought there'd be a law covering the crime of stealing food from one's fellow soldiers when you are all on the point of starvation – but there is, and Carle knows it by heart. He says that the last time he recited it was two days ago, when Chatwin asked him whether such a law existed.

This was the evidence that caused Quentin to give Chatwin the maximum punishment, which is death. Actually, the maximum punishment is a Slave's Death, which is a fate too sickening for me to record here. But we all agreed that Chatwin didn't deserve a prolonged death of any sort, and the council and judge together can commute the sentence to a Free-Man's Death, which in this case meant a blade through the heart.

Quentin gave Chatwin's partner, Hoel, permission to carry out the sentence. Hoel thought it would be easier for Chatwin if he did it. I don't know whether it was; we could all hear Chatwin crying in the storeroom for a quarter of an hour before he reached the point where he was calm enough that Hoel could carry out the execution.

Hoel has been white-faced ever since then. The rest of us, by unspoken consent, decided not to play Law Links tonight. Carle's one comment was that Chatwin had an easier death than the rest of us will have.

o—o—o

The fifteenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Still six days' worth of food left. We have Chatwin's share to divide.

Carle, evidently feeling that our time is short, has leapt to the end of the Justification of the Law of Vengeance and is now having me memorize the Chara's burdens, the passage he told me about during our trip to Emor. As Carle promised, it is a humbling recital of all the suffering that the Chara endures for the people of his land. The passage ends by talking about the sacrifices that the Chara's subjects should make out of love for the Chara. Carle has been providing no commentary on the passage; he doesn't need to.

The winds have finally started to die down, and Devin again begged to be sent back to Emor. Quentin has refused him again.

o—o—o

The sixteenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

We've been here for eleven days now, and we've been debating whether anyone at the army headquarters will believe that we're still alive. I think that was what made Quentin give in to Devin's request – though Carle thinks Quentin could see that Devin was on the point of disobeying orders and wanted to spare him that dishonor.

There was no lengthy farewell, but all of us ignored the fact that Quentin accompanied Devin to the tunnel and spent longer coming back than one would have expected. Quentin has known his partner since childhood; they grew up in neighboring villages.

Quentin gave Devin a generous portion of the food, so I assume that we have four days' worth of food left, though Devin is no longer here to say, and Quentin has not issued his own report.

o—o—o

The seventeenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

I learned today why Quentin isn't reporting how much food we have left.

"He isn't eating!" I whispered to Carle, having watched as Quentin went from man to man to ensure that we were all eating our rations, without ever picking up any food himself.

Carle was busy licking nut-grease from his fingers. He looked up and whispered back, "It took you this long to notice? He hasn't eaten for three days."

"But he'll die!" I protested. "He can't survive long in this cold."

Carle made no reply except to draw out from the folds of his cloak a small object: it was the lieutenant's seal-ring.

He hid it again before anyone else could see it and said, "He gave it to me this morning so that, if he died suddenly, there wouldn't be any dispute over who was his successor. In the meantime, he's still lieutenant. Short of mutinying against him, there's nothing we can do to stop him."

"But he made us swear—" I stopped, remembering the line of men holding naked blades, and Quentin standing nearby, his sword still sheathed.

"He administered the oath; he didn't take it himself," replied Carle calmly. "It's his privilege to sacrifice himself for the sake of the unit. He is like the Chara to us."

I've been thinking about the lieutenant tonight, with his skin stretched tight across his bones, and his eyes much too bright. He has stopped going outside to check the weather, and he hasn't been on his feet since mealtime. I've also been thinking about Carle, who will become lieutenant if Quentin dies, and who may decide, oath or no oath, that it is also his privilege to sacrifice himself for the unit. And I've been thinking about the passage Carle has been having me memorize, about how the Emorian people should make sacrifices out of love for the Chara.

I'm having a hard time deciding how to do this right.

o—o—o

The eighteenth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

The hard part was figuring out how to die. Jephthah was Emorian-born, so he regarded slaying himself as an act of honor, but I kept remembering Fenton's words about how the worst crime one can commit is to kill oneself. I wouldn't want to do anything that would shame me in the eyes of Fenton's spirit.

But allowing death to come to me naturally would be different. If I went to the cave in Mount Skycrest and waited there, it wouldn't even be a painful death. I would probably die of the cold rather than starvation, and Hoel has been saying that it isn't so terrible to fall asleep in the cold and never awake.

But I had to be sure that no one would come after me, so the device I eventually decided upon was to write a note pretending that I had gone unbalanced – that my wits had fled me and that I would be dead soon after I left the hut. I wrote a letter that I hope sounded sufficiently mad about how I planned to swim naked in the snow – some nonsense I blush to think about, since it will be the last communication anyone will receive from me. I hope that it doesn't hurt Carle too much to think that my life ended that way.

I waited until the winds had dropped before sneaking to the door and opening it in the still silence of the night. Carle barely stirred. I worried most about waking Quentin, but he was shuddering and breathing deeply in his sleep; I wondered if he would even be alive by morning. I left the two of them, along with Payne and Hoel, and raced into the snow-frosted world outside. As Hoel had said, it was hard to find the cave under the unfamiliar landscape of snow, and when I got there, I found that the gap was filled with snow that I had to shovel out with my arms before I could scramble into the cave.

The winds blow gently now and then, but there are long periods when the air is still. I hope it will remain that way for the sake of the others.

As it is, I'm surprised that I'm still alive. Part of the reason is that snow blocks the entrance and keeps out the winds, so this cave is no colder than the storeroom. Every hour or so, I shovel back some of the snow to allow in air and a bit of light. I don't know why I bother to do this, but I suppose that keeping alive is more an instinct than anything else.

It is in this light that I have been writing the words in this journal. I suppose I should have flung my journal on the fire and provided the others with more fuel; no one must ever read these words and know what I have done. I must be sure that I destroy my journal before I rest.

o—o—o

It's harder to keep awake in the cold than I thought. With this journal as my pillow, I fell asleep, thinking how nice it would be to escape just for a while from the aching in my stomach.

I awoke to the sound of a whistle: the hunted had been captured alive. For a moment, I lay where I was, feeling the cold floor cutting like a blade through my cloak. Then a shadow fell over me, and I opened my eyes.

It was Carle, standing above me with a wine flask in his hand.

As I pulled myself painfully up into a sitting position, he squatted down next to me and thrust the wine into my hands. The flask was warm: he must have held it over the fire before leaving the hut in order to keep the liquid from freezing. The look in his eyes was such that I dared not disobey, so I swallowed half the liquid before handing it back to him.

He took it after inspecting to make sure I had drunk enough, then said, "You know, you might have considered what it would be like for me, dying without my partner at my side."

"I'm sorry," I said in a low voice.

He grinned then and finished off the wine before sitting down cross-legged beside me. The wind had begun to howl outside again, and I knew without asking that Carle was now trapped in the cave like me. I thought of Devin, and wondered whether he was dying in the winds.

"You just did what the rest of us wanted to do but didn't dare," Carle said. "It takes a brave man to break a free-man's oath."

"I'm used to oath-breaking," I said with my head bowed.

"Only under the right circumstances, though I can't say that your wits always match your sense of honor. Did you really expect that letter to fool us? You're lucky you didn't have the lieutenant searching for you; Payne and Hoel had to pin him down to keep him from coming after you. He'll probably have us all up on charges if we survive, but we're past the point of caring about that."

We talked for quite a while after that. I can't remember everything that we said, but it was mainly about how I had made my decision to break my oath and disobey Quentin. At a certain point, Carle said, "But it's easy enough to find a justification for breaking an order. At his trial, Shepley said that he had tried to capture the barbarian on his own because he wanted to protect the rest of us from danger. He said that he couldn't have known that the capture would go awry – but that's precisely the point. We can never know the full consequences of disobeying orders; that's why it's up to our officials to make such decisions. They have greater experience and skill, and so they can see further ahead than we can."

"That's true," I said, huddling closer to Carle. He had wrapped his cloak around the two of us, and we were drawing upon each other's warmth like autumn flowers seeking the last rays of sunshine before their deaths. "And there's a more positive way to phrase it: we can never know the full consequences of obeying orders. It seems mad to me sometimes, the way that we risk our lives to stop unimportant men who would probably cause no trouble if they breached the border – but we just can't know that for sure. The best path to take is to obey orders, even if it seems that Emor will receive no reward for our sacrifices."

"Then why did you disobey the lieutenant? Don't mistake me; I think you did the right thing. I just can't find the words to say why."

I leaned my head against Carle's shoulder, closing my eyes against the dagger-sharp cold that bit at us. He put his arm around my back, and I felt him reach his bare hand out toward the cutting air in order to pull his cloak closed around me. I said, without opening my eyes, "I suppose it's a matter of instinct. When you threw yourself weaponless at the barbarian, you didn't stop to measure whether what you were doing was right or not. You just knew that Quentin and Shepley were in danger, and you acted accordingly. I think that you have to start with a strong love for the Chara and his laws, and draw upon that when it comes time to make such decisions."

I felt Carle's head move, and when I tilted my own to look up at him, I saw that he was smiling. "So my law lessons to you during the past few days haven't been wasted," he said.

"What?" I replied, blinking rapidly in confusion.

"The Law of Vengeance. You actually paid attention to what you were memorizing."

"Oh." It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. "I hadn't thought of that. Yes, I suppose that says the same thing."

"What law passage were you thinking of, then?"

I seemed suddenly a great deal warmer than I had been before – at least, my ears were quite warm. I ducked my head, but Carle had already read my eyes and was laughing. "Not a law passage," he said. "Something Koretian? Well, go ahead and enlighten me."

"It's religious," I mumbled.

"I promise to eliminate my usual sharp commentary on the subject. In any case, this doesn't seem to be the right moment to ridicule your gods. I suppose you've been praying to them."

"No," I responded quickly. The look of approval I received from Carle emboldened me to say, "It's something Fenton told me during our last conversation. He said that if you truly love the gods and their law, you will know when the right moment comes to offer up your sacrifice. He said that a cousin of mine who is a jeweller had once described the Koretian people as joined together by their love of the gods, like the links of a precious chain."

I expected Carle to say that Emlyn had stolen this image from the Emorians, but he was silent for a long while before saying, "Perhaps the Koretians are more civilized than I'd thought. By the law-structure, if they'd only direct their love to the proper source . . ."

"Perhaps they will some day," I said as I yawned. "Perhaps we'll find some way of persuading them to serve the Chara and his laws."

"Perhaps." Carle's arm tightened around me like a ring encircling another, and sleepily I remembered that we would not be there to help with this battle. But it scarcely seemed to matter, so strong was my satisfaction at having conquered another hard question of the law, and so pleasant was the sensation of being with Carle when this happened.

And so, when I fell asleep a short while later and knew that I was falling asleep for the last time, it seemed unimportant compared to what had happened before. It was thus an anticlimax when I awoke and saw the lieutenant standing in front of us, and behind him Devin and Malise and the rest of the rescue party. I was glad that we would live, but I was even gladder that we hadn't been rescued a few hours before. All of the pain we had gone through seemed worth it, just to have had that one conversation in the cave.

Law Links 4

THE BIRD

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The twenty-sixth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

The city physicians, after a final clucking of their tongues, have said that Carle and I may leave their house tomorrow. Carle and I have been restless to go since the day before yesterday, for we have no one here to talk with; the other guards left long ago.

Hoel and Chatwin and Devin were released on the first day back, into the care of their families, who had taken temporary housing in the city when they learned that their sons were trapped in the mountains. Quentin stayed only two days longer, though he looked as if he was one step into the gates of the Land Beyond. Although the rest of us had been carried back to Emor on blanket-muffled stretchers, Quentin had insisted on walking back, in order to assist with the navigation through the pass as only a borderlander could. He had seemed well during the journey, but the moment we reached within sight of Emor, he quietly collapsed and remained unconscious throughout the journey to the city.

Nor did he awake once we reached the warmth of the physicians' house. The physicians looked grave and refused to offer any prognosis. Devin, giving way finally to the strain, left here in tears, certain that he would never again see the lieutenant alive.

The only cheerful person was Quentin's grandfather, who had been awaiting us at the entrance to the pass, and who apparently had caused Malise a great deal of last-minute trouble by insisting that he must help with the rescue effort. Malise had finally placed him in charge of the carts left behind at the entrance to the pass. All the way back to the city, Quentin's grandfather distracted us from our worries about his grandson by telling us entertaining stories of his own days in the patrol.

The stories continued when we arrived here, so that Carle and I had no thoughts left for our painful healing. While we were sleeping or trying to sleep, though, Quentin's grandfather would go sit by Quentin and hold his hand silently. As far as I could tell, Quentin's grandfather never slept himself.

This lasted until Quentin awoke on the third day. His grandfather waited just long enough for the physicians to confirm that Quentin had taken one step back from the Land Beyond; then he announced that Quentin was well enough to go home.

This caused an uproar among the physicians. "Not again," I heard one of them say. The lieutenant eventually ended the argument by getting up and walking away. He only made it to the door before crumpling to the ground, but his grandfather had his way with the physicians after that. The physicians made him swear, though – on a freeman's blade, no less – that he would keep Quentin in bed for the next fortnight. "Not like last time," said the head physician, giving Quentin's grandfather a piercing look.

It was all very odd. I wish that I could have spent more time with Quentin's grandfather, to gain further insight into the lieutenant's upbringing.

o—o—o

The twenty-seventh day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Carle and I left the physicians' house today to find only a thin sprinkling of snow upon the ground. While the patrol was dying amidst blizzards in the mountains, Southern Emor has been enjoying a late autumn, with occasional dustings of snow that soon melt. Though the weather has chilled during the last few days, Carle says that it will be at least a month before the country roads become blocked to travellers. That's just as well, given the journey we've decided to undertake.

Our first duty, once we'd left the physicians, was to report to Wystan. He had dark circles under his eyes. Hoel reported to Wystan two days ago, and since that time, Wystan has spent his time with the families of Iain, Jephthah, Gamaliel, and Chatwin, explaining how their sons died. The interview with Chatwin's family was particularly painful, the only bright point being Hoel's announcement at the start that he would care for Chatwin's betrothed from now on. Chatwin's betrothed, having heard of Hoel through Chatwin's letters, wept on his shoulder for the remainder of the interview, and they left Wystan's tent together.

Wystan had nothing but praise for those of us who had survived, which Carle and I found embarrassing. Eventually, to our relief, Wystan passed on to other business.

"You two are planning to reside in the city this winter, I understand," he said, gesturing Carle back into his seat. Carle had been trying to rise when the captain did, though we're both still weak from our ordeal.

"Yes, sir," replied Carle, sinking down. "We hope to attend the city court as often as possible and to visit these headquarters daily in order to sharpen our sword skills."

Wystan nodded as he returned to the seat behind his desk. After a moment's silence in which Carle scrutinized the captain's face, Carle added, "Why do you ask, sir?"

Wystan flicked him an unreadable look before reaching over to pick up a folded and sealed paper on his desk. "I was wondering whether you intended to visit your family."

I did not have to look to see that Carle had gone rigid. The stiffness was in his voice as he said, "I had no plans of that sort."

Wystan gave him a look then that was all too readable. "Your father came to these headquarters the moment word reached him of your trouble. He stayed here for a week, to the neglect of his business at home, and only returned to Peaktop when word reached here that you had been rescued. Yet you have not asked after your family since your arrival back."

Carle's silence filled the tent like freezing snow. Wystan sighed and placed the paper back on his desk. "Sublieutenant, I know that you joined the army against the express wishes of your father. It is natural that there would have been tension between the two of you during the first year or two. Yet as far as I can tell, you have made no attempt to heal the wound between yourself and your family. Now your father has made an attempt of his own to reach out to you; I would hate to see his effort go wasted."

"Are you ordering me to return home, sir?" Carle's voice sounded as though it had been chipped from a block of ice.

"You know better than that, sublieutenant; I cannot interfere with your private life. I am simply offering you advice, as someone who also joined the army against the wishes of his family and remained estranged from his family for far too long. Believe me when I say that such matters become trivial over the years, in comparison with the memories of love and comfort one received as a child." Wystan took up the paper again and offered it to Carle. "Your father left this for you. It is a letter from your sister."

o—o—o

"I didn't know that you had a sister," I told Carle afterwards.

"Yes, a younger sister. And you?" Carle looked up from the letter. We were sitting in the mess tent, having eaten our noonday meal. After a diet of nuts and bread and snow-water, even army food tastes good to us.

"Two sisters, aside from the ones who died as babies," I said. "Leda is the eldest of us; she's married, with a son. My sister Mira will be coming of age soon – or she was, when I left. She's been insufferable for the past two years, telling Hamar and me how much more she'd enjoy the company of a husband than our company."

"My sister came of age late last winter, around her twelfth birthday," Carle murmured; his gaze had returned to the letter. "I remember her writing me about it at the time."

I nudged closer to him on the bench. "Does she say anything interesting in her letter?"

Carle shook his head. "She never does. The village blacksmith burned his hand . . . My mother was ill with stomach pains for a while but is better now . . . A noble came to visit this autumn – old and sharp-tempered, she said. 'Old' undoubtedly means my father's age," Carle added with one of his half-smiles as he folded the letter closed. After a moment, he opened it again.

"And what else?" I prompted.

"Nothing else," Carle said. "That's all she has written, aside from her usual threats to flay me alive if I come within a day's ride of her. She still hasn't forgiven me for leaving without saying goodbye to her." He started to fold the letter, re-opened it, and remained motionless for a while, reading the letter once more.

"There's something more," I said finally.

Under the loud chatter of the soldiers nearby, Carle said, "Yes, there's something more. I don't know what it is yet, though." He raised his eyes to me.

"We're taking Captain Wystan's advice, then?" I said.

Carle nodded. "I think I'll have to go home, at least for a while. You needn't come, though. You can search us out a city house in the meantime."

"Don't be foolish," I responded. "Of course I'll come. Unless—" Belatedly, it occurred to me that Carle might not be eager to introduce a southerner to his family.

I suppose that, if I ever die, Carle will be able to read my final moments from the look in my face. He gave another of his crooked smiles and said lightly, "Your presence is what will make the visit bearable."

The odd thing is, I think he was serious.

o—o—o

The twenty-ninth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

It's early morning. We rested overnight at an inn that's north of the city. Although Carle's village is apparently only half a day's swift ride from the city, neither Carle nor I wanted to go swiftly. We have just enough energy left to stay seated on the horses we borrowed from the army headquarters.

The inn is one of the new-style lodges, with individual chambers for each travelling party, in addition to the common chamber for single men and for travelling parties which can't afford the individual rooms. The beds in the individual chambers are so broad that they could easily accommodate three men. Since Carle and I have slept in the same room together for over two months now, I was surprised that Carle paid for separate chambers for the two of us. I didn't realize the reason until I jerked awake last night, as if to the sound of a danger whistle, and heard Carle crying out.

I rushed for his room, of course, but the door was barred. I hammered on it, and the cry cut off. After a moment, Carle spoke in his normal voice.

He did not even ask why I was at the door, but apologized immediately for waking me, saying that he'd been dreaming. I lingered at the door, expecting him to let me in, but after a while I concluded that he was so exhausted from the ride that he'd fallen asleep after his explanation. I was likewise weary, so I returned to my warm bed next to the hearth-fire and fell asleep soon afterwards.

I awoke to Carle's voice, crying out. Again I rushed for the door; again I found it barred; again my hammering elicited an apology from Carle, but nothing more. Puzzled, I returned to my room and sat by the fire, waiting.

The cry was not long in coming. I tiptoed up to Carle's door and pressed my ear against it. I could hear snatches of what he was saying. What I heard chilled me more than the night wind whistling down the corridor.

Carle was dreaming that he was being tortured. From what I could make out, it appeared that his captor was a vicious border-breacher; I could hear Carle begging his torturer to stop. I strained for the name of the torturer, but even in his torment, Carle followed patrol custom in calling the breacher 'sir,' so I could not tell whether the torturer was Emorian or Koretian.

I stood uncertainly outside the door. Eventually, after far too long, the cries died down. I spent the remainder of the night sleepless beside my fire.

When I see the lieutenant next spring, I must ask him whether this was something real that happened to Carle. If it was, and if the man who tortured him was Koretian, then it's a wonder that Carle ever spoke in friendship to me, much less shared wine with me.

o—o—o

The thirtieth day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Peaktop, Carle's home village, is located atop the southernmost of the signal-fire mountains. It is sprawled across the flat top of the mountain and is a little larger than Mountside. Its income derives mainly from horses and from orchard-fruit, the latter being more valuable than the former, as there are so few trees in Emor.

I learned all this throughout the course of yesterday. My first impression of Carle's mountain home was that its slopes are far too slippery.

I discovered this because Carle, having evidently decided that we were growing lax in our exercise, left our horses to be escorted to his home by some local country boys he knew, leaving the two of us to climb the side of the mountain, rather than take the easy road up.

I had thought that I knew how to climb mountains, but I'd never before climbed a mountain with a foot of snow on it. The last part of the journey, which required us to climb over a sheer rock with icicles hanging off it, nearly lost me my life, but Carle's hand grabbed me and hauled me onto safe ground. Then, before I had had a chance to decide whether I would ever breathe again, he demanded my impression of the village.

It was certainly a beautiful sight. Snow clung in soft clumps to the peaked rooftops of the village houses, lined all in a row along the curving road, but for an enormous house jutting up on a mound – the baron's hall, I supposed. Below the house was a vast orchard, lined on one side by a graveyard, and beyond that was a pasture with horses kicking the snow into the air as they raced to and fro.

I took a step in the direction of the village, but Carle smiled and shook his head, then led us down the shorter path to the pasture. As we crunched our way through the snow – soldiers' boots come in handy in Emor – I saw that the horses were being watched by a young man about Carle's age, who called out to them as they rode past, causing them to swerve their path in a seemingly ordered manner. Sitting at his feet, peacefully watching the horses' hooves thunder just paces away, was a dog with golden-red fur.

It caught sight of us at the same moment that the young man did, and bounded toward us, barking fiercely. I hesitated, unsure whether to draw my sword against this attack, but Carle merely went down on one knee and held out his hand to the dog. She leapt upon him and, in the next few moments, tried to drown him with her tongue.

The young man followed close behind. He skidded to a halt, churning up snow against his winter breeches, and smiled down at Carle and the dog. "She remembers you," he said.

"I had hoped she had forgotten me by now," said Carle, giving the dog a final rub behind the ears as he rose to his feet. "She belongs to you now."

The young man shook his head. Like Carle, he had a touch of red to his hair, though his complexion was darker than Carle's snow-white face. "Forget the boy who raised her from a pup? That's not likely." He gave a shy grin and added, "Only you're not a boy now. I hear you've been fighting snow demons in the mountains."

"They fled at the sight of my sword," said Carle with mock ferocity. "And you? How have you been, sir?"

Something flickered in the young man's expression, and I thought for a moment he would voice his thought. Then he shrugged his hands and said, "Well enough. I'm to be married, you know."

Carle's smile grew broad. "Felicitations! I had not heard; my sister never tells me the important news. Do I know the fortunate woman?"

A blush touched the cheek of the young man. "It's Almida." Then, hastily: "It's all right; you may laugh. I know that I'll be the hen-pecked husband that bards sing about. I really don't mind. After everything I have to do in the village, it will be nice to come home and be ordered around."

"I firmly agree with you, sir," said Carle, who showed no signs of laughing. "There is nothing I despise more than a woman who impotently allows herself to be bullied about by her husband. When I am married, it will be to a woman of character, like Almida."

The young man's look of gratitude could have spread to the far borders of the empire. "I've missed you," he said frankly. "Are you planning to visit long? You could stay at the hall if you like. We were always able to find room for you in the old days."

"Offer me no temptations." Carle shook his head. "I would like nothing better, but . . . Well, if nothing else, you would not have room for my partner here." Then, as the young man turned his shy gaze toward me, Carle added, "I apologize for the lack of an introduction. Sir, this is— No, wait, I see your father coming. I will make my introductions once he has arrived."

I turned toward the pasture gate and saw a man striding across the fields, seemingly immune to the danger of being trampled by the prancing horses. Unlike the young man, he had tossed his cloak back, and I could see the silver glint of his tunic's border. He was smiling even before he reached us. Putting his arm around the young man's shoulders, he said, "Carle, this is a welcome sight. Your letters to Myles are hardly fair exchange for the pleasure of your presence. I suppose you have come because of your sister's betrothal?"

Carle, who had been on the point of gesturing toward me, grew suddenly still. After a moment, he said in a voice as controlled as though he were on patrol, "No, sir. I had not heard."

"Ah." The baron's arm slid from his son's shoulders, and his face grew serious. "Yes, your father has been searching for a suitable match since last winter, and he has finally made up his mind, I understand."

"Do you know the man, sir?" Carle's voice continued to be steady, but I could see a bump in his cloak-cloth which suggested that, underneath his cloak, he was gripping his sword hilt.

"I have met him on a few occasions. He is Vogler, baron of a prosperous village in the Central Provinces. Because his first wife died without issue, he has been looking for a young wife to bear him heirs. From the point of view of the bloodline, it is an excellent match."

"And from the point of view of character?" Carle continued to stand as stiff as a sentry.

"His character . . ." The baron hesitated for a moment, then said quietly, "He is a man much like your father."

Myles's gaze passed from Carle to the baron and then back again; otherwise he remained silent. Only the dog seemed immune to the atmosphere and chose this moment to start bounding toward one of the horses. Myles quickly called her back; by the time she had returned, panting happily and nuzzling Carle's legs, the baron was saying, "But I see that you have brought a guest with you."

"Yes, sir." Carle turned toward me with a gesture so easy as to suggest that he had discarded all other thoughts from his mind, though I knew him better than that. "Sir, may I present Adrian, Soldier of the Chara's Border Mountain Patrol? He has been my partner this autumn. Adrian, I present you to Gervais, Baron of Peaktop."

"I am pleased to meet you, sir," I said, touching my hand to heart and forehead.

Myles's smile dropped away, followed by an expression of uncertainty. He looked toward his father, who was so far from smiling that I expected him to call for soldiers at any moment. Beside me, Carle said hastily, "Sir, I ask that you forgive him. He has only recently emigrated, and he is still learning Emorian ways."

The baron's gaze continued to pierce me like a spearhead. "I would have thought," he said slowly, "that showing respect for one's betters was the custom in all of the Three Lands." He glanced over at his son, who was looking mutely unhappy, and his gaze relaxed. "Carle, we must go; Myles and I have business this day to tend to. I hope that you will join us for supper before you leave." He gave me one final, dark look and added, "You are welcome also, Soldier Adrian. I suggest, though, that you become better acquainted with the customs of your new land."

I mumbled something that I hoped sounded properly submissive as the baron and his son turned their backs. They had gone a spear's length forward when Carle's hand closed upon my arm with a grip like a jackal's jaw.

He marched us grimly toward the north gate of the pasture. The dog tried to follow us for several paces, but Carle shooed her back, and we left her at the gate, wagging her tail as she watched us leave. I waited until we were well into the orchard before asking, "What did I do?"

"What did you do?" Carle blasted me a look that matched the baron's. "Adrian, you gave him the free-man's greeting! Have you forgotten you're a lesser free-man?"

Actually, I had, but this didn't seem the moment to mention that. "I know I'm only supposed to give the free-man's greeting to my equals," I said, "but surely your baron must have realized I was only trying to be friendly. In Koretia—"

Carle sighed, tossed back his cloak, and drew his sword. "Do you see this?" he said.

His sword looked all too sharp in the winter light that fell through the trees. I swallowed and nodded.

"If we lived in Koretia, I would have had to fight a dozen duels on your behalf by now, just to keep you from being killed by all the men you've insulted since arriving in this land. Be grateful we live in Emor, where people show more patience." With a grin, Carle sheathed his sword, then turned to catch the bundle of brightness that had flung itself upon him.

After a moment, I identified the scarlet-cloaked bundle as a girl. She had no sooner kissed Carle than she hit him on the side of his head with her fist. Then she stood back and contemplated him with furious eyes.

Carle rubbed his ear. "I'm glad to see you also, Erlina."

"You took your time getting here," she responded, glaring at him as she placed her fists against her slender hips.

"I'd have arrived here sooner if you'd been less subtle in your letters," Carle rejoined, scooping snow off the ground to place against his ear.

"I told you last winter that I'd come of age. You should have known what that meant. What else did you expect me to say, with him reading all my letters?"

"I didn't foresee him moving so quickly—"

"I'm of age," she said firmly. "I'm a woman, though unlike you I didn't run out the door the minute I reached adulthood, leaving everyone else in the household to deal with him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"So you've told me many times," said Carle, giving her one of his spell-binding smiles.

Erlina seemed unmoved by such charms. "And you don't write enough. You don't write enough even to Myles; he's told me how much he misses hearing from you. He says you're even calling him 'sir' now, which he thinks is so foolish, though of course he'll never tell you, because he thinks you're much too wise to be—"

"Erlina." Carle took hold of the young woman's hands and held them lightly. He said quietly, "Have you signed the betrothal papers yet?"

Erlina continued to frown at him, but she bit her lip before saying, "I had to. He was blaming Mother for my stubbornness."

Carle sighed and released her. "I'll talk to him."

"It won't do any good."

"I'll talk to Gervais also. Perhaps there's a law we can use to annul the betrothal."

"If there was one, you'd have thought of it by now," she said directly. "You know far more law than Gervais does. You're too late, Carle. And you're rude, too; you haven't introduced me to your friend."

Carle rolled his eyes toward the leaves above us. "This extremely difficult creature that you see before you is my sister, Adrian. I'd present her to you, but she'd probably claw your face to pieces."

"Don't be silly." Erlina spread the skirt of her gown and gave me a low curtsey. "Is Carle this much trouble in the army? You have my permission to hit him if you want," she told me hopefully.

Carle groaned. "One of these days, Erlina, I'll teach you the Law of Army Rank. Until then— Heart of Mercy, he's coming." His voice grew suddenly low. "You'd better go, Erlina. He'll want to be the first to greet us."

She was gone then, as quickly as she'd come, like a bright-winged bird fled to her nest. For a moment, all that I could hear was silence. Then, with no warning of his approach by sound or sight, a man emerged from the trees.

The first thought I had was how much he looked like Carle. Though his hair was beginning to silver over like frost, his short locks were the same shade of red as Carle's, and he even had Carle's crooked smile. The charm was there too; I felt it even before he turned to gaze at me. Then, evidently feeling that his son deserved the first welcome, Carle's father said, "I knew that you would come home in the end."

His voice was warm. By contrast, Carle's was as chill as the ice on the bark as he said, "Yes, sir. I have brought a guest with me."

"So I see." Carle's words caused his father's smile to deepen. The older man turned to me and touched his heart and forehead, saying, "Verne son of Carle. You are welcome, young man. You are one of my son's friends, I take it."

My hand was halfway to my breast by the time he finished speaking – after all, there was no question here about rank – but something made me hesitate. Perhaps it was only the remembrance of Gervais's dark look. Quickly I turned the greeting into a bow. I was rewarded – I saw upon raising my head again – with an approving look from Verne.

"Well," he said to Carle, "I see that the army is not short of courtesy. You'll have learned many useful skills in the patrol, I'm sure. I am eager to learn of them."

Coming from a man who had opposed his son's entrance into the army, this could be nothing other than an apology, but to my surprise, Carle did not follow up on his father's words with his own apology for having departed the family home without leave. "Yes, sir," he said in a flat voice. "I am permitted to visit, then?"

"Have I not made that manifest?" The smiling man embraced the orchard with his arms, as though he would offer all its bounty to Carle. "You are most welcome, Carle; I have been looking forward to seeing you and talking with you. Now, as to your guest . . . The guest chamber is taken at the moment, I'm afraid. Your friend will have to stay in your main bed-chamber. I'm sure you remember the way to your extra chamber."

A hiss that might have been an indrawn breath or the whisper of a blade against its sheath came from the direction of Carle. "I do, sir," he said in a voice as taut as a rope around a bound breacher's wrist. "Shall I show him to the house now?"

"Yes, that would be wise; our dinner will be ready in an hour. I'll just go now and tell the cook of your arrival. Your mother," he added as an afterthought as he turned to go, "will be glad to see you. She has much to say to you, as I'm sure you know." And he gave another of his deep smiles and walked away, as silently as he had come. It occurred to me, as he disappeared between the slender trunks, that Verne had not asked my name.

It was a while before I could think of what to say. As we walked slowly through the orchard, ducking snow-laden branches, Carle had an expression on his face as unrevealing as at my trial. Finally I said, "He is very gracious to guests."

"Yes, he usually is," replied Carle, his eye on the building that was beginning to loom above the tree-line. "I counted on that in bringing you here."

I was tongue-tied for a moment more, then said, "Your house must be large if you have two chambers to yourself."

The red in Carle's hair seemed to flow in that moment to his face; his ears grew scarlet. After a moment, my gaze followed his to the great house above us, perched atop a mound.

I stopped dead, my gaze rising up the four floors and taking in the number of windows in the stone building. Some of them, I now saw, were covered with glass.

I turned back to Carle, who was avoiding my eye so assiduously that I laughed. "No wonder you were comfortable at Neville's home. And this orchard . . . ?"

"Is my father's." Carle was still struggling to control his blush. "It's quite embarrassing. We have more money than Gervais does, which isn't how it's supposed to be."

"Oh, yes," I said. "I seem to recall you telling me how good you are at keeping to the proper order in rank—"

He swiped at me with his hand then, and we fell to laughing. It seems a good omen that we were still laughing when we entered Carle's house.

o—o—o

The thirty-first day of December in the 940th year a.g.l.

Carle's bed-chamber, where I am staying, has a beautiful view of the black border mountains. I imagine that, as a child, he must have spent many hours dreaming at this window about becoming a patrol guard. I can also see the Chara's palace from here. It glows white at night, lit by flames that have burned, Carle tells me, for near to a thousand years. Even during the terrible civil war of Emor's early history, the flames were never doused.

The bed here looks as though it were made for the Chara. It's finely crafted Arpeshian work and is so wide that Carle and I could easily sleep together on it. I was therefore surprised when Carle told me that he would stay in his extra chamber. I was going to protest, then realized the likely reason he wished to room separately. I really must question the lieutenant about the mystery of Carle's dreams.

But I have mysteries enough to occupy me here. One is where Carle is staying in this house. He has put off my questions in that regard, except to say that he is well used to his extra chamber. Apparently the room I'm staying in was often used as a second guest chamber when Carle was growing up. So enigmatic is Carle about this that I almost have visions of him hiding himself away in order to carry on a secret love affair with one of the slave-women.

The slaves are a second mystery. I don't mean, of course, that I am mystified by such things as would astonish a Koretian who had just arrived in this land. I have grown used, through my visits to the city, to the sight of slaves walking about naked-faced, talking as boldly as any free-man. Yet Verne seems to treat his slaves with greater generosity than the average Emorian. His slaves don't wear special clothes that distinguish them from free-men, and Verne always addresses them in the same soft, gentle voice he uses toward the rest of us. I cannot reconcile what I see with Fenton feeling so ill-used that he fled from his master. But Fenton never told me the full story of what happened. Perhaps Verne was not at fault at all; perhaps Fenton was being bullied by some of the other slaves here. Certainly the slaves have a sullen look, not in keeping with the considerate treatment they are receiving.

But the biggest mystery of all is this: Why is Verne hosting a barbarian prince?

"Prince" is the title Verne has given him. Alaric tried good-naturedly to explain to me his status on the mainland, but all I could gather is that his father rules over a territory, and that he is his father's heir. He is a mainland noble, at any rate, though much younger than the noble that Erlina is to marry: he is not much older than I am.

Even so, the prince already has a wife and two young daughters. He revealed this last night as we were sitting at the dining table, waited upon by an army of servants.

"I married very young," he said, smiling. "Too young, perhaps. You know, sir, how family duties can restrict the direction of one's life." He bowed toward Verne, as he is in the custom of doing every few minutes, confounding my preconceptions of barbarian manners.

In appearance, though, he is every bit a barbarian. His face is painted – I suppose for battle purposes – and his hair is as long as a boy's and is tied in braids. It's hard for me to imagine how any mainland woman could stand to be courted by someone looking like that, but I suppose barbarian women have lower standards.

"My wife has known how restless I am," he continued in good Emorian, "and so she finally tells me: 'Alaric, my cherished one, what you want is not to be found in our tribe. You must search further – search even the Great Peninsula, where I think you will find your heart's desire. And when you have found it, return here and be happy.' She is a very wise woman, my wife."

Verne, sitting with ease in his chair at the head of the table, said, "And have you found what your heart desires, here on the Great Peninsula?"

"I believe I have, yes." Alaric continued to smile. "And so I will start my journey back to the mainland soon, since my quest is finished."

Carle exchanged looks with me. Only a fur-covered barbarian, we supposed, would travel north during the winter. Well, I suppose that if my father could see me now, sitting in a house surrounded by snow that won't melt until April, he would think that I'd gone mad as well.

"Oh, but you must stay until the wedding." Erlina leaned forward. She had ignored her father's signal earlier that the after-dinner talk would be for men only, though this was the first remark she had addressed toward the oddly garbed barbarian. "I am sure that you have never seen such festivities on the mainland, not even at your own wedding. And my husband will be so eager to meet you in the spring."

Carle, who had been swallowing some wall-vine wine, was suddenly taken with a fit of coughing. As I pounded him on the back, Alaric said serenely, "The warmth and kindness of Emorian women never ceases to amaze me. You and your mother are like bright flowers peering out of the snow. Yet I, who have taken so much already from your father, cannot impose on his graciousness further." And he bowed again toward Verne.

"There is no imposition." Verne flung his courtesy whole at the barbarian, smiling back at him. "We would welcome your company until spring. Perhaps you can persuade my son and his friend to stay as well."

Carle managed at that moment to still the last of his coughing. He said nothing, which gave me hope. Could it be that, if we stay the winter, I can succeed in reconciling Carle to his father? I would so much like to give him that gift.

o—o—o

The first day of January in the 941st year after the giving of the law.

The village held celebrations today in honor of the founding of the laws of Emor. I could imagine my own family gathering today to offer up sacrifice to the gods in thankfulness for the creation of the gods' law at the turn of the year. I am filled with gratitude that I'm here rather than there.

Carle spent much of yesterday and today showing me around the village, where he is, it seems, much liked by the inhabitants. He also showed me his family's graveyard – a body-cemetery rather than an ash-cemetery. It lies upon a beautiful part of the mountaintop that overlooks the Chara's palace.

Carle has demonstrated greater reluctance to guide me around his home, though I have explored on my own during the periods when Carle and his father are closeted away together; Verne is evidently keeping his promise to listen to Carle's accounts of what he has learned in the army. The only section of the house barred to me is the slave-quarters, which are located in the basement. Nothing was explicitly said to me, but Carle made clear that Emorian views on rank do not allow for such mingling.

The rest of the house is beautiful and ancient, filled with carvings and decorations that date back to the early years after the civil war. One of the more recent tapestries evidently shows the family tree, though it is so filled with woven names that it is hard for me to read them. I will have to ask Carle about it.

I spent this evening talking with Verne. He was curious to know about my family background, and I found myself telling him the whole, terrible story of the blood feud. He was very sympathetic. Carle was angry at me afterwards when he learned that I'd spoken to his father about this. He reminded me that Quentin had advised me against telling this story to any but my intimates. Surely, though, Quentin never meant to suggest that I shouldn't tell the story to Carle's own father.

o—o—o

The second day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle was with his father all of this morning, and Erlina was invited to spend the day with Gervais's family, so I whiled away my time with Alaric. He tells me that he learned Emorian as a boy from a traveller who was mauled by a snow leopard and who was forced to spend many months with Alaric's family while he was healing. Alaric was surprised to learn during his travels here that Emorian can be voiced through symbols on paper. Apparently he had never seen a written word before he arrived in Emor, so I spent the forenoon teaching him the Emorian alphabet. He told me that he would continue to practice his letters until he was as good at writing Emorian as he is at speaking it, and he thanked me at such length that I was nearly yawning by the end.

He really is quite clever, for a barbarian. I feel as though, for kindness' sake, I ought to drop him a hint as to how unattractive long hair on a man looks to women.

o—o—o

The third day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

I see that I haven't written anything about Carle's mother. This is because it's hard for me to know what to say about her. She is the shyest woman I have ever met; she never speaks unless Verne gently coaxes her into doing so. He is all kindness to her and often puts his arm around her in an affectionate manner.

Because of this, I am beginning to see that the disagreement between Carle and his father must have been serious indeed to cause the two of them to be estranged. Verne is not the sort of man who would ordinarily distance himself from his blood kin. On the contrary, he is always involving himself in his household's activities, flitting from chamber to chamber in his quiet manner.

Carle's mother I scarcely ever see, and I think that is by her wish. I came across her today, dressing the face of one of the slaves; he had evidently been in a fight with another slave, for his flesh had been laid open in a manner I've only seen among duellers. When she saw me, she was so startled that she fled from the room. I finished mending the slave's face, trying to converse with him, but to no avail. Eventually I realized that we were being watched by Verne, who smiled and thanked me for the assistance. He says that his slaves often get into such mischief as this. I fear that Verne shows too much softness toward the members of his household. Perhaps that is why Carle has leaned the other way and is keen on army discipline.

o—o—o

The fourth day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle and I spent this afternoon exploring the contents of his main bed-chamber. We found many old writings by him about the patrol; the writings made us laugh, since they showed a boy's view of what the patrol is like. We also found a copybook filled with Fenton's handwriting, which stung my heart.

Carle was just pulling an old tunic out of a chest when I heard a barking from under the window. Looking out, Carle said sharply, "Home! Go home, girl!"

There was a puzzled whimper from the dog, but Carle's tone of voice evidently permitted no disobedience, for when I looked out the window, the red-furred dog was gone. "Couldn't you have let her come inside?" I asked.

Carle shook his head. "She's Myles's dog now. Besides, my father never allowed my dogs inside the house. —Ah, I'd been thinking about this tunic." He held it up to the firelight. "I wore this in the last year I lived at home. I'd guess that it still fits me . . ." He glanced over toward me, then back down at the tunic again.

I quickly rose and voiced a desire to use the lavatory. (So luxurious is Carle's house that it even has a chamber that is filled with nothing other than a chamber-pot and washbasin.) In actuality, I simply wanted to give Carle the opportunity to undress in private. He is still modest about his body, even in my presence.

When I returned, he was gazing with satisfaction at the most peculiar tunic I have ever seen anyone wear. The cloth is made all of one piece and wraps around him; the belt too is attached to the tunic, so that when it is untied, it remains with the tunic rather than separating.

"I wanted to show this to Quentin," said Carle, tying his belt. The belt was naked of weapons; here in Emor, I've learned, even soldiers and nobles walk unarmed when they're at home. I can't imagine what men here do when they're challenged to a duel.

"I had an idea that a uniform made in this style might come in handy during the summer months," Carle continued. "Patrol custom is to sleep in one's uniform, in case a danger whistle is emitted, which means that we sweat like dogs in that closed-in hut during the summer months. This tunic, though, can be quickly donned."

As he spoke, he unclasped his honor brooch, unfastened the belt, and swung the cloth open for me to see. He had not bothered to put on his winter breeches underneath or even to retain his breech-cloth, which surprised me, given what I knew of his shyness about showing his body.

He turned so that I could see how the cloth wrapped around the back. I asked, "Where did you find such a tunic?"

"Oh, I asked my mother to make it; I designed it myself. I got tired as a child of taking my tunic on and off several times a day. I decided that I might as well make matters easy for myself."

I was going to ask him then about the swimming basins at Peaktop – for that is what I assumed he was referring to – but we were called to the table then. I did mention the tunic to Verne at supper, and I've never seen him smile so deeply. I think he must be very proud of Carle's inventiveness. If only I could make Carle recognize how warmly Verne loves him.

o—o—o

The fifth day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

Trouble has arisen, but not from Carle or his father. During my exploring today, I stepped into a dark corridor and discovered Alaric and Erlina in the shadows, kissing each other.

As instinctively as though I had sighted a breacher, I stepped back into the doorway through which I had entered. The kiss was evidently not long, for Erlina soon walked down the corridor, past where I was hiding. She was looking from side to side, as though worrying that someone might see her – as well she might. I waited until she was beyond sight, and then I stepped into the corridor.

Alaric sighted me at once. For a moment he stood frozen, reading from my expression what I had seen. After a bit, he came forward, a smile across his painted face. "Ah," he says, "we are discovered. I had expected that it would happen eventually."

His easiness about what he had done made me uncomfortable. How do you explain to a barbarian the notion of honor? "Sir," I said, falling back on my patrol politeness, "I know that you are merely visiting this land and cannot be expected to adopt the customs of the people here. But surely, even in your own kingdom . . . I mean, your wife . . ."

"Ah, yes, my wife." Alaric's smile did not waver, though his voice was discreetly low. "I have been interested during my travels through the Great Peninsula to learn of your customs of marriage. You come from the south originally – tell me, do they practice divorce there?"

"It's not as common as in Emor," I said. "It's against the gods' law, actually, but sometimes a priest will give a dispensation—" I took in suddenly what he had asked and said, "Do you mean . . .?"

He shook his head. "Divorce is a custom that we mainlanders find – I pray you to forgive how I express this – barbaric. The idea that I, after joining my body and life with a woman and sowing children upon her, should discard her and say that she is no longer my wife . . . That is hard for me to understand." He smiled at my puzzlement and added, "Yet I find it hard also to understand the view in the Three Lands that if a man and woman marry too young and discover that they do not love each other as a husband and wife should, their only other choice is to keep up the pretense that their marriage is fulfilling, so that they continue to live a loveless existence. Surely the gods within us would not be so cruel as to demand this."

I have my own views on what gods, Koretian or barbarian, might demand, but I confined myself to asking, "But what other choice is there? If you are divorced, you may decide to take a second love, yet if you are married—" I stopped, abruptly seeing the gulf between civilized life and barbarian life.

"You see how much wiser our gods are," said Alaric, his smile growing bright. "My wife and I live apart now, though we retain affection for each other. I have even allowed my wife to take a lover, which many husbands would not permit. Yet I think it is only fair that she should be allowed a love, since she has urged me so strongly to seek a second wife for myself. 'Go to the Great Peninsula,' she tells me. 'You are not drawn to shy women such as me; bold-speaking women are who you desire.' She knows me best, you see, since we are married. And so I have travelled many miles through the Great Peninsula, and I have sought far for my heart's desire. Finally, when I am close to giving up hope, I find my desire – but she is already promised to another man. And so I must return alone to the mainland, for I know now that I will never find another woman like her. Yet, though it pains me further to stay here and know that she will never be mine, I cannot help but desire to bring her happiness in this period before her marriage, for I fear that this is the only chance she will have to know what it is like to find happiness and love in the company of a man."

I had no notion what to say. Alaric, I was sure, could not recognize the full harm of what he was doing. Raised with romantic barbarian views of love, he did not see how even an arranged marriage, such as that of Titus and Chloris, could be blessed with happiness if the husband and wife gave love to each other – and such love, I am now sure, Erlina will receive from any man selected by her father. Yet it really wasn't my place to offer Alaric lectures on his conduct. The only question that arose was where my own duties lay.

Alaric must have sensed this, for concern finally entered his face. "You will not tell him?" he said. "For Erlina's sake, you will remain silent?"

"Carle is my partner," I said, struggling to make the barbarian understand. "I can't keep this from him—"

"Oh, Carle." The lines of worry in Alaric's face disappeared, leaving only the swirling paint. "Carle you most certainly must tell, but not our host? You will not leave Carle's sister naked to her father's hand?"

o—o—o

"Yes, I knew," Carle said that night when I told him. "I'd guessed, from the way that she avoided speaking to him during meals. That's not Erlina's usual manner of treating guests."

"And you don't mind?" I said with surprise. We were standing next to the window in Carle's main bed-chamber – Emorian windows are too small to sit on – and were feeling the winter wind scurry over our skins. Beside us, though, blazed a generous fire that frightened away the cold.

Carle shrugged his hands. "It's as Alaric said: this is Erlina's last chance for happiness before her marriage. Alaric strikes me as an honorable man, for a barbarian – and what is more important, he strikes me as a man with too much desire for self-preservation to risk impregnating the daughter of his host. I'm sure he'll be careful not to take matters too far with Erlina."

"But Carle," I said, "surely any man honored by your father with your sister's care—"

Carle turned abruptly away from the window. "It's cold tonight," he said. "I'd best go see that the slave-servants are well supplied with fuel." And he left the room without saying farewell.

How I wish that Fenton were here. Carle's hatred of his father is so great that it is poisoning his most elementary judgment. I'm tempted to go directly to Verne with this problem, but I suppose that I shouldn't give up so easily on awakening Carle to how blind he is being.

Fenton, I'm sure, would have found a way to show Carle his father's true character.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The sixth day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

This will be a long entry, for much has happened since I wrote last – all of it my fault, alas. I suspect, though, that it would have happened sooner or later, no matter how innocent any of us were.

It started in Verne's study chamber.

"I can't resist showing you this, though my father will tear us apart if he finds us in here." Carle tilted his head back to look at the bookcase before us. "He won't even let anyone except his personal free-servant clean this room, and then only under his watchful eye. I remember it being a great privilege when I was a boy to be able to watch my father take a book off that shelf and read passages aloud to me."

I scarcely heard what he was saying. My mouth was agape as I stared up at the row upon row of books, all bound in creamy leather, all shining golden under the afternoon light. "I didn't realize there were so many," I said in a hushed voice.

"You may find this hard to believe, but my father only owns about half the law books." Carle smiled serenely with his half-raised lips. "He'd have to possess the income of a council lord to be able to afford the full set. Most of these books my father inherited; a few he was able to buy from the profits of our orchard."

A smell of aging paper was hovering in the room, as delicious to me as the scent of a fine feast. I reached out and touched the soft hairs of the binding. "May I look at one?" I asked, continuing to speak in a low, reverent tone.

For the first time, Carle's smile disappeared. He stood silent for a moment, biting the tip of his thumb, then said, "We really shouldn't, but I can't resist showing you the passage on the Chara's burdens. The volume on the Great Three is all the way at the top of the case; he'll never notice if we've touched it."

"But can we get it down?" I asked, feeling uneasy about this subterfuge, but not enough to resist Carle's suggestions. Already I could imagine what it would be like standing in front of the open law book, staring down at the curve of the neat scribe's hand, smelling the ink, hearing the terrible words of sacrifice as Carle spoke them in a soft voice . . .

Carle glanced around the room with the quick movements he used when trying to track one of the hunted, then said, "Young!" A slave-servant was passing the doorway, holding a chamber basin. He stopped and peered nervously into the room at us. "Young, fetch us a ladder, please – and be as quick as you can about it. . . . Now," he added as the slave dashed away, "this will be tricky. My father usually uses a special stepladder to reach the top shelf, but I have no idea where he hides that; it's probably locked away in the chest. So we will have to use the regular ladder."

This turned out to be as difficult a task as Carle had predicted, even with the assistance of the slave; the room was narrow, and raising the ladder required us to guide it past valuable vases on the mantelpiece. Finally, though, we managed to put the ladder in its place, and Carle scrambled up to the top rungs. He had just pulled the volume carefully from the shelf when a cough came from behind us.

Carle nearly tumbled from the ladder, which caused Erlina to grin. "Do fall," she said sweetly. "Father is only a few chambers away, and I'm sure he'd love to see you topple to the floor with one of his treasured books."

"'A spoiled pear scolds a rotten apple.'" Carle's gaze travelled down toward Erlina. "If you want to give our father something to comment on, try walking like that past his door."

Erlina blushed and let go of Alaric's hand. "What's so important about the book that you'd risk your health?" she asked.

Carle sighed as he reached the bottom of the steps. "If you stay, you might learn. Sometimes, Erlina, I think you have as much law-love as an ignorant barbari— I beg your pardon, sir."

Alaric bowed, as though he had received a compliment. "I am indeed quite ignorant of your laws but am eager to be schooled. This is the book in which they are scribed?"

"One of the books," said Carle, controlling his expression. "No, leave the ladder, Adrian; I don't think—"

It was too late; as he spoke, I swung the ladder down, breaking one of the vases in the process.

The slave, who had been standing silently in the corner next to the chest, turned as pale as new-fallen snow. Alaric looked as though a barbarian warrior fiercer than himself had walked into the room. Carle and Erlina, on the other hand, wasted no time.

"Bucket and brush," said Carle to his sister, and then turned as she fled from the room. "Put the ladder back, then return," he told the slave, who departed, ladder in hand, with as much urgency as though he were responding to a danger whistle. Carle was already on his knees, picking up the shattered pieces of vase.

"May I assist?" asked Alaric, for once abandoning his flowery etiquette in favor of quick communication.

"No, I think that you'd best— Thank you, Erlina; where's the bucket, though?" He reached up to take the brush from her hand.

"Missing," said Erlina, gulping for breath. "One of the servants must have moved it."

"My room has a basin; I will fetch that." Alaric turned on his heel. Barbarians, I learned then, are well trained in speed.

Erlina was already on her knees, locating fragments of vase under the table. I began to stoop but was forestalled by Carle's hand.

"If my father didn't hear that crash, it will be the first time in his life he hasn't heard so much as a leaf fall in his house," he said. "Adrian, could you—?"

"Yes, of course," I said, and dashed from the chamber.

I was barely in time; Verne was indeed walking in his silent way down the corridor, toward the study chamber. I had just enough leisure to fix myself in front of the tapestry bearing Carle's family tree; then I froze, pretending that I did not see the man walking toward me.

It seemed at first that my lure would not work. Finally the steps behind me paused, and I heard Verne say, "My family is of interest to you?"

"Is that what it shows?" I said in as ignorant a manner as possible. "I was wondering about the seal in the middle – the sword and the balance. I've seen the same symbol on your seal-ring."

"Ah, yes." Verne stepped beside me, forcing me to look toward him, in the direction of the study chamber. Just beyond him, I saw a flicker of movement that might have been Alaric. It took all my effort to keep my gaze from jumping away.

"The seal is easy enough to explain," said Verne, pointing toward the bottom of the tapestry. The sunlight flickered off his seal-ring, whose design matched that of the seal on the tapestry. "There, you see, are my son and daughter at the bottom, and above them, my wife and me. If you will look closely at the name of my father—" He looked over at me to be sure that I was paying attention, and stopped speaking suddenly. His eyes narrowed.

For a heartbeat, his expression stayed that way. Then his smile slowly rose from one side of his lips. "But come," he said softly, "I can explain it much better from a book I have in my study chamber." And he gently placed his arm over my shoulders and pulled me toward the study.

I drew breath to speak further, then held back. Already I was feeling guilty about luring Verne; it would be unforgivable to lie to my generous host. Surely the best thing to do would be to explain honestly what I had done, and bear the burden of Verne's look of disappointment. Yet if Carle wanted me to act otherwise . . .

I was still trying to figure out what to do when the slave ducked out of the doorway, bearing a covered basin. Verne's lips tightened as he watched the slave depart, and his smile disappeared. Releasing me, he strode through the doorway to the chamber.

The afternoon had turned dark; little light came now through the window, though a fire burned in the hearth. Erlina sat on a cushion in the corner near the chest, her face turned toward the window, as though she were idly watching passing birds. Carle was standing behind the desk; as I watched, he carefully turned a page in the book before him, then raised his head to gaze blandly at Verne.

Verne said nothing; he simply walked forward. Carle vacated the spot where he had been standing, backing up toward me. Verne took his place and stared down at the volume for a long moment. Then he carefully closed the book and looked at Carle, waiting.

In a voice as level as the flat pasture of Peaktop, Carle said, "Sir, I apologize. I know that I ought not to have consulted your books without your permission."

Verne said nothing; he simply gazed at Carle. From the corner of the chamber, there was a stirring of bright cloth. Erlina said, "Father, it's my fault. I asked him to look up for me—"

"Leave." Verne's voice was very soft, and he did not turn his gaze from Carle.

"Father, please—!"

"Leave," said Verne, even more softly. "I will deal with you presently."

I heard a sob from the corner, and then a bright bundle hurried past me. I did not turn my head to watch Erlina leave; I was frozen in my spot like a breacher not knowing which way to run.

Verne turned away, not suddenly, but in a steady manner, as though he were undertaking a task long familiar. He went to the corner of the room, pulled a key from his belt-purse, and used it to open the chest. When he turned again, he was holding in his hand a long, sleek, Jackal-black whip.

I looked at Carle; his face might have been made of mountain stone. "Sir, I am of age," he said stiffly.

"I had forgotten." Verne placed the whip carefully on his desk. "Of course, you are a man, and are no longer under my discipline. Will you call in your sister, please?"

For a moment more, Carle stood motionless. Then his hand went to his throat, and he removed his honor brooch.

Turning to me, he placed the brooch in my hand and said quietly, "Adrian, will take this to my chamber, please?"

I looked at him with uncertainty for a moment, wondering whether I should tell Verne now that I bore the guilt for this episode. Something in Carle's expression warned me that I should trust his judgment in this matter. I nodded and turned away; Carle's hand was already untying his belt before I turned.

At the last moment, something made me turn at the doorway. I looked back in time to see Carle slip off his tunic – the tunic he had removed several times a day as a child, he'd told me – and there, for the first time, I saw his back. And thus I discovered what it was that he had shamefully hidden from his fellow guards.

I felt my throat close in tight. Verne was stepping toward Carle slowly, running the knotted lash of the whip through his palm and smiling at his son a dark smile I had seen several months before, though then it had been on the face of a different man. "Let us see," Verne said softly, "whether the army has taught you how to be a man. . . ."

I forced myself to turn then and to stumble down the corridor. The last thing I remember, before my eyes darkened with tears, was the sight of Erlina crying in the arms of Alaric, as behind us the first of the lashes cut into Carle's flesh.

o—o—o

I wrote all of the above while waiting for Carle to return to the bed-chamber where I have been staying. It seemed a more constructive deed to do than to weep with anger at myself. Finally, though, I grew restless, and I stepped into the corridors to search for Carle.

Cowardly-fashion, I avoided the study chamber, instead peering into room after empty room. Finally giving up hope that I would locate Carle by chance, I hailed a passing slave and asked him where I might find his master's son.

"It is possible that he is in his chamber, sir," said the slave, stepping out of the shadows where I had met him.

"Where—?" I stopped then, for I had recognized the slave. He was the one whose face I mended two days past. All along his forehead I could see the jagged reminder of the blow he had received.

His gaze, which until now had been respectfully lowered, flicked up toward me, and I saw his expression change as he realized that I now understood. Then his gaze dropped, and in the monotone that all of Verne's slaves seem to hold as a common language, he told me how to find Carle's extra chamber.

I have never visited slave-quarters before. I don't even know how Koretian slaves are kept; perhaps they are housed worse than in the dank, dark, putrid chambers where Verne houses his slaves. The last chamber on the corridor was deepest in the dark, so I had to take a lamp with me to light the way. I was shivering by the time I reached it; the chamber had no hearth, nor any slit of a window to let in fresh air. I felt as though I were breathing cold earth.

Very little lay in the chamber: Carle's back-sling, his pallet on the floor, a chamber-basin, and a few pieces of clothing. One of these was the tunic Carle had been wearing before. I turned it over, then had to bite my lip to keep from crying out.

Carle had told me the virtues of the tunic he designed, but he had not told me its foremost virtue. Whereas any bodily moisture that touches the patrol uniform immediately soaks through to the surface, Carle's tunic was sewn in a double layer, with the inner cloth made of the same waterproof material that is used for army tents. From the outside, Carle's tunic looked fresh and little worn; on the inside, in the portion of cloth that lay against the back, I could see the blackness of many old blood stains.

Some of the blood was fresh. I let the tunic fall and stood up, feeling my stomach churn; then I heard a step behind me and turned.

Carle had changed into his patrol uniform, but for the brooch; otherwise, he was as I had seen him last. His eyes rested on me without surprise. He said, "I was about to come see you."

I stared at him, speechless. After a moment I stepped forward and handed him his brooch. He looked at it, smiling humorlessly, then gestured toward the pallet. "Seat yourself," he said. "I'm sorry I can't offer you better."

"Carle . . ." My voice shook as I sat down on the pallet next to him. "Did you sleep in this chamber throughout your childhood?"

"Only when guests came." Carle brushed the bloodstained tunic aside with a casual gesture. "Gervais would have hammered down our door with a summons for neglect of an heir if I had been given this as my main chamber, but having guests visit periodically was sufficient excuse to allow my father to house me with the slaves. . . . I used to wish I was a slave when I was a child," he added, drawing up his knee between his locked hands. "My father pays less attention to them than to his family."

I blinked away the hot moisture trickling across my lashes. "Carle, why didn't you tell me?"

Carle sighed and moved the lamp so that it cast more light upon us. "Family pride, I suppose. I'd hoped that my father would behave properly while you were here – he often does, when we have guests."

"You're a man," I said, my voice trembling once more. "You're not a child any more; you're a soldier in the Chara's armies. How could you let him treat you that way?"

Carle gave another of his humorless smiles and waited. After a moment I said, in a voice of resignation, "Erlina."

Carle nodded. "It's a game he played all through my childhood. If I rebelled against his punishments, he'd turn upon Erlina – or upon Fenton when he was my tutor. Not that my father ever needed any extra excuse to beat Fenton. If Erlina rebels against his punishments, my father turns next to my mother." Carle gave a small sigh and looked down at the dirt floor beneath us. "I wish I could feel more pity for my mother than I do," he said quietly. "When I was a child, she never spoke a word against what my father was doing. She only tended my wounds afterwards, and then only if my father wasn't watching."

He rose suddenly and put out his hand to help me to my feet. "It's Erlina I'm worried about right now. I just searched the house for her, but I can't find her anywhere. I saw Alaric talking to my mother; I didn't want to bother him to ask if he knew where Erlina was. But if my father finds her before I do . . ."

"I'll help you search," I said, and we started on our hunt.

We tried the slave-quarters first – the dark rooms being a handy hiding place – and then the top floor, where Erlina's bed-chamber is located. Alaric hadn't yet returned to his guest chamber at the far end of the top floor, though Carle knocked there in passing and checked the door, which proved to be locked.

"One thing I don't understand," I said. "Why is Alaric here? I thought that your father was being charitable in hosting a barbarian, but now . . ."

"My father," murmured Carle, peering into a wardrobe, "would gladly cut the throat of every foreigner in the world if he had the opportunity. No, Alaric's presence is Gervais's doing. Our baron can do little, in terms of the law, to prevent my father from mistreating his household, so he takes the only actions he can: he invites Erlina and me to his house as much as possible, and he requires my father to host guests to the village, so that my father will be restrained in his behavior by their presence." Carle closed the wardrobe door and began to check behind the floor-length curtains. "The fact that such hosting irritates my father may be part of Gervais's motives. He has hated my father for as long as I can remember."

We stepped out into the corridor. Reaching the stairway, Carle said, "Let's split our hunt here. You patrol the middle two floors, and I'll patrol the ground floor."

I couldn't help but smile then, knowing Carle's motive for saying this. "Sublieutenant," I said, "I know that you're eager to practice for the future the lieutenant's privilege to sacrifice himself for the sake of the unit. Even so—" And without any further words, I slipped ahead of Carle on the stairway, leaving him cursing behind me.

Since there was no longer any way to avoid it, I headed straight for the study chamber. The first person I met was the slave who had assisted us with the ladder; he was leaving the chamber as I arrived. His clothes were rumpled, and he was sobbing into his hands. Feeling the same chill that embraced me whenever I faced a dangerous border-breacher, I peered into the study.

Verne was turned partly away from me; he was contemplating in his hand a piece of broken vase. As I watched, he turned his back and threw open the shutter. At the same moment, perhaps encouraged by this sign of life from the house, a dog barked out eagerly. With no hesitation, Verne hurled the fragment of vase down from the window.

The dog's bark ended on a yelp, followed by a prolonged whimper, fading gradually into the distance. Verne stood at the window for as long as the dog remained within hearing; then he turned. On his face was a smile.

He sighted me at once, rooted at the entrance like a bird-chick watching an approaching viper. "Ah, there you are," he said softly, his smile deepening. "I was hoping to talk with you further."

I came to myself then, and began to slide backwards. "I am sorry, sir. I did not meant to disturb you—"

"Nonsense." Verne moved surprisingly fast, catching hold of me as I was about to reach safety. His hand clamped into my arm so hard that I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. "Do come in and sit. I have been a poor host during your stay, spending so little time with you."

I had no choice but to enter, though I declined the chair he offered me. He went over to stand behind the desk. The law book that Carle had been showing me was now replaced by another, slimmer volume.

"I have been thinking about the sad story you told me the other evening," Verne said, "and have been growing more concerned, the more I think about it. It seems to me, young man, that by leaving your family as you did, you have placed yourself in grave danger. Why, only this afternoon, as I was looking around this chamber, I came across a volume written by an early Emorian visitor to Koretia. He describes in it how men who have broken their blood vows are executed." Picking up the volume so that it hid his face, Verne began to recite: "'The man they consider to be cursed by their gods is brought to the village square, bound both in body and, as the Koretians consider it, in spirit. Before his coming, wood has been placed in the center of the square. Now the man who is doomed is placed in irons and laid across the wood. The fire is lit—'"

I had been trying since the beginning of the narrative to break in. Now I said rapidly, "Sir, I know what is done to the god-cursed—"

I stopped. Verne had lowered the book so that I could see his smile. He continued to smile at me for a long moment; then he continued: "'The fire is lit. The wood is wetted beforehand, though, so that the man's agony may last all the longer . . .'"

And so he went on, recounting all the details of the fire-execution, while I stood there wishing I was wearing Carle's waterproof tunic, for the sweat was causing my uniform to stick to my body.

When he had finished, Verne lowered the book and said softly, "It occurred to me when reading this that even coming to this land may not have saved you from such a terrible end. Suppose, for example, that someone you had harmed decided to send word to your family that you were a patrol guard. It would be easy, would it not, for one of your blood kin to locate you in the mountains and bring you back to your village for execution? I really do think, young man, that you must be careful not to make any enemies in this land." And his smile was so dark that it seemed to swallow the light from the hearth.

I stood where I was, barely breathing, feeling moisture trickle down my face. Verne said softly, "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," I whispered.

"Good," he said gently. "I wanted to be sure that you were aware of your danger."

o—o—o

Carle found me half of an hour later in the stables. I was trying to smother my sobs against the flank of my horse. He had the story out of me within two minutes. Then he sighed and handed me his face-cloth, saying, "My father always turns my own mind into the consistency of Koretian mud, so I don't blame you for missing the flaws in his tale."

"What flaws?" I gulped down a hard sob. "Carle, he will tell my family—"

"No, he won't, and for three excellent reasons. The first is that my father doesn't have any contacts in Koretia. He hates Koretians with a passion, and he wouldn't have the slightest notion of how to go about sending a message to your family. The second reason is that if he did such a thing, he knows that I'd be in the village court within the day, requesting his summons on a charge of murder." Carle guided me away from the horse, which was shifting uneasily, and placed his arm around my shoulders. "The third reason . . . Let me see if I can recite my father's tale correctly. According to him, a member of your family is supposed to enter the patrol grounds, sneak up behind you and me, render me unconscious – for I suppose my father wouldn't go so far as to arrange the death of his own heir – and then disarm you, bind you, and gag you, before dragging you back over the border." Carle raised his eyebrows at me. "How likely do you think it is that this kidnapping will take place without the lieutenant hearing?"

I thought about that for a brief moment before bursting into laughter. Carle grinned and said, "Come, let's to bed. We've had a hard day."

"But Erlina—"

"Is hiding in Alaric's chamber. Oh, Alaric claims he hasn't seen her, but barbarians, I am happy to say, are poor liars." Carle sighed as we reached the door of the stable; he swept the sweat off his brow. "A fine sort of brother I am, permitting my unmarried sister to spend the night with a man who is courting her. Well, if Erlina loses her maidenhead by morning, it will be a lesser loss than what she would lose if she left that room." And I saw once more the look of patience that both Carle and Fenton forged out of their years of pain under Verne's care.

o—o—o

The seventh day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

I awoke this morning to the sound of shouts.

They came from the study chamber but were so loud that they reverberated throughout the house. As I walked down the corridors, hastily tugging on my uniform, I could see slaves cringing in the corners. I thought I caught a fleeting glimpse of Carle's mother, cringing with them.

By the time I'd reached the corridor outside the study chamber, I had identified the voices. I hesitated before slipping up to the entrance.

Both voices were quiet now, one so soft that my hair stood sentrywise against my skin. The other voice belonged to Carle. As I pressed myself against the wall, he said in a cold voice, "Sir, the decision is yours. I have given you the conditions under which I will conduct the hunt. It is for you to say whether those conditions are acceptable."

I did not hear the reply, but I heard the smile in the voice that replied; sweat began to trickle down my back. There was a long pause, and then Carle said, so softly that I had to strain to hear him, "Very well, sir, we will settle this matter through the court. And when you provide your witness for the charge, I will provide my own about a certain lengthy trip our baron took to the Central Provinces twenty years ago, and about how you occupied your time while he was on that trip."

There was a silence at the other end of the room. Carle did not wait long, but said in the same soft voice, "Do not hurry yourself, sir. I can find my own way to Gervais's house." And in the next moment, he walked out the door.

He saw me at once. For a moment, the dark, sickening smile on his face lingered; then it dropped away, like a weapon hastily discarded. For a moment I saw Carle as he must have looked as a child – naked and vulnerable – and then he nodded at me as though I had spoken and re-entered the room.

In a voice that was quiet but was no longer silky, Carle said, "Sir, I ask that you forgive me. I should not have spoken as I did before."

The soft voice spoke. I peered round the doorway in time to see Carle stiffen in his place. His face, always pale, was drained of the last remnants of color. "Sir," he said in a level voice, "I would ask that you reconsider. I will apologize again—"

"Out!" the voice at the other end of the chamber suddenly roared. "Get out! And take your brown-skinned friend with you!"

I found myself cringing against the doorpost as the slaves had done. For a moment, Carle said nothing. Then he whispered, "Yes, sir," and left the chamber swiftly.

He took hold of my arm lightly and steered me toward the entrance of the slave-quarters. "Carle, what has happened?" I asked in a low voice.

Carle waited until we were beyond the knot of slaves clogging the slave-quarters entrance before he said, "Erlina has run away with Alaric."

I looked over at Carle, but I could not see his expression in the dark corridor we were traversing. "Are you sure?"

Carle nodded. "Alaric left a note for me – for me, not my father, which made him furious. My father found the note first, but I made him all the more furious by refusing to translate the note, and by burning it after I'd read it."

"Translate it?" I said. "You mean that it was written in a mainland language?"

"No, it was written in Emorian – you taught Alaric his letters, remember? His spelling is so dreadful, though, that my father assumed that the note was in a foreign tongue."

"What did Alaric say?" I asked as Carle picked up a lamp in the corridor and led the way to his extra chamber.

"He said that he had asked my mother for permission to marry Erlina, and that she had voiced no objection; from my mother, that's the closest one can get to a blessing. He said that it grieved him greatly that he could not likewise ask my father for his permission, but that he had dreamt during the night that a snow leopard had mauled Erlina while he stood by watching. He took this as a sign that his gods wanted him to protect Erlina against her father. He swore to me that his intentions toward Erlina were entirely honorable. And he ended the letter with a one-sentence apology to me that covered three pages. Among other things, he apologized to my future wives." As we ducked through the doorway to the chamber, Carle handed me the lamp, then went over to the other end of the room and pulled open his back-sling.

Watching as he tossed his clothing in it, I said, "It might be true. Perhaps he really does want to marry her."

"Oh, I've no doubt he intends to grant Erlina honor – whatever honor may mean on the mainland. But the idea of Erlina living the life of a barbarian . . . The only fate worse would be living with a man my father had chosen." Carle knotted the tie of the back-sling, saying, "I told my father that I would find Erlina and fetch her back only if he permitted her final say over which man she married. —No, leave that," he added as I tried to hand him the blood-stained tunic. "I won't be needing that again."

"What was his reply?" I asked as we moved back into the corridor, squeezing past curious slaves. "You said something about the court . . ."

Carle nodded as he laid his hand briefly on the arm of a slave he was passing. "Helping a woman to elope is a crime in Emor. My father threatened to request a charge against me that I'd assisted Alaric. —No, I am sorry," he said in response to a question by one of the slaves. He gave her hand a squeeze before passing on.

"I feel as though I'm leaving them to their doom," he said as we raced our way up the stairs. "There's nothing I can do for them, though, or for my mother. My presence wouldn't help them in any way."

"Carle, you said something in reply to your father's threat, something about a trip Gervais took—"

"My father's had better slaves than he deserves," said Carle as though I hadn't spoken. "Not just Fenton, who never spoke an unkind word against my father in all the time he lived here. Most of the slaves we've owned have tried to serve my father well. I remember an older slave who was my father's body-servant when I was quite young. He would take pains to provide my father with comfort only minutes after my father had smashed him to the ground." Carle swung open the door to his main bed-chamber, waited until I was inside, and barred the door.

I was already on the other side of the chamber, packing my back-sling, but I looked up as Carle, with a voice suddenly low, said, "So loyal was this slave that when my father decided, twenty years ago, to seduce the Baron of Peaktop's wife, the slave assisted in the arrangements for the seduction."

My hands stilled on the sling; I was calculating ages in my mind. Breathlessly I said, "Do you mean Myles . . . ?"

Carle nodded as he reached my side and began handing me clothing. "Gervais knows, I believe; there's no other way to account for the depth of his hatred for my father. His honor is shown by the fact that he has never spoken publicly on this matter. Nor has he taken his anger out on his wife and her son."

"Your threat was just a feint, wasn't it?" I asked anxiously.

"Naturally." Carle took from my hand the flask that I was about to pack and sipped from it briefly. "I'd cut my throat before saying anything that might reveal to Myles who his true father is. I must confess, though, that as a child I found comfort in knowing that I had a half-brother, and that he was safe from my father."

"Carle, how do you know all this? You weren't even born yet—"

"I know because my father promised to reward his body-servant's loyalty by freeing him. Several years after the affair, the slave was foolish enough to remind my father, in a tentative manner, of this promise. My father responded by selling him to the mines."

I felt my heart beat at my throat. "The mines . . ."

Carle nodded and handed me the flask. "That's where Fenton would have died if I hadn't been able to persuade him to flee Emor. In some households, loyal slave-servants are rewarded with money or freedom; my father has his own custom. The body-servant was to be taken swiftly from our house before he could talk, but he managed to slip away for a few minutes. He came to me and told me the story. He said that I might need it some day as a defense against my father." Carle watched as I drank from the flask; then he said, "I was six at the time, too young to understand fully what the slave was telling me. Only later did I realize that the body-servant could have used those few minutes to go to Gervais with his story. As I said, my father has owned servants more loyal than he deserves." He turned away and unbarred the door as I rushed to catch up with him.

"Carle," I said, "what did your father say at the end? Before he shouted?"

For a minute, I thought that Carle would not reply. Finally, he turned his gaze toward me and said, "We are bonded by more than wine now."

It took me a moment to determine what he meant. Then my breath drew swiftly in, like a spear meeting its mark.

Carle nodded. "He has disowned me," he said quietly. "Come, let's fetch our horses. We can do nothing more here."

o—o—o

The eighth day of January in the 941st year a.g.l.

We stopped at the inn on the way home, and once again Carle arranged for us to have separate sleeping chambers. This time, when I awoke to hear Carle crying out in pain, I did not even have to listen to know the name of his torturer.

He had locked the door again. I thought for a while, and then, returning to my own chamber, I checked the window. Its sill jutted out perhaps a finger's length, as did Carle's sill, which was half a spear-length from mine. His shutters, I was grateful to see, were open, and so mild was the weather so far this winter that the landlord had not yet tacked on any waxed paper, so the windows proved no barrier.

Our chambers were on the second storey, and going from his sill to mine was tricky, because the only hand-holds were the frames of the window. I expect that any border mountain patrol guard could have done it in his sleep. After half a minute, I dropped down into Carle's chamber. I had been as silent as I could, but of course he was now awake, his thigh-dagger glinting in the moonlight.

He slipped his dagger back into his thigh-pocket when he saw who his intruder was, but said nothing as I came forward. He turned his back as I reached the broad bed he slept in. I slipped under the covers, laying my hands lightly upon his scarred back. Within minutes, I had fallen asleep.

He did not cry out again during the night.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The fourth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

It's a beautiful summer day, with a glowing sun and with air just the right temperature – or so it seems to me. Everyone else in the patrol is praying for the autumn cool to arrive. Levander says that if I make one more remark about how much hotter it is in Koretia at this time of year, I may find myself being accidentally thrown off a cliff.

Levander is my new patrolling partner, and he comes eagerly to me for advice. It feels odd to be an old-timer now. But of course there are very few of us old-timers left, even fewer than there were at the beginning of our leave last winter.

Hoel is retired from army service; he gave a plausible reason for his departure, but we all know that he left because of Chatwin. Teague and Sewell were placed on trial in the court of the subcommander of the Emorian army; they faced the possibility of Dismissal with High Dishonor from the Chara's armies. Teague received a lesser sentence of Dismissal with Dishonor, and Sewell was found innocent since we all testified – those of us who were left – that he was in too much pain from his broken leg to realize that Wystan's letter about the approaching snow had gone undelivered. Sewell, though, requested a transfer since he couldn't face the thought of going back to the unit where four men died because of his injury. He is serving now as Wystan's orderly.

That leaves Quentin, Carle, Devin, Payne, and me to train the new men – plus Fowler, Carle's old partner, who has returned to duty. I was initially nervous at dealing with him; I not only stabbed him, but I took away his partner. Carle hasn't been my partner, though, since we returned to the mountains in April. Quentin split up all the old partnerships so that we could be paired with the new soldiers. In the day patrol are me and Levander, Carle and Manasseh, and Payne and Nahum, while in the night patrol are Quentin and Oro, Devin and Whittlsey, and Fowler and Sacheverell. Levander holds a double title: he is also a royal messenger, and he keeps his horse here to ride to the army headquarters, should there be any need for sending an immediate message – such as that supplies are low.

All of this has delayed the training I would normally have received by now in night patrolling, so Quentin has decided to transfer me into his half of the patrol next week. I'll be paired with Fowler. That will be the true test of whether Fowler has forgiven me.

o—o—o

The ninth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

I suppose that it simply took Fowler four months to get me alone so that he could reconcile us in the proper manner. It wasn't until today that he served out his insults.

We were close to the northern limits of our patrolling area, and I was concentrating all my efforts on keeping myself from sliding off the side of a mountain. Eight months have passed since I last spent an entire night on the mountains, and though we have a full moon at the moment, I am out of practice in the slide step that is required to negotiate the night-black slopes. Because of this, it took me some time to realize what Fowler was implying.

We had started with a polite conversation about the Koretian borderland, comparing it to the Emorian borderland, which Fowler has visited on a couple of occasions. Then we talked about intermarriage, and how this affects the range of skin colors that you find in both halves of the borderland, and then about the fact that Hamar had light skin, as do my sisters, since they all inherited my father's coloring.

"And what about you?" asked Fowler, grabbing me to keep me from slipping down a slope.

"Well, I look like my mother, obviously," I replied. "Oh, I could have inherited it from my father's side as well – his father was quite dark – but it's hard to say, really. I don't think my parents ever talked about it."

"No, I do not imagine that they did."

Something about Fowler's tone made me look up. We had reached a dip in the mountains and were close to the pass, so our voices were very soft, but whatever I had read in Fowler's whisper was also reflected in his face as he assiduously avoided my gaze.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, look," said Fowler. "I visited the Northern Port once – the port is located in the Daxion borderland, where the black border mountains touch the border between Daxis and Emor. It is a cosmopolitan city: you get people visiting there from Daxis, Koretia, Emor, and on up to the barbarian nations of the mainland. So naturally, the brothels there have to please all sorts of patrons, dark and light. I spent an afternoon in one of those brothels once, not for any sport of my own, but just out of curiosity to see what sort of girls the visitors picked. And after a while, I noticed a trend: nearly every light-skinned man who entered the brothel picked a light-skinned woman, and nearly every dark-skinned man who came there picked a dark-skinned woman. It was the same in reverse, too – the women were trying to attract the attention of the men who shared their color."

"But I don't understand what this has to do with—"

"Well, you see, it led me to conclude that any brown-skinned woman, given a choice, will pick a brown-skinned man. It stands to reason. Of course, she may find herself married to a light-skinned man for reasons of family matchmaking and so on, but if temptation should come her way . . . Well, who is to blame her, after all? It is in her nature."

I have been in Emor long enough now to know that, while dark-skinned is a neutral word, brown-skinned is considered offensive. It seemed to me, in the one part of me that remained calm, that Fowler need hardly have embellished his suggestion with such obvious abuse.

I placed my hand slowly upon my sword hilt and said, "Say that again."

Fowler grinned cheerfully at sight of this challenge. "Do not be so sensitive. This sort of thing happens a lot more than we would guess, I am sure. It is only in the borderland that we have proof that it occurs."

Well, I'd given him his chance. I pulled out my sword and started forward, saying, "You'll swallow those words before I'm through with you."

I stopped just short of Fowler, the reason being that he had not drawn his sword. He was looking at me with wariness and even, it appeared, astonishment, though for what reason I could not imagine; I had given him clear indication of what my intentions were if he didn't apologize. He said in a whisper that barely carried to me, "Put up your blade. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone this happened if you sheathe your sword now."

"Don't be such a coward!" Forgetting to keep my voice low, I heard my words bounce off the mountains opposite. "I gave you my challenge, and you accepted it. You can't back away now."

"Sheathe . . . your . . . sword." The intensity of Fowler's whisper puzzled me. In any case, I could hardly duel him if he were going to be such a coward as to refuse to fight. I was still trying to figure out what to do when I heard a long, high whistle from the mountain opposite us. It came from Devin, who was patrolling the area next to ours.

I whirled and was preparing to leap across the pass toward Devin, when I felt myself pulled short by Fowler, whose hand was holding me as a leash holds a dog. "Later," I said tersely. "Didn't you hear? That's the Immediate Danger whistle."

"By the law-structure, man, sheathe your sword!" said Fowler in a desperate whisper. "If you come near the lieutenant now with a naked blade, he'll cut your dagger-arm to shreds."

I stared at Fowler in bewilderment. Faintly I could hear Carle's whistle acknowledging the response of the day patrol, then Quentin's whistle requesting the location and source of danger. As I heard Devin whistle the hunted's name, I felt a chill across my back. Now I understood: Devin had seen me draw my sword against Fowler and thought that I was trying to murder him.

Quickly I sheathed my sword as Fowler sent out the Danger Past whistle. The full patrol would still respond, having been called, but at least they would not immediately attack the hunted. "Let me take care of this," Fowler whispered. "You just keep quiet."

"All we have to do is explain that we were duelling," I said, trying to remind myself that I was not really in trouble.

"Heart of Mercy, Adrian, are you longing to visit the Land Beyond? Keep your mouth shut."

There was a whistle so low that it could barely be heard. I braced myself but still jumped as ten men suddenly descended upon us, their swords all pointed toward me. I caught a quick glimpse of Carle's face – his eyes were cold and his expression hard – and then the moon slid under a cloud, and when it emerged again, I found myself facing the lieutenant. His sword-point was resting just below my breastbone.

There was a moment of silence that probably lasted no more than a heartbeat, but felt to me as though it stretched through the entire period of the Middle Charas. Without shifting his eyes from me, Quentin said softly, "Report, Fowler."

"I regret to report that it is a false warning, sir. Adrian and I had been talking about Koretian customs, and I asked Adrian to show me how Koretians challenge each other to duels. It was a thoughtless request; I apologize, lieutenant."

Quentin did not move his sword; nor did he signal the others to lower theirs. He said quietly, "Is this true, Adrian?"

I was thinking to myself that I ought to explain the real story, which was no worse than Fowler's tale and which was more likely to convince the keen-eyed soldier before me. But if I did so, Fowler would be punished for issuing a false report, so I said, "Yes, sir. I was showing him how Koretians duel."

The pause this time was definitely longer. Carle shifted his position slightly; he was already holding in his hand the strap to bind me. Then the lieutenant emitted a soft series of notes, and the swords lifted. As Quentin looked down to sheathe his sword, he said, "Fowler ought to have warned you, Adrian, that since Emorian duellers are charged with attempted murder, your demonstration might have been misinterpreted. I trust that you will be more careful in the future."

I felt my throat grow drier than the wind, only now understanding what danger I had escaped in the moment that Fowler sent his Danger Past signal. I managed to say, "Yes, sir. It won't happen again."

The other guards had already started to leave. Quentin exchanged a final, lingering look with Fowler; said, "Good hunting"; and slipped away.

o—o—o

The eleventh day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

I didn't actually escape from a reprimand. Carle took me aside yesterday morning when I returned from my patrol and gave me a lengthy and singeing account of what he thought of my actions.

"You're just lucky that the lieutenant was willing to turn a blind eye to this," he said. "He doesn't do that very often, I can assure you."

"But I didn't know, Carle," I said miserably. "Everyone duels in Koretia – how could I know that it's unlawful in Emor?"

"You might have used the wits you were born with. Private vengeance is forbidden in Emor – after all these months, hasn't that penetrated your spirit yet? If someone has hurt you, you don't kill him; you enter a charge against him."

"What sort of charge?" I said angrily. "That he insulted me?"

Carle sighed. "If you must know, there's a law against insulting a free-man, though I wouldn't recommend that you invoke it against a fellow guard. Quentin would feel obliged to dismiss from the patrol whichever guard was found to be in the wrong. He can't have these types of enmities smoldering – not when our lives depend on each other. By the Sword, Adrian, I know that you come from a land where people burn one another alive over disputes that started with a dead chicken, but can't you control yourself better? You have to learn how to settle these matters without violence, or you'll never be an Emorian."

"So I'm supposed to let him say that I'm a bastard and my mother's a whore?"

"Better that, than that you should bring dishonor upon the patrol by drawing your sword against a fellow soldier."

Carle's voice had grown dark and stern. I stared down at my feet for a moment, trying to swallow back the sickness in my mouth, until Carle finally said in a voice filled with gentle exasperation, "Did it ever occur to you to encourage Fowler to repeat those remarks some place where Quentin would overhear them? I can tell you plain that there's a second man in this unit who would not care to hear it implied that a certain light-skinned soldier wasn't his true father."

I looked over at Carle; he was smiling now. I said, "If the lieutenant could make Fowler swallow his insults without duelling with him, than so can I. I just have to figure out how."

"When you find out, tell me," Carle responded. "I spent sixteen years living with a foul-minded man. Some men you can't reform; you just have to endure them. Think of it as one of the sacrifices you make for the Chara: you're helping keep peace in this land by not giving Fowler what he deserves."

As it happens, though, I didn't need Carle's advice in the end. Fowler was very pleasant to me during our patrol last night. I think the act of saving my life purged him of his resentment toward me. (Also, the weather has turned cooler, and everyone is in a better mood now.) He even apologized for his remarks, an apology I was quite ready to match with my own for threatening him. As Carle says, you can't afford to be enemies with a man who may be your only defense against a violent border-breacher.

o—o—o

The fourteenth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

I suppose that it has taken me this long to grasp what nearly happened to me last week. At any rate, I have started to have my old nightmares about being prey to my blood kin.

In a way, what happened the other night feels like a death shadow to me, showing what my life's last moments would be like if I returned to Mountside. The idea of dying no longer panics me – it can't, when I face death nearly every day – but the idea of being killed by those I love still makes me feel as though I'm trapped by blizzard winds. I can't expel from my mind the images I saw last week: Carle watching me with cold eyes, Quentin placing the sword against my chest, the other guards waiting in silence. And now those images are mingled with images of my blood kin hunting me, binding me, and cutting my throat – or delivering me over to the execution-fire. It is so much easier, somehow, to die at the hands of strangers.

I confessed all of this to Carle, and he says that he doesn't blame me for being scared – that he can't think of a worse fate than having a kinsman or friend proclaim your death.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The twenty-fifth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

I'm going tomorrow with Quentin and Carle when they travel to meet the Koretian border guards. The patrol's lieutenant and sublieutenant do this once a year, I'm told, to discuss areas of mutual cooperation with the Koretians. "We do have a handful of those," Carle said with a grin. We're bringing with us Levander and his horse, in case we need to send messages back to the patrol quickly. Though it's a three-day journey by foot to Koretia, royal messengers can travel that far and back in the space of just a few hours.

I don't think Quentin had originally planned to include me in the party, but I overheard Carle tell him that I could use a change of scene. My nightmares haven't stopped. They say in Koretia that dreams are sent by the gods, as a message to mortals. The only realization that my recent dreaming has brought me is that I cannot – or rather, I will not – kill any of my family in order to protect myself against them. I would rather die a bladeless Emorian than protect my life at the cost of the lives of any of the men to whom I am bound by my old blood vow.

So in that respect, I suppose that my nightmares have brought me some wisdom.

Our excuse for going to Koretia now, before the busy summer hunts are over, is that we've caught a Koretian, by the name of Knox, whom the Chara has asked us to return to Koretia. Our prisoner is wanted there for attempting to assassinate a member of the royal family.

This is how the Emorians describe the charge, but Carle and I received the true story from Knox, who, like many a condemned man, is facing death with a loosened tongue.

"Assassinate!" It took Knox a long time to recover from his laughter. Carle meanwhile exchanged glances with me; we were escorting the hand-bound prisoner while Quentin and Levander walked further ahead.

"Well, I suppose that you could describe Rawdon's fifth cousin twice removed as royal family – I don't know what his real relationship is, but it's somewhere along those lines," said Knox.

"One of the new nobility, then?" I said.

"That's right." Knox cast a curious glance at me, but I did not enlighten him as to my origins. The lieutenant thought it best that Koretian border-breachers not bring my story back to Koretia. "That was months ago, of course, when it was still single killings. Now that it has reached the point of whole families being wiped out overnight, I wonder that the King is still interested in me. But you know what the new noblemen are like. Once they consider themselves wronged, they never let go of a grievance."

I didn't particularly want to be reminded of this fact, so I was grateful when Carle took over the conversation, saying, "You admit that you are one of the rebels against the King?"

Knox's mouth quirked; it was clear that he was amused at learning the Emorian perspective. "Again, it's all a matter of terminology. I've heard you Emorians call it a civil war; to us, it's just a blood feud. The King is the man who started it all, by demanding the death of a nobleman – one of the old nobility, of course. If it had been one of his own kinsmen, he would have been harassing the priests day and night to interpret the gods' law his way. But Blackwood wasn't going to stand for having one of his kinsmen fed up to the King's blood-thirst."

"Blackwood?" said Carle.

"Baron of Blackpass," I explained. "So Blackwood took a blood vow to murder the King and his kinsmen?"

"Heart of Mercy," said Carle. "Why did not the King send his soldiers to arrest the lot of them?"

Knox stared at Carle as though contemplating an exotic plant. I said, "There's no law against killing the King. He can be murdered in a blood feud like anyone else. As a matter of fact, that's how King Rawdon's grandfather gained the throne: he killed the last king of the old royal line in a blood feud. Besides, the King doesn't have any more soldiers than are required to keep order in the capital."

"He didn't at the beginning of the year," Knox amended, "but this feud has flamed up beyond all previous ones. It's no longer a case of one person being killed, then another, then another. The King sends soldiers out to kill whole sections of villages. Then Blackwood does the same with the villages held by the new noblemen; his kinsmen have formed an army just as large as the King's. The priests are ready to tear their robes to shreds. They don't know how to stop this."

"They should have stopped this with the first blood feud," Carle said grimly. "This is what will happen in a land where you resolve grievances by murder." And he exchanged another look with me.

o—o—o

The twenty-sixth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle asked me last night to explain the difference between the old nobility and the new nobility. He has heard the terms many times before, of course, but he says that he learned most of what he knows about Koretia from other Emorians, and he now suspects that the Koretian perspective is very different.

"The old nobility are just like the Emorian noblemen," I said. "Each village and town is run by a baron, who is sometimes the head councilman as well—"

"And is the baron also a judge, as in Emorian villages?" asked Carle. "No, I'm not thinking; the Koretians don't have judges."

"The village or town priest is the judge; he interprets the gods' law. At any rate, the baron's title is handed down to the nearest male heir. The King can persuade the priests to declare the baron god-cursed, but he can't keep the title from being passed on to the baron's heir."

"That's one of the limits on the Chara's power," said Carle. "He can help appoint his council lords, but he can't appoint the other noblemen of the land."

"Yes, but in Koretia, where the King's power is already so weak, it has always meant that the King was just one nobleman among many others. It's as though the land was one giant council, with the King as head councilman. Most Koretians like that arrangement, but when Rawdon's grandfather won the throne – that's King Boyce – he started gathering power for himself. He influenced the priests to make changes in the gods' law – Fenton told me that that's when some of the worst atrocities entered the gods' law – and he developed a way to appoint new noblemen."

Carle was lying on his side, with one elbow propping him up as he gnawed on the end of a lamb bone. Near us, Quentin was securing Knox's chains to a rock for the night, and Levander was practicing his code-whistles.

"I'm not sure who to support in this story," said Carle. "A strong central government is what makes Emor great, but this Boyce sounds like a law-hating rascal. Tell me about his scheme with the new noblemen."

"He only managed it because Koretia was growing a great deal during that time, sprouting new villages and towns. In the past, barons to new villages and towns were always second sons to the old barons. Since the barons were blood kin all the way back to the beginning, this meant that a single family ruled the land. But Boyce, who wasn't a nobleman before he became king, began appointing his own kinsmen as the new barons. And he did so in such a way as to ensure that they were allowed little independence. Oh, some of the new barons went their own way despite that, but for the most part Boyce controlled what decisions his kinsmen made. So he had a great deal more power than the old kings, who allowed the old nobility as much independence as a High Lord allows his councilmen."

"May the high doom fall upon them all," said Carle crossly, tossing the bone away to an awaiting carrion crow. "They all sound like villains or incompetents to me. So how does this result in a blood feud?"

"Why, because blood feuds are carried out between rival families, and now Koretia is divided between two families of noblemen. Even the King's Council is divided that way, except for a few lesser free-men who were appointed to the council."

"Lesser free-men are occasionally appointed to the Emorian council as well," said Carle. "They have to be exceptionally well-qualified, though. Only noblemen really have the time to devote all their lives to learning the law, and you can't expect anything less from men who direct a great empire. —But I'm still not sure I see where the rivalry lies between the old and new nobility."

"There isn't any reason behind the rivalry. It just flares up out of small arguments, like any other feud." I thought for a moment, pausing as I wiped my sword clean of a few drops of black blood that had lodged between the blade and the hilt. "Take Mountside and Cold Run, for example. They're close neighbors, and their families intermarry a lot, but they're still rivals, partly because of who their barons are. Cold Run's baron is Griffith – you remember; it was his brother that I nearly killed. His family is old nobility; their line goes all the way back to the beginning of Koretia, as far as anyone knows. But Mountside is one of the villages that grew up during Boyce's reign, and so its barons have been new nobility. That's why some people don't consider my father a real baron, and—"

"Consider who?"

I closed my mouth, but it was too late.

So then it all came out, about my noble blood, and I could tell immediately that my instinct to stay quiet about this matter had been the correct one.

"By all the laws, why in the name of the dead Charas did you not you tell me that you are a nobleman?" Carle asked. He was sitting stiffly upright now; he looked at me as though I were the High Lord, and I was beginning to fear that he would stand and bow toward me.

I said uneasily, "Well, I wasn't, not until my brother died; he was my father's heir. And now I'm Emorian. I can't hold a Koretian nobleman's title when I've taken a loyalty oath to the Chara."

"That's true," Carle said. He relaxed and reached over casually to fling the bone at a further distance from us, since the gathering crows were beginning to become a nuisance.

I felt as though Carle had just whistled Danger Past, and that I was still trying to wrestle with the idea of there being danger at all. "Would it have made any difference if I were a nobleman?" I asked in a low voice. "You know how it is in villages, Carle. One of your childhood playmates was your baron's son."

"That was when I was small," replied Carle, pulling open a flask of wine. "I don't believe in friendships between the ranks."

I made no reply. After a while, Carle paused from his sipping and said quietly, "I think I'd have made one exception to that rule, though." He offered to me his wine. I took it, feeling that the civil war that had threatened the two of us had been averted, not by my lack of a title, but by Carle's final gesture.

o—o—o

The twenty-seventh day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle and I fell into a conversation earlier today with Quentin about the Koretian civil war. Quentin said that he'd been discussing it with Abiah – that's one of the Chara's spies who does missions to Koretia. Only a handful of high army officials and palace officials and their assistants know which Emorians are the Chara's spies, but the patrol has to be told as well, or we'd be stopping the spies every time they went through the mountains. Even the Chara's spies can't slip past us.

"Abiah says that the Chara can't decide which side to support as long as he remains ignorant of how the war started," Quentin said. "It wouldn't do any good to ask the King directly – the Chara would only receive one side of the story – so he has sent his spies out to discover the full story."

"It probably started with a dead chicken," I said with a half-smile.

Meanwhile, Carle has spent the past day slowly finding a way to handle my revelation yesterday and to bring us back into equal relations. He eventually found a solution, much to my relief.

"So you're kin to the King," he said as we walked over the final dip in the pass before the ridge that overlooks Koretia.

"Distant kin," I murmured, not wanting to dwell any more on my noble blood.

"We have that much in common, then. I'm kin to the Chara."

I looked over at Carle. His eyes were fixed on the rock-strewn path before us, but there was the suggestion of a smile to his expression.

"Carle son of Verne," I said slowly, "why did you not tell me that you are of noble blood?"

Carle laughed. "I suppose that we've both been keeping secrets. Actually, you're lucky that you weren't treated last winter to one of my father's long discourses on our family heritage. He's the reason why I don't talk much about my kinship to the Chara, though I'm incurably proud of the connection."

"How many cousins once removed is he to you?"

"It's actually a fairly close relationship. My father is the Chara's cousin and is a member of the royal family as defined by the Law of Succession. The Chara's uncle, the second son of the Chara Purvis, was my grandfather Carle, for whom I'm named."

"Is that where your father got his wealth?" I asked.

Carle shook his head. "That came from my mother's side of the family. My father was Carle's fourth son; he grew up in the Chara's palace and could have stayed on as a palace guest once he came of age since he was part of the royal family. But he had sense enough to see that his children would fall outside the line of succession and would not be entitled to live a nobleman's life in the palace, once they came of age. So rather than let his future children struggle with the problem – I give my father credit for his foresight in this matter – he married the only offspring of a rich orchard farmer, so that he would have an inheritance to leave us." There was a pause in the conversation as we both thought of the inheritance that was no longer Carle's. Then Carle said, "No, as far as I'm aware, my father's sole inheritance from the royal family is a brooch—"

He stopped, having realized that I was no longer listening. We had reached the top of the ridge, and before us spread, like the dark green waters of an ocean, the Sea of Koretia: the forest of trees that spreads from the black border mountains down to the capital city, broken only by towns and villages and occasional patches of farmland.

After a while, I became aware that Carle's arm had made its way around my shoulders. "Do you miss it?" he asked quietly.

"I'd miss Emor a good deal more if I had to leave it," I replied.

"But it's still your native land," Carle said simply. Then he added briskly, "We'd better catch up. The others are nearly to the border, and the lieutenant may need our help if the Koretian border guards decide to capture us."

I laughed, turning my eyes away from the landscape to the path before us. "That won't happen. The lieutenant could cross the border, singing at the top of his lungs, and the Koretian guards wouldn't notice."

o—o—o

The twenty-eighth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

"And they say that we Emorians are obsessed with rank," Carle remarked with disgust this evening, as we returned to the Koretian border guards' hut.

The hut was empty. Unlike the mountain patrol, the Koretian border guard doesn't sleep near its work-ground. The subcaptain of the night guard, and the bottom-ranked soldiers who assist him, live in houses in Blackpass, as do the day guards: a lieutenant and his bottom-ranked soldiers. We had been introduced to all of them when we arrived yesterday, then had spent the remainder of the daytime sleeping in the hut, which was furnished with pallets for the wounded, as well as chests where the guards kept their uniforms when off-duty, exchanging them for their civilian clothes when they came on duty.

No guards or breachers have been wounded recently, so Carle and I had the hut to ourselves as we spoke together this evening. Except that we ought not to have been here at all. We ought to have been alongside Quentin as he held discussions with the subcaptain at the Koretians' guard-point.

"Maybe the subcaptain just didn't want us to distract him from his duty," I suggested.

"Then why call for a meeting while he was on-duty?" Carle pointed out as he paced restlessly back and forth in the tiny hut, as though he were a mountain cat trapped in a cage. "He said at the start that he wanted us to see his guardsmen at work. Most cursedly useless exercise I've ever undertaken. Our own patrol is polite to any man it stops, and it never lets a man past the border unless he has proper business crossing the border. The Koretian guards, on the other hand, are foul-mouthed toward every man they stop, yet they allow endless numbers of border-breachers past them—"

"Yes, I know," I said mildly. "And the subcaptain knows too, now that you've told him. Has it occurred to you that this might be why Quentin sent us back to the hut? Because the subcaptain was on the point of duelling you?"

Carle stopped his pacing suddenly. "Was he?"

"Carle, don't you even know the signals for a duel?"

"How could I? Most of what I know about Koretia, I learned from Fenton, and what he knew, he learned from books. I don't suppose that any Emorian who was challenged to a duel lived long enough to write about the experience." Carle flashed me a smile, his ill humor vanished. "Well, yes, I admit I did notice that the subcaptain went a bit red in the face when I told him how many breachers reach our patrol from the south, as opposed to the breachers that arrive from the north. He seems to think that we don't know about the ones coming from the north that have slipped past us. Do you suppose that's true?" A genuine note of concern touched Carle's voice.

I laughed. "If it is, then the Koretian border guard would hardly know. Any breacher skilled enough to slip past the patrol could certainly slip past the Koretians."

"You seem very sure of that." Carle frowned.

"I could be the Jackal God, howling at the top of my lungs, and the Koretian guards wouldn't think to stop me."

I had spoken lightly, but Carle's frown deepened, and I realized that he was still worried that the activities of the man calling himself the Jackal would spill over the border. The bottom-ranked Koretian soldiers, exchanging harmless gossip with us over their meal, had told us that the Jackal was vigorously gathering followers to himself throughout the borderland.

"The Chara's spies will learn the truth about the Jackal," I assured Carle.

"I wish I could be sure of that." His brows low over his eyes, Carle turned and rested his arms upon the broad window-ledge. The time was an hour past dusk; an early evening breeze brought the smell of fresh-scythed hay from one of the fields in a farm just over the border. Beyond that, everything was hidden by the rustling leaves of the forest.

"Frustrating to be so close," Carle said, his eye on something besides the forest. Coming up next to him, I saw that he was watching a group of figures at the border ahead of us: our lieutenant and the Koretian guards. Levander was nowhere in sight; when we had first arrived at the border, the guards there had been in heated debate with a group of the King's men, over whether the guards or the King's men had the right to take charge of the breacher who was being returned to Koretia. Levander, mistaking the cause of the quarrel, had volunteered to go with the King's men to their captain, in order to assure the captain that Knox had been well treated while in Emorian custody.

I hoped that the King's captain would have enough sense to wait until Levander had left before slitting Knox's throat.

Now, as I watched, Quentin suddenly raised his head and said something to the subcaptain. The subcaptain shrugged off his remark. A moment later, I raised my head too. Carle, his hand shifting to his sword-hilt, said, "I wonder whether we should stop him."

"Them." I kept my voice quiet, listening with half an ear to the soft sound of pebbles rattling down the mountainside nearby. "There are two of them. . . . It's not really our business, is it? They're travelling so loudly that our patrol is sure to notice and stop them when they reach that far. And the guards here—"

"Ignored Quentin's warning that their border was being breached." Carle snorted as he let go of his sword. "I'm beginning to see why so many breachers reach us from the south. The arrogance of Koretians— Sorry."

I smiled at him. "For offending my kin?"

He grinned then. "You really don't think of yourself as Koretian any more, do you?"

I shrugged. "I'm Koretian in blood. I don't deny that. A man can't help where he's born, but I've made my choice about where to pledge my loyalty. Still . . ." I leaned out the window, smelling what I had not smelled for a full year: the scent of blackroot trees, their boughs heavy with nuts ready to harvest. "It's a shame I'll never be able to visit it again."

"Why not ask permission to cross the border?" Carle suggested.

Now it was my turn to snort. "Carle, haven't you been paying attention to how the Koretian border guard works? Any man of Koretian blood who crosses the border has to give his name and lineage. The name Adrian is common enough to excite no notice, but how am I going to explain why I, the son of the Baron of Mountside, am working as a border patrol guard? And for all I know, one of those guards has taken a blood vow against the King's kin. They're all Blackwood's men, you know."

"Are they?" Carle looked at me with curiosity. "So Blackwood controls the border between Koretia and Emor? I wonder whether the Chara knows that. If Blackwood is at war with the King—"

"—he could prevent the King's men from passing through. Yes, I know; it's been tried in previous feuds involving the King and the Baron of Blackpass, when Blackwood's father and grandfather were alive. But it doesn't work. The King merely sends his men up north by way of Daxis." I waved my hand to the west, where, many miles away, lies the land west and southwest of Koretia. "Anyway," I added, "the guards here are so poorly trained that a horde of the King's men could breach the border, and the guard would never notice."

"Yes," said Carle in a reflective voice, "they are poorly trained, aren't they?"

For a moment, the only sound was of a moth, fluttering through the window and circling our lamp. Then I said, "We couldn't. It would be a crime."

"We're not Koretian," Carle pointed out. "We're not subject to the gods' law."

"Yes, but— Carle, the lieutenant sent us back to this hut to stay. We can't just leave here without permission."

"Who's speaking of leaving? We'll be back in a short time. And Quentin wants us to gather information regarding the Koretian border guard, doesn't he? That's what he told us before we arrived here. How better to gather information than to try to slip past the Koretian border guard?"

For a moment, my heart thumped; then I sobered, saying, "The lieutenant will hear us breaching the border."

"Will he?" Carle's smile quirked as he waved his hand toward the border.

I looked, and then I stared. Quentin was gone; so was the subcaptain. The only men left were the bottom-ranked soldiers, who looked very bored.

Carle laughed at my expression. "It's the custom for the subcaptain of the Koretian border patrol to treat visiting guards to an hours-long dinner on their first night here. If the lieutenant hadn't sent us back, we'd be having dinner with him and the subcaptain now, at a small inn that's only a spear's throw from the border, and no doubt we'd spend the night at the inn. As it is . . ."

"You know," I said, beginning to smile, "I'm sure that the subcaptain's failure to invite us was simply an oversight. That being the case, he certainly wouldn't mind if we dined ourselves."

"At a Koretian place of dining," Carle suggested.

"Of course. And since we are, as the subcaptain recently reminded us, below the rank of lieutenancy and therefore ill-qualified to take part in high-level discussions—"

"—then we really must not disturb the subcaptain and the lieutenant at their high-ranking discussion," Carle concluded. "We need to find a place to eat on our own."

"Over the border."

"Over the border, in Koretia. Purely to fulfill the subcaptain's promise of hospitality, of course."

We grinned at each other. Far away, to the south, I could hear the sound of the Koretian border-breachers, making their blithe way toward the border mountain patrol. For a brief moment, I pitied them.

o—o—o

We delayed only long enough to find disguises for ourselves.

"Make yourself free of anything you want here," the subcaptain had said in an expansive manner when we first arrived at the hut, before the subcaptain had learned of Carle's skill in asking pointed, uncomfortable questions about the Koretian border guard's techniques. Now we made good the subcaptain's promise by rummaging through the chests where the civilian clothes of the on-duty guards were kept. After a few minutes of trying on this and that, Carle and I managed to find Koretian tunics that fit us. We could do nothing about our boots, but Emorian-style boots are not uncommon in the Koretian borderland, and it was easy enough to set our swords aside in favor of the Koretian daggers we found in the chests. Without bothering to discuss the matter, we kept our thigh-pockets strapped underneath our tunics, hiding our thigh-daggers.

Then we breached the border. It was no harder than convincing my mother to forgive my cousin Emlyn after he placed goldfish in her fresh vat of lime juice.

Half of an hour later, we were strolling along a woody path, chatting about how I had conceived a desire for Daxion nuts on my previous birthday. The path we had chosen leads to Blackpass, which lies only a mile from the border. The moon was up, laying a snail-silver trail for us through the dark leaves. I kept a careful watch on the bushes we passed, but if any bandits were lurking there, Carle and I evidently looked too young to be holding any wealth upon us, for we arrived at the town gates unmolested.

These were just being closed for the night, and all visitors were being carefully questioned, but we managed to slip past the guards by hiding amidst a group of young men who were returning from an evening of country revelry. Carle made a manful effort to pretend that he had visited this town dozens of times, though he kept glancing at the moat surrounding the town wall, as we walked over the bridge to the gate.

"Fire barrier," I explained when we had travelled beyond the town guards, who all bore black-and-forest-green badges, showing they were Blackwood's men. "The King is particularly skilled in fire feuds."

Carle muttered something under his breath, but made no other comment, for now we were amidst the early evening crowd gathered in the square by the prison next the gate – a thinning crowd, for with the sun down, people were beginning to make their way home. I spared no glance for the town prison, where Blackpass's apprehended criminals were housed briefly before their branding or beating or death or – in the worst cases – enslavement. If Carle and I were arrested as foreign border-breachers, it was far more likely that we would be taken to the army prison, which was at the other end of town. The army prison, unlike the town prison, was run by men who were trained to question prisoners.

This unhappy thought of mine was raised by the sight of a group of soldiers, making their way slowly through the crowd and stopping men occasionally to quiz them. No doubt they were seeking kin of the King's bloodline, in case such men had come to fulfill their blood vows against the baron's kin, but since I held the wrong lineage, I was no more eager to be questioned by the soldiers than if they had suspected that Carle and I had breached the border.

Carle, without needing to be told any of this, steered us out of the square, into one of the dark alleys. This, I could have told Carle, was no safer a place at night than the square had been. I pulled my belt-dagger from its sheath.

Carle, raising his eyebrows, did the same, and we made our way cautiously to the end of the alley, my gaze flicking back and forth between the dark doorways we were passing. I had only been foolish enough to enter a Blackpass alley once after dark, when I was young, and on that occasion, Hamar, who had just been taught his blade skills, had bravely held off our attacker while I ran for my father, who had settled the matter by sword-skewering our attacker. That a seven-year-old boy had been able to hold back a grown man did not say much about the blade-skills of Blackpass's thieves, but I did not want to chance the possibility of meeting a thief whose manner of greeting us would be to stab us in the back.

We made it safely to the end of the alley. Carle and I had no sooner slid our daggers back into our sheaths than, stepping out of the alley, Carle bumped into a Koretian carrying an armful of crates.

Without a word, I spun and thrust Carle back into the alley. I heard him sputter, but I had no time to explain. By the time the Koretian recovered from his near fall, I was the only man standing in front of him.

The Koretian carefully placed the crates on the ground and stood looking at me. We did nothing but eye each other for a moment. He was perhaps ten years older than me, and not hot-tempered, for he was watching me with due consideration. But he was frowning, which was not a good sign.

Finally, delicately, he placed his fingers over the tip of his sheath. "You should have watched where you were going."

I copied his gesture, keeping my gaze fixed on his. "I took a wrong turn. I am not familiar with the pattern of this town."

"Then you should have learned it before you came here." As he spoke, he slid his hand up toward the top of the sheath.

"Blackpass is known for its welcome of strangers. Is that reputation undeserved, then?" I asked. This time I went beyond his gesture, sliding my hand straight up onto my hilt.

His eyes flickered, but he did not hesitate to move his own hand onto his dagger hilt. "That depends on the behavior of the stranger."

"And if the stranger were to apologize?" I kept my hand unmoving on the hilt, waiting, my heart beating.

For a long moment, we both stood there, hands on hilt, while I tried to calculate my chances if he drew his blade. Then, with a smile, he let his hand fall from his dagger. "No need. I should have been more alert. May I give you directions to your destiny?"

"The market," I replied as I gratefully took my hand from my dagger. It was the first thought that came to my head; many people visited Blackpass merely to see its market.

"Ah, of course. Well, to avoid the alleys, you need only turn here, make your way to the end of the street . . ."

Within a short time we had exchanged first names and promises to host each other for dinner, and I had received a delicate suggestion from the Koretian that he had a younger female cousin who would be not unwilling to meet a handsome young man like me. This offer made me laugh so much that the Koretian's mouth quirked. "Don't tell me," he said. "You're of the wrong lineage."

"Very much so. —Not," I added, as I saw his brows rise, "that I'm here to cause trouble. It's just a friendly visit."

"Sneaking in to see forbidden territory?" he suggested with a smile. "How I remember that impulse. I was not so much younger than you when— Ah, well, the older one gets, the fewer opportunities one has to play pranks. I miss them sometimes. . . . By the way, you can tell your friend to come out of the alley. He's likely to be robbed of the tunic on his back if he stays in there much longer." And with a wave of the hand, he gave me the free-man's greeting and departed.

Carle, staring at the Koretian's back, waited until he was beyond hearing distance before saying, "The Chara should recruit him as a spy. I'd swear that he didn't have time to see me before you shoved me in there."

"I'm sorry," I said.

Carle turned to me with a smile. "I'm not. I've always wanted to see how Koretians duel."

"We weren't duelling," I explained as he and I began to walk down the street in the direction that the Koretian had pointed us. "We were trying to keep from duelling."

"Why not apologize at once, then?" Carle asked. His gaze started to drift toward a masked slave who was passing us; I quickly took hold of his arm and pulled him past this danger.

"Because he might have regarded that as a weakness," I said, trying to distract Carle from the slave. "You're expected to protect your manhood against challenge here."

"Mm." Carle mused on this a moment, then said unexpectedly, "I can understand that, to a certain extent. It's how Emor treats foreign powers: we show them we're strong before we negotiate for peace. Even so . . . Am I miscounting, Adrian, or have our lives been in danger four times since we arrived in this town a quarter of an hour ago? How do Koretians manage to survive to adulthood?"

We were still laughing – a rather dark laughter that released us from our earlier tension – when we reached the market.

I don't suppose that, back in the days when I was writing this journal for my imaginary Emorian reader, I ever bothered to explain about the market in Blackpass. It's the only market of its kind in the world: it is located underground. It was built that way because it's the northernmost of Koretia's town markets; occasionally the winter will grow so chill that it's warmer to be undercover in Blackpass than to be outside. The earliest inhabitants of the borderland, realizing this, dug a tunnel right through a hill in the village that grew to be the town of Blackpass. The town market is thought to be older than Koretia itself – older even than the man-built caves in Capital Mountain, for the borderland was settled many years before southern Koretia was.

The market walls, which are made of quarried stone, have been rebuilt countless times; I could see, as we entered into their shelter, that the walls had recently been renovated by Blackpass's energetic baron. The market shone bright with lamplight, and its stalls were still filled with food and goods, even at this late hour. Carle, his eyes lively with curiosity, led us from stall to stall, unnoticed by any but the boys hired by some merchants to prevent thieves from taking goods.

Before long, my stomach was snarling. Carle, with a grin at me, launched without preliminary into a long, fiery negotiation with a cheese merchant. I watched the passersby somewhat nervously, but no soldiers walked by, and Carle's Border Koretian was good enough to pass with the merchant, who – his accent and his taciturn manner clearly told – was a native of central Koretia.

"Done!" said Carle finally, having driven down the price for a wedge of cheese and two hunks of bread to the four coppers that were, in fact, all the Koretian money we carried in our thigh-pockets. "Now, you will, of course, grant us the courtesy of a flask of water . . ."

The second negotiation was even more fiery than the first, but Carle emerged triumphant, while I offered a bland, reassuring smile to a couple of soldiers who glanced our way as they passed us.

"Five," said Carle, his mouth full of cheese as we walked.

"Five?" I replied, looking left and right for a place to sit.

"Those soldiers represent our fifth brush with death. Unless you count my atrocious attempts to speak Border Koretian."

"You'd pass as a borderlander to a central Koretian," I assured him.

"But not to a borderlander? I was afraid of that. Quentin has helped me to brush up my skills over the years, but since Fenton knew the tongue only from book-learning when I was a child— Ah, here's a place."

We had reached the far end of the market, an area that had evidently only recently been added to the underground tunnel, for there were tree stumps on the floor. We made our way to a trio of stumps and sat down on two of them. For a while, there was no sound as Carle and I eagerly filled our stomachs with the good country cheese and fresh-baked bread and clear well-water.

The area where we sat was surrounded on all sides by stalls. Dimly, far beyond us, I could see the whitewashed stone blocks that held the earth back from smothering us, but the looming presence of these blocks was less obvious than the bright lamps, the cheerful calls of stall-hawkers, and the laughter of men and women and children who were fetching their meals after their day's work. Soldiers passed by from time to time, but most of them were off-duty, their hands filled with food or goods.

One of them, after glancing round the stumps, came over to stand beside us. "Mind if I join you, sirs?" he said.

I hesitated, thinking of Carle's not-quite-perfect Border Koretian, but Carle filled the silence. "By all means," he said in Common Koretian that sounded as though he had learned that dialect in his cradle. "I was just telling my new acquaintance here" – he nodded toward me – "that we have nothing like this in the south."

"Oh?" said the soldier blankly as he sat himself down on the third stump and began spreading out his meal on his lap: some cornbread and beans. "Well, I suppose there aren't many markets this big, are there?" He squinted uncertainly at the stalls.

A mud-footed soldier, I thought, relaxing. We had nothing to fear from him.

Judging from the slight twitch at the edge of Carle's mouth, he shared my judgment, but all that he said was, "The King himself would envy the way your baron keeps his town in such splendor."

The soldier shrugged as he unsheathed his dagger in order to stab at his bread. "I suppose so. If the King wasn't busy trying to cut Blackwood's throat."

This gave me the opening I needed. "This gentleman" – I waved my remaining crust of bread vaguely in Carle's direction – "was asking me how the feud started. I had to confess I have never heard the tale, not being a soldier."

The soldier straightened his spine. Mud-footed and vain, I thought. The perfect combination.

"Oh, certainly, we know all about it in the army," said the soldier. "It started with a dead chicken."

Carle and I exchanged looks. "A . . . dead chicken?" I said.

"Yes, run over by a cart, or something like that," the soldier replied as he munched on a mouthful of beans. Bits of beans were already sticking, in an unappetizing fashion, to his beard. Carle silently handed him a face-cloth, which the soldier took with a word of thanks. Then he used it to wipe off the mud from his boots before handing the filthy cloth back to Carle. Carle made no remark on this; he merely slipped the cloth back into his belt-purse, saying, "A chicken? Nothing more than that?"

"Yes, just an ordinary feud." The soldier was now cramming more cornbread into his mouth. "Didn't look as though it was going to be anything important. Then a priest got killed."

I jumped in my place. Carle, his voice as casual as though we were comparing the quality of daisies in Koretia and Emor, said, "Accidentally, I assume?"

"Oh, accidentally, certainly." The soldier took the flask of water Carle proffered, poured it over his head, and then shook his head, sending water scattering upon both Carle and me. The soldier appeared not to notice. "Ah, it's good to be out of the heat. . . . The baron of the village whose hunter had made the mistake even offered up his own life in compensation. Very generous, he was. But the rival baron, he was of the new stock – wouldn't accept a gift from the gods if he was in the wrong mood. You know the type I mean. He sent his own hunter to avenge the killing. His son, they say. When his son didn't come back, the baron demanded to know whether the young man had been killed. Nobody in the other village had seen the hunter; the village's priest questioned everyone. Finally, placed under oath, the younger brother of the baron – not the rival baron, you understand, but the one in the village that had made the mistake about the priest – he confessed he'd seen the hunter. He said that the hunter had told him that he – the hunter, that is – didn't wish to fight in the feud anymore. So he – I mean the hunter – broke his blood vow and ran off somewhere." The soldier shrugged. "Lots of shouting back and forth after that between the two villages. The baron of the new nobility said that the hunter was no longer his son, was no longer a member of his village, so their village ought to have the chance to send another hunter in his place. The baron of the other village – the baron of the old nobility – said that the hunter's breaking of his oath ended the feud. That baron wasn't even demanding final blood, for love of the gods! But the new baron, the stubborn one, wanted to continue the feud till he had won victory. So he appealed the matter to the King, and the other baron appealed the matter to Blackwood . . . and you've heard how matters have gone since then, I'm sure."

The cluster of townsfolk was beginning to thin away. Nearby, a stall-keeper removed his remaining goods from the display crates. Another stall-keeper pulled down the flap at the front of his tent. The rest of the townsfolk wandered toward the door leading out of the market.

It was Carle who finally broke the silence. "Blood for blood – yes, we know how these matters go. And the King demanded the blood of Cold Run's baron's brother, someone told me recently. Is Blackwood demanding the blood of Mountside's baron's son?"

The soldier shrugged as he wiped his greasy dagger on his tunic. "I doubt anyone except the original villagers cares about the fate of that hunter any more. There've been too many deaths on both sides since that time."

"And the original villagers?" My voice sounded hollow but calm. "Has Mountside's baron said anything more about his son?"

The soldier shrugged again. The events in that village, understandably, seemed to be of no further interest to him. Carle, smelling the scent on this track begin to fade, switched to a new path. "And amidst this all, the Jackal appears. I have been wondering about that, you know. Why the Jackal should have made his first appearance so close to the villages where the feud began. Do you think it is a coincidence?"

I stared at Carle, at awe once more at his mind's quickness. In the short interval after the time that the soldier told his startling tale, I could not have possibly made the connection between that and Malise's announcement, many months ago, that the Jackal's first appearance in the borderland had been in a village near Mountside.

The soldier smiled. "A jackal always scents the blood of the dead, I suppose? Your guess is as likely to be true as mine. Though my roommate might know."

"Your roommate?" Carle peered down at his flask, now empty of all water.

"Yes, I room with a soldier who's from Borderknoll, originally. He wasn't there when the Jackal appeared, but of course he has family in the village. He might know whether the Jackal said anything about these other villages."

"Really?" Carle's tone was idle as he continued to stare at his flask. "Is your roommate home now?"

"Him?" The soldier roared with laughter. "Not him. He's as much a night-carouser as those decadent Emorians."

"Indeed?" Carle flashed him a smile. "Out all night, sampling the fleshpots, is he?"

"That's him. A girl in each arm, and a cup of wine in each hand. He'll stumble home sated and drunk some time in the night. How he manages to wake himself each morning . . ." The soldier shook his head as he rose to his feet. "Me, I'm for an early night. But if you want to meet him, I could bring him by here tomorrow. . . ." He was eyeing Carle's flask, obviously hoping for an offer of more than water the next day.

"That is very kind of you," said Carle, not moving his eye from the flask. "But I have come to Blackpass on business, and I fear I will be leaving for home tomorrow. Adrian, would you refill this?"

I took the water flask from him without a word. The soldier, disappointed from hopes of free wine, began to rise, but was forestalled as Carle said, "There is one other thing I have always wondered, and only a soldier such as you can tell me. . . ."

I did not hear the rest of the conversation. I had gone back to the cheese-seller's stall and was beckoning to the merchant there while keeping one eye on Carle and the soldier.

o—o—o

By the time I returned to the market, it was closed for the night. Carle was waiting for me, standing in the shadow of a tree. He was as dark as a breacher on a moonless night.

I joined him in his hideaway. "Well?" he said in a low voice.

"He boards just down the road. I looked through the window while he was readying himself for bed. He lives in a single room with two cots; the second cot was empty."

"That was good hunting." Carle squeezed my shoulder briefly, and I felt the warmth of his approval enter me. He gestured – the old, familiar gesture of a sublieutenant ordering his partner to take the lead – and I began walking with him down the street. The street was nearly empty now, since, as the soldier had put it in his rude manner, most Koretians retire to bed at an earlier hour than Emorians.

"No hope of tracking this roommate down at one of the aforementioned fleshpots, I suppose?" Carle enquired quietly.

"None," I said. "Officially, no brothels exist in Koretia; prostitution is against the gods' law. The unofficial brothels take time to track down . . . or so I've heard."

"Never been to one yourself?" Carle enquired.

"Never." I glanced his way. "And you?"

"No, I received many a lecture from my father on the necessity of reserving one's seed for one's properly wedded wife." Carle pushed aside the bough of a tree that was growing in the middle of the street.

"But your father . . ." I said awkwardly.

"Was an adulterer. I learned more lessons from his ill behavior than from any lecture he gave me. I've no intention of treating any woman in such a filthy manner. I'll wait until I can bed a wife, though I don't plan to marry till I'm retired from army service." He glanced my way.

I was grateful to him for his chatter on light matters; it had given me the time I needed to recover from what the soldier had told us. I said, "I'm sorry."

"Is your confession to me or to the Chara?" As usual, Carle didn't pretend to misunderstand what I meant. "Adrian, you can't take the burdens of the world into your arms. You refused to murder, and other men used that as an excuse to murder further. It's their folly that has created this war, not anything you did."

I swallowed. "If I had allowed Griffith to sight and kill me, the feud would have ended."

"And Griffith would have become a murderer, which would have done his spirit no good." Carle squeezed my shoulder again as we passed under the hearth-light spilling out from someone's upstairs dwelling. "Griffith is Cold Run's baron – am I right in remembering that? Truth to tell, he's the only one besides yourself and Fenton and your intended victim that I respect in this story. At least Griffith made an attempt to end the feud peacefully."

I nodded as I stared down at the dirt of the street. "He has always been honorable; that's why my cousin Emlyn chose him as his blood brother. But now that the feud has spread beyond the original villages . . ."

"This land," Carle said carefully, "has been dry tinder, waiting for a spark that would create a conflagration. The spark could have been anything. You're not to blame yourself for this, Adrian."

His voice had turned stern. I forced myself to move my attention back to my duties. The streets had turned very quiet; nobody would be about now except soldiers . . . and the criminals whom the soldiers sought to apprehend. Seeing a flicker of movement down the street, I took hold of Carle's sleeve, and he and I melted into the recess of a doorway.

"There," I whispered, pointing. "That house on the corner. You can see the door from here?"

Carle shaded his eyes against the moonlight. "Is that the only door?"

"Yes. If the roommate comes home tonight, he'll have to enter there. Do you think he's likely to have any useful information?"

Carle shrugged. "Who's to say? But we already know much more than we knew at the beginning of the night. And if we could send information to the Chara about any connection that the Jackal might have to this feud . . ."

I knew what he was thinking. Not only would we be providing service to the Chara, but I would be able to make partial recompense to the Chara for the trouble that I had started at his border. Silently, I handed Carle the flask.

He took a swig from it and nearly choked in surprise. "Adrian, this is wall-vine wine. Where did you get it?"

"From the cheese-merchant," I replied. "I told him that you needed a bit of wine to see you through your sentry-duty tonight because you were born in the south, and like all southern Koretians, you were very frail, unable to cope with the chill night air of the north—" I jerked away, laughing, as Carle made a mock punch at me.

"'Very frail.'" He grinned as he handed me back the flask. "Next time we do sword-practice, I'll show you how 'very frail' I am. Don't you think it's dangerous to make a remark like that to me in Koretia? Aren't you afraid I'll duel you?"

"No." I smiled at him as I sipped from the flask.

"No," Carle agreed, and taking the flask from me, he settled back in the recess of the doorway, his eye on the house where we awaited the hunted. I took my journal out of my back-sling and began to write.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The twenty-ninth day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

We finally gave up our watch when the moon set, about three hours before dawn.

"If we don't get back now, the lieutenant will notice that we're gone, and then he'll have us up for a reprimand for being absent without his leave," said Carle with a lazy grin. "I haven't even figured out yet how we're going to break the news to him about how we spent our night."

That turned out to be the least of our worries. We were delayed reaching the border because we kept meeting clusters of soldiers on the streets, and we had to find ways to bypass them because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves at such a late hour. Then we had to figure out a way to get past the locked town gates. Then we had to stumble our way down a moonless forest path. By the time we finally made it to the border, it was an hour before dawn. As we peered cautiously around the rock shielding us from view, the first man we sighted was Quentin, talking to the Koretian subcaptain.

Carle swore a few phrases I had best not record, then followed it up with the more conventional curse: "May the high doom fall upon us. We'll never get past Quentin, and he must know that we're gone anyway."

"What do we do?" I asked. "Wait until he returns to the hut?"

"No, he's probably worried since we've been gone all night. He may even have told the Koretians of our prank. We had better brazen this out."

I could hear Quentin's voice from where we crouched. The words were unclear, but his voice was raised above its normal level. The voice stopped with the abruptness of a horse rearing to a halt as we emerged from behind the rock. The other border guards, who had been talking amidst themselves, fell silent as well as we walked forward. Finally we reached the ridge marking the border between Koretia and the no-man's-land of the mountains. Carle said, with forced jocularity, "Good day to you, lieutenant! We have come to surrender to you for our crime of being pranksters."

His joke plopped like a dull stone into the pool of silence around us. Quentin gazed upon us expressionlessly. After a moment, though, a grin appeared on the face of the subcaptain, who said in an easy voice, "There you are, lieutenant. I told you they would return home in the end."

"So you did." Quentin's voice was even softer than usual. "Will you allow my men over the border, sir?"

"Certainly." The subcaptain looked over at his own men, whose smiles now matched his own. "We have no reason for wanting to keep patrol guards in our land, do we?" He stepped back and waved the two of us through.

"Thank you, sir." Quentin's voice was still very soft. "As you can imagine, I will have much to say to you shortly, but for now, will you allow me a few minutes to talk with my men?"

"Take as much time as you wish, lieutenant." The subcaptain leaned idly against the mountain wall. "I'm sure that you have plenty to say to them."

Quentin made no reply, but turned and started walking toward the hut. Carle and I exchanged glances before following him. Already I was rehearsing in my mind a more elaborate excuse than the one Carle and I had originally composed. Seemingly, the same thought was in Carle's mind, for as Quentin closed the hut door behind us, Carle said rapidly, "Lieutenant, we would have been back sooner, but we happened across some important information that we thought the Chara might—"

"Stand at alert!"

I've been a patrol guard for a year now; not since my first meeting with him had I heard Quentin shout. I saw Carle's mouth sag open, and then, like me, he was scrambling to place himself rigid against the hut wall.

For a moment, Quentin did nothing more than pace rapidly up and down in front of us, like a mountain cat guarding her territory. Then he stopped, scanned us with his cold blue eyes, and said softly, "I have been in the patrol for nearly ten years, and during that time I have served with dozens of other patrol guards. With the exception of one man who had his name struck from the records of the patrol, I have never met a patrol guard with whom I would say that I was ashamed to serve. But now I may have met two."

In the silence that followed, there was a knock on the door, and Levander's head poked in. Quentin glanced his way and said, "Ride back as swiftly as you can to the headquarters. If you arrive in time, tell Captain Wystan that the guards have been found. Tell him that the guards are unharmed and that they crossed the border of their own volition. Ask Captain Wystan what I should say to the Koretians; tell him I urgently require an answer."

"And if I am not in time, sir?" Levander's voice was taut.

"You will know if you are not in time; you will see them coming toward you, faster than storm clouds from the north. In that case, you will have to try to give your message directly to the Chara. Do your best to gain access to his ear, soldier."

Levander swallowed hard, but nodded. He closed the door, so that the room remained lit only with the slivers of pre-dawn light passing through the shutters. After another long pause, during which the hoofbeats of Levander's horse disappeared into the distance, Quentin began pacing again. He said, "It might interest you to know what has been happening during your . . . prank. After the subcaptain decided that I should invite the two of you to join him and me for dinner at the local inn, I returned to the hut and discovered your absence. I immediately knew that both of you were in grave trouble. I knew this partly because I found your uniforms in the chest here, and I knew that you would not take off your uniforms while on duty. The other reason I knew that you were in danger was that I was sure that no man who served under me would ever break the Mountain Patrol Law and leave the mountains before the snows came, except under orders."

I scarcely dared breath, so frightened was I of attracting Quentin's attention. He stopped in front of Carle, stared levelly into his eyes and said, "Or did you forget that law, sublieutenant?"

"No, sir." Carle's voice was clipped so short I could barely make out what he was saying.

"Are you familiar with that law, soldier?" Quentin asked me.

This was sarcasm, as every patrol guard memorizes the Law of the Border Mountain Patrol before giving his oath. I ventured to say, "I thought it meant that we couldn't go into Emor."

"Is that what the law says?"

"No, sir," I replied in a subdued voice.

Quentin's pacing began again. His footsteps were the only sounds we could hear, aside from laughter from the Koretian guards. Presently, Quentin said, "I could only think of two circumstances that might have happened: either the Koretians had kidnapped both of you in order to question you about the secrets of the patrol, or someone had recognized you, Soldier Adrian, and had taken you by force into Koretia, and the sublieutenant was tracking your kidnapper. In either case, you were both in immediate danger, so I had Soldier Levander nearly kill his horse in delivering a message to Captain Wystan, telling him what had happened. This was not, of course, the first time that a patrol guard had been kidnapped. With your knowledge of the law, sublieutenant, I am sure that you can tell me what happened last time."

He paused again before Carle. I could see bright against Quentin's uniform his gold honor brooch, which the subcommander gave him last winter in reward for his attempted sacrifice for the patrol.

Carle said in a stiff voice, "Yes, sir. Five days passed before the patrol was able to locate the missing guard, and by that time he had been tortured to death by the Koretians, who wished to discover the secrets of the patrol."

"And what did the Chara promise as a result?" coaxed Quentin softly.

I heard the sound of Carle swallowing before he replied, "To declare war on the Koretians if a patrol guard ever went missing again."

"To declare war . . ." said Quentin slowly. "Well, I am sure that you both will be glad to know that the Chara does not forget his promises. When Captain Wystan informed him yesterday evening of your disappearance, the Chara ordered the army put on high alert. I was to send word at dawn as to whether the missing guards had been found. If you were still absent at that time, the Empire of Emor would go to war against the Land of Koretia."

There was a muffled sound that I identified as Carle trying to hold back a choke. It was a cool morning, from my perspective, but I could feel the sweat biting at the back of my neck.

"The Koretians, in addition to immediately placing their borderland divisions on high alert, were courteous enough to send out search units to try to locate you," said Quentin. "Some time this morning, I will have to appear before the Baron of Blackpass to convey, not only my own apology, but that of the Chara for what has happened. And all this occurs at a time when relations between Koretia and Emor are particularly delicate, due to the war here."

The Koretians' laughter had gradually died away. Quentin looked slowly from Carle to me, his cerulean eyes dark in the shadows, like an evening sky. "Now," he said, "you were about to explain what urgent business delayed your return. Report!"

I was glad that Carle was the one who had to make the report; I could not have found the words to do so. Even to my ears, our carefully prepared explanation sounded mournfully weak. When Carle had finished giving his report in a stilted voice, Quentin said, "Let me be sure that I understand you correctly. You knew that the Chara had sent out his spies to learn how the Koretian civil war began. You therefore decided to abandon your own duties and take on duties for which you had no training and whose failure could result, not only in your deaths, but in the Koretians' everlasting distrust of the mountain patrol. Have I understood you rightly?"

This time Carle made no reply. Quentin's eyes narrowed, and when his voice came again, it was brisk.

"You are both under arrest," he said. "You will return to uniform and will arm yourselves with your swords, only because you may need your blades to fight off the dozens of breachers who have undoubtedly crossed the border while the Koretians were dealing with this crisis. If Levander remains as swift a messenger as he has already shown himself to be, you may escape being trampled to death by the vanguard crushing every obstacle in its path as it charges down the pass. If you manage to overcome such obstacles, you will return to the army headquarters and surrender yourself to the custody of Captain Wystan, who will judge you for your crimes. And by the law-structure itself . . ." Quentin's voice grew soft again. "I hope with all my spirit that the captain has enough mercy in him that he does not turn you over to the wrath of the Chara."

And he gazed upon us with eyes full of pity.

o—o—o

The thirty-first day of August in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle and I have spent the last two days debating whether to ask for a trial in the subcommander's court, as is our right when faced with serious discipline. We finally decided that an army judge was even less likely than Captain Wystan to show us mercy.

"Besides," said Carle grimly, "strictly speaking, since we're under the immediate care of the Chara, the Chara could decide to try us himself. And I'd rather face the executioner's sword than endure the wrath of the Chara."

Carle, drawing upon all his knowledge of army law, says that we're unlikely to be sentenced to any great physical punishment for what we've done. The only question, he says, is whether our army dismissal will be for dishonor or for high dishonor.

I asked him to explain the difference, and then felt myself grow colder and colder as Carle described the ceremony that accompanies a Dismissal of High Dishonor from the Chara's armies. Nor does the punishment end there. A soldier dismissed from the armies in High Dishonor becomes like one of the Living Dead, exiled from all honorable Emorian society, just as though he had committed one of the Great Three crimes against the Chara. It helped me to understand why, when Levander returned south on his horse the first day, he didn't pause, and why, when we passed the patrol points today, nobody from the patrol came down to greet us.

"I hope that we're spared that sentence, if not for our sake, then for the lieutenant's," Carle concluded. I looked enquiringly at him and he added, "The ceremony usually takes place in front of your unit. Quentin is the man who would carry it out – and one of the few times I've seen Quentin's reserve break was when he had to carry out that ceremony on Sublieutenant Shepley. I think it was harder for him than carrying out an execution."

"The ceremony sounds worse than an execution," I murmured.

This conversation took place as we were eating supper in the corner of a borderland village hall. The village's baron, who happens to be Devin's baron, has cheerfully allowed us to stay at his home overnight before our final trip to the army headquarters tomorrow morning. Thankfully, he didn't ask us the purpose of our journey.

This is my first visit to the Emorian borderland, and ordinarily I would be fascinated by my discovery that the borderland here is not very different from the one in Koretia: the houses look the same, the customs are a mixture of north and south, and everyone speaks Border Koretian.

But tonight my mind is entirely on one fear that I have been unwilling to confess to Carle: Will I be sent back to Koretia?

Tomorrow is my seventeenth birthday; tomorrow I find out.

o—o—o

The first day of September in the 941st year a.g.l.

I finally broke down and told Carle my fear late last night while both of us were lying sleepless on the floor of the village hall. His response was a reassuring laugh.

"The sentence of exile hasn't been used for centuries," he said, "and when it was used, it was for worse crimes than ours. You're Emorian now; no one will ever force you to return to Koretia."

I have no time to write more. The borderlander who is giving us a ride to the city in his cart is ready to leave.

o—o—o

I've decided that the reason condemned army prisoners are punished quickly is because they're already half-dead from receiving their reprimands.

Ours lasted two hours. Just the pain of having to stand at alert all that time was worse than a beating. Wystan strode up and down in front of us, disappearing in and out of our view.

"So much for the implications of your breaking Koretian law," Wystan said toward the end. "Let me remind you that you also broke Emorian law, not only by leaving the mountains while on duty, but also by crossing into Koretia from the Emorian border without permission from the patrol. The spectacle of two patrol guards becoming common border-breachers would be laughable if it were not for the fact that you have brought dishonor upon the patrol by your actions."

He paused before us. We were standing in his tent, which was cool with the first frosts of autumn. It is still summer in the mountains, so I hadn't brought my cloak with me. I hoped Wystan realized that my shivering was due to the weather rather than cowardice.

"It makes no difference that one of you is an official and the other is bottom-ranked." He glowered at Carle, who had attempted to make such a defense on my behalf when we first arrived. "You both know the law, and you are both equally condemned under it. There is no question of your guilt. The only question is what sentence is appropriate for two men who nearly caused Emor to go to war with Koretia."

It was dark inside the tent. Wystan had secured the tent flap after Sewell ushered us in, so that the only light in the tent came from the gap around the central pole. Standing at alert, I couldn't look at Carle, but his arm was brushing mine, and I could feel the tightening of his muscles.

"Half a dozen captains have visited me during the past three days, all asking me to punish you in the strongest possible manner. 'A Free-man's Death is too good for them' is how one captain put it." Wystan paused to allow us to take this in. I felt myself begin to sweat in the chill morning air. Wystan turned away finally, walked over to his table, and picked up a piece of paper whose seal was broken. "Against that, I have this letter you gave me from your lieutenant, asking that I show mercy toward you, if not for your own sakes, then because the patrol sorely needs your services."

Wystan tossed the letter back down. The soft sound of its landing was obscured by the sound of the Chara's trumpeters proclaiming the noonday hour: the time when prisoners condemned in the Court of Judgment receive their punishments. Beside me, I could hear Carle's breath, rapid and shallow.

"I am prepared to follow neither piece of advice," declared Wystan. "To show mercy toward you would create a scandal; your crime is too widely known. On the other hand, to condemn you to death would make your crime appear nobler than it is. For the most scandalous aspect to this whole affair is that you two endangered Emor, not in order to carry out some bold though lawless deed, but simply as the result of a childish prank. You do not deserve a public condemnation, because your deed is too trivially mean to merit such attention. You will therefore undergo your punishment in private, but your public records will reveal to the world how the Chara regards men who serve him in such a manner."

Wystan walked out of sight. When he returned, he was holding a sealed document in his hand.

"You are to take this to Lieutenant Sewell, who will arrange for the appropriate entries in your records, and then you will surrender to him your swords and return to me for the final part of your punishment. Carry out your orders, sublieutenant, soldier." Wystan handed Carle the document, then turned away and began busying himself with the work on his desk.

At Carle's lead, I drew my sword and saluted Wystan's back; then I followed Carle outside. We were halfway to Sewell's tent before I found the strength to comment, "He didn't say whether it was with dishonor or with high dishonor."

"He didn't have to, did he?" Carle gave a humorless smile. "Well, at least the lieutenant won't have to perform the ceremony. Now the only nightmare left for me is imagining what my father will say when he finds out."

Carle was staring straight ahead, not looking my way, and I wondered whether he would notice if I disappeared from his side. I swallowed the aching lump in my throat. It wasn't Wystan's words that pained me, as much as my new worry about how I would endure being parted from Carle. Carle, I supposed, would go home and ask his father's forgiveness, and Verne, having seen Carle sufficiently humiliated, would help his son. I wondered whether I would be allowed to see Carle again, or whether I would be exiled from Carle's company forever because I had caused him all this trouble.

I was staring at the ground as I thought all this; I looked up as I felt an arm curl round my shoulders. Carle had a faint though genuine smile on his face. "Don't worry," he said. "I know men who are so desperate for labor that they would be willing to hire dishonorable men such as ourselves. Even the most menial worker in this land serves the Chara in his own way. We'll find some sort of work to do together."

I had no time to express my thoughts at this speech, for we had reached Sewell's tent. Carle stopped, drew in a deep breath, and marched rigidly into the tent, handing Sewell the document without a word. For Carle's sake, I checked to make sure that the tent flap was secure behind us before I came forward. As I reached Carle's side, Sewell was breaking the seal. He read the document without changing his expression in any way, then looked up at us, standing with our hands on our sheaths, ready to hand over our swords.

"Congratulations, lieutenant, sublieutenant." Sewell's gaze went from Carle to me. "This means an elevation in pay as well, you realize."

For a moment, Carle and I remained frozen in our poses; then Carle snatched the document from Sewell's unresisting hands. His gaze darted across the page as the blood drained from his face.

"Heart of Mercy!" he gasped. "The captain hasn't dismissed us – he has transferred us into the espionage division."

"What?"

Both of us were incoherent for the next few moments, until we looked over and saw Wystan standing at the tent entrance, leaning against a post with his arms folded, and grinning as he watched us.

"May the high doom fall upon you and your sense of humor, captain," said Carle weakly. "You are fortunate that Adrian and I failed to fall on our swords between your tent and here."

"And you are fortunate that the Chara has a sense of humor as well," replied Wystan, pulling the tent flap closed again. "When I told him that the Emorian army had been placed on high alert because two patrol guards had decided to breach the border as a prank, I had to wait quite a while before he could stop laughing. The Chara told me that I could act as I wished in this matter, but that he would hate to see such fine spying talents go to waste. . . . I am sure that he will also be pleased to receive the information you gave me this morning – not about the cause of the civil war, which of course the Chara has already ascertained, but about the exact nature of Mountside's feud with Cold Run."

"But our punishment . . ." Carle protested.

"Well, you are removed from the patrol, which is the worst punishment I can think of that you deserve. Moreover, as I hinted, your public records will differ from the Chara's private records, at least until you leave the Emorian army. Anyone who is curious – such as those busybody captains who tried to teach me my job – will be told that you both received a Dismissal of High Dishonor. However, the army is in need of manual laborers at the moment – to clean latrines and the like – and in an act of mercy that neither of you in any way deserve, I will be hiring you for such work. I will even allow you to live in the army headquarters – solely to keep my eye on you, of course."

Chewing on the end of his pen, Sewell said, "I am so shocked by your appalling behavior that I will be assigning you to backbreaking projects in the countryside. You will probably be away for weeks at a time."

"Weeks that we'll spend in Koretia," I said with sudden understanding.

"Once you have been trained for the work," Wystan replied. "There is no such thing, you know, as being officially assigned to the espionage division. In the eyes of the world, you are two ignominious lawbreakers, and your future connection with the Chara's armies will be a minor one."

"Sir," said Carle in a helpless splutter, "we do not deserve such mercy—"

Wystan turned a cold eye upon him. "Are you trying to teach me my job as well, lieutenant?"

"But you elevated us, sir!"

"I fear there is no way around that," said Wystan with an apologetic smile. "All of the Chara's spies automatically receive the rank of lieutenant. The best I can do is make Adrian your student, so that he does not receive a double elevation. I would prefer to have the two of you working together in any case; you make a good team. But for love of the Chara, men, do not let me down again! I am likely to be lynched by my fellow captains if you break the law a second time – not to mention what the Chara would do to me."

o—o—o

So now we are the Chara's spies. Wystan was right that leaving the patrol would be punishment enough for us; I had to bite back tears when it came time for me to strip off my patrol uniform. But Carle and I will be able to continue in the Chara's service, and we'll be able to work together. And though I'll be spending much time in Koretia for the next few years, I will always be able to return to my real home. I feel as though I've been given a series of unexpected birthday gifts.

Law Links 5

GOD OF JUDGMENT

CHAPTER TWENTY

The ninth day of September in the 941st year a.g.l.

A whole week has passed since Carle and I became spies for the Chara, and we haven't yet begun our training, though we have memorized the Law of Disclosure, and Wystan has spent several hours each day explaining our duties to us. I had thought that we would be trained by one of the other spies, but Wystan says that we cannot be allowed to come into contact with any other of the Chara's spies from this time on.

"The trouble with you two," he said, "is that you know too much. Generally, the spies I send out know nothing beyond what I have told them myself and what they have learned from their own investigations. That way, if a spy is caught and questioned, he can reveal little to our enemies. But you two have been patrol guards. That means you know the identities of every Emorian spy who works in Koretia, and you have spoken to many of them about their work."

"I thought that we were allowed to do that, sir," I said.

Wystan nodded. We were standing in his tent – he had not offered us seats because we were supposed to be mere laborers, but out of courtesy he had remained standing himself. "I have always allowed the Chara's spies to exchange information with the patrol, because the more that the patrol knows about what is going on in Koretia, the better it can do its job. You were right to question the spies about their work – when you were guards. But that creates a cursed dilemma for me now. If either of you is captured and speaks under questioning, every Emorian spy in Koretia may be arrested."

Carle began to speak, then stopped himself. Like me, he was dressed in a peasant-brown tunic that was covered with mud, since we had spent the morning struggling to raise and secure a badly-made army tent that was consonant with our status as the bottom-ranked men in the headquarters. Not long afterwards, we had passed Neville, and he had carefully slid his gaze away from us, pretending that we weren't there. To my relief, Carle had seemed almost satisfied by this. "Our highly dishonorable dismissals wouldn't make a difference to someone who held us in real friendship," he told me. "As a result of this experience, we'll be able to tell who our true friends are."

Now Wystan said, "I am taking a great risk in sending you to Koretia, but I think the information you are likely to obtain will be worth the risk. This means, though, that you will need to be doubly on your guard against capture, and you will need to be prepared for the consequences if that happens."

So then he told us what would be done to us if we were captured, and afterwards he sent us to the city prison to watch a suspected murderer being interrogated, since our torturers use the same methods as do the Koretian torturers. Then we returned to Wystan and he asked us whether we were sure that we wanted to take on this duty, and we both said yes, though I was feeling quite sick by that point.

I told Carle afterwards that I wasn't sure I could hold out against such methods. He replied, "The man who requested an extra twenty lashes? The man who broke his left wrist on patrol and didn't tell anyone about it for four hours?"

"We were hunting a tricky breacher that day," I murmured.

"I could cite a dozen other examples. No, if anyone breaks under questioning, it will be me. The only thing I can think of to do if I'm captured is to keep reciting to myself the Justification of the Law of Vengeance. If I hold in mind all of the burdens that the Chara undergoes for this land, it may help me to bear my own better."

Incidentally, Wystan said he would have sent us to visit the palace dungeon for our lesson about torture, if our dishonorable dismissals had not prevented that. Carle and I have talked about how much fun it would be to sneak into the palace, but with no serious intent. We've been in enough trouble recently as it is.

o—o—o

The eleventh day of September in the 941st year a.g.l.

We finally have a tutor: Hylas, one of the royal messengers.

I'd known, of course, that the royal messengers are members of the Division of Disclosure, since they carry both official and unofficial messages throughout the Three Lands. I didn't realize, though, that they carry, not only messages from high army officials and council lords, but also reports from spies who want to send information back to Wystan quickly. Nor did I realize that most of the royal messengers are former spies and that they are occasionally called upon to resume their old duties.

"It is the best of two worlds," said Hylas, as he checked over our tent to assure himself that we kept nothing there that would reveal our true rank. "Royal messengers receive the privilege of meeting noblemen and high officials, but we also have occasional fun tracking the enemy. And our work is vitally important to the empire: we bring the first news of anything that happens in the Three Lands, whether it be of war or peace, plague or celebration. —What in the name of the dead Charas are you keeping this here for?" Hylas held up my copper honor brooch, which he had removed from under my sleeping pallet. I received the brooch last spring for an episode not worth recording here; any patrol guard would have done the same, and I was embarrassed at the way Carle kept thanking me for days afterwards.

"I didn't know where else to put it," I said.

"Give it to a friend to keep or toss it in a well – do you want to lose your life over a piece of metal? Koretian spies swarm these headquarters during the daytime. They have little luck overhearing conversations through the thick tent-cloth – guards will move them on if they linger too long in one spot – but they do succeed in taking note of movements, and they'll occasionally rifle through tents when the owners are absent. One of their jobs is to discover if any man visiting Wystan regularly is what he claims to be."

He tossed the brooch to me, and Carle took it from me with a grin. He had already handed his own belongings over to Sewell and had suggested that I do the same, but I hadn't understood the reason for his suggestion until now.

"How does one become a royal messenger?" I asked to cover my embarrassment.

"We must pass a strenuous test – riding speed is most important, next to an ability to keep our mouths shut. We generally know what the letters we carry contain, so only the most trustworthy men in the empire can become messengers. If you are really ambitious, you could try for the highest-ranked post in the espionage division: private messenger to the Chara. That is an honor worth working for. You'd carry only messages from the Chara, and their replies, and you'd report only to him. . . . You're keeping your sword?" This last remark was addressed to Carle, for Hylas was now inspecting our outfits.

Carle nodded. "I have no great skill with a dagger, I fear."

"You shouldn't have to use your sword either. Spies don't fight – remember that. Only if you're on the point of capture should you defend yourself, and then I would suggest using your thigh-dagger. Spies can't afford to be honorable in their methods of killing." Hylas twirled Carle unceremoniously around to look at his back. "Hmm. Straight, formal posture. If you're carrying a sword, we might disguise you as a nobleman."

"A nobleman?" said Carle in consternation.

And so, despite Carle's protests, Carle is now the heir to a Koretian village baron, and I am his blood brother who travels with him wherever he goes. I thought that Carle would simply nick himself with a dagger to create the vow mark, but he said that he had better know how such a ceremony is performed, so we underwent the mixing of blood, except that we made our vows to the Chara rather than to a god. I know that this blood vow makes no difference to us – we were bound from the moment that he offered me his wine – but still it pleases me that we have been linked by the customs of both our native lands, as though creating a double chain-link of friendship.

o—o—o

The twelfth day of September in the 941st year a.g.l.

Last night, Carle and I discussed what Hylas had said about becoming a royal messenger. I had thought that Carle would be excited at the idea of being able to work with council lords and perhaps even the Chara, but he said, "Tell me, have you heard Hylas speak a single word about the law?"

I thought a bit and realized that I hadn't; nor had I heard most of the soldiers in these headquarters discussing the subject.

"My father wanted me to work for a town council," said Carle, scratching his legs. The section of the headquarters where we are now located is filled with fleas, so we've resigned ourselves to waking up each morning with red marks on our skin. "He said that the only talent I had was in book-learning, and so he had me memorizing languages and laws from an early age – that's why I know as many laws as I do. But I wanted to join the border mountain patrol, and the only reason I learned those laws was because I knew that patrol guards were law-lovers, and I wanted to be one too."

"You are a law-lover," I said. "Quentin told me that you know more law than any other soldier he'd met."

"That's a compliment in the patrol, but it hardly says much in the regular army. High officials like Wystan know the law well, but how many lower-ranked soldiers do you think are interested in the law? They believe that, if you're fighting battles or spying on Koretians or carrying messages, you don't need to care about the law."

I was silent a while, biting at my knuckles. It was late night, and our tent was lit with the faint light of a brazier fire. We had the tent flap closed, since it was cool outside, and through the thick cloth I could hear nothing except the sound of several palace guards making the rounds in the headquarters.

"So do you think we made a mistake in taking up this work?" I asked finally.

"Oh, I didn't say that. One of the troubles with us Emorians is that we don't know enough about our southern neighbors. When I joined the mountain patrol, I was surprised to find out how little even the patrol guards know about Koretia. Think on Quentin. He's a borderlander, he's the lieutenant of a patrol that deals daily with Koretians, yet I doubt that he knows a single Koretian religious rite, other than the funeral rite that I taught him. And the less that Emorians know about Koretia, the more likely we are to have trouble with that land."

Carle reached over to a bag near him, bit into the blackroot nut he found there, and made a sour face. In conformity with our image as ground-poor peasants, we are now eating a steady diet of peasant food. I thought that I knew what poverty was, having come from a poor village and having lived the harsh life of patrol guard, but I'm beginning to realize how desperately hard most men's lives are. I will be glad when we travel to Koretia, and I become a nobleman's blood brother, with a style of living to match.

Carle said, "No, I'm glad that I'll have a chance to see for myself the land I spent so many years learning about, and that you'll be my guide for what I see. A few years spent in Koretia could be of great help to me in the future. But I'm beginning to think that my father is right. Perhaps my destiny does lie in a town council in the end."

"So you want to become a town councilman?" I said.

Carle laughed as he slapped a flea with the sheath of his sword. "That's being overambitious, don't you think? I'll be satisfied if I can find a position as a council clerk or porter. More likely the only position I'll be able to find is as a scribe to some village council that can't afford to hire real talent."

"Don't be foolish!" I said heatedly. "You're far better at the law than that. You know that you could be a town councilman if you tried."

Carle looked over at me then, the right side of his mouth crooking up. "Well, I'll confess that I do have a secret plot that will allow me to obtain a very honorable office."

"What is that?" I asked and undid my belt in preparation for bed.

"I have a friend whom I expect will be a council lord some day, and when that happens, I plan to see whether he can find me a job as a bottom-ranked official of the Great Council."

"Have I met this friend?" I asked curiously, pulling my tunic over my head.

"In a manner of speaking."

I froze in the ridiculous position of having my arms straight over my head, pulling up the tunic. Carle was sitting on his bed, leaning back against one of the tent posts; the shadow of my arms and tunic was just touching his bare feet. He looked back at me steadily, and after a moment I remembered to move again. Pulling the tunic off, I said, "You and Quentin. Quentin thought that I would be a mighty soldier, and look what happened to me: I nearly caused a war."

"That's the only question in my mind – whether you'll end up a captain or a council lord. You'd be equally good at both, so you mustn't let my plight influence your choice."

"Stop making silly jokes." I reached down to unlace the leather shoe-straps binding my legs. "When was the last time a lesser free-man was appointed to the Great Council?"

"Sixty-five years ago."

"There, you see? You knew the answer in an instant, just as you know the answer to any law question. If anyone's destined to become a council lord, it's you."

"May the high doom fall upon you, man . . ." Carle followed this up with a colorful string of oaths and concluded by saying, "Why should I have impossible ambitions like that when I have you as my friend? Believe me, I'm quite content to follow in your wake, wherever your talents take you. —Never mind, never mind, there's no point in arguing about the hypothetical all night. All I meant to say was that I'd like to do council work some day – if I survive a few years as a spy. That may be ambition enough."

And that remark brought us out of our dreams and back to reality.

o—o—o

The thirteenth day of September in the 941st year a.g.l.

We received a letter from Quentin today, by way of Hylas. Since Carle and I are not accepted as spies until we have completed our training, the patrol hasn't yet heard of our new assignment, but Neville wrote to the patrol and let everyone know of our disgrace.

Quentin wanted to know whether he could be of any help in finding us better jobs.

"I told you we'd find out who our true friends are," crowed Carle, waving the letter. "Heart of Mercy, was there ever such a man as that? We bring grave dishonor upon his patrol – or so he thinks – and he breaks the great taboo against communicating with us, in order to offer his assistance. By the law-structure itself, I can't wait to see him again. Cursed be his reticence. I'm the same rank now as he is; he's going to hear what I think of him, whether he likes it or not."

o—o—o

The nineteenth day of September in the 941st year a.g.l.

Any illusions I had about the life of a spy being full of excitement are now gone. Carle and I just spent a week in training, gathering information about the width of farm fields. Hylas says we'll be lucky if we receive such an interesting assignment when we go to Koretia.

We were sent to the Emorian borderland as an experiment to see whether Carle could pass as a Koretian. We were nearly required to spy on Quentin's home village, which would have been amusing, but Carle explained to Hylas that we had both met Quentin's grandfather. So I missed my chance to meet Quentin's grandfather again and to understand better why Quentin is so reluctant to be in contact with his family.

Carle and I have decided not to respond to the lieutenant's letter. Anything we wrote now would have to be a lie; we'll be able to give him the truth soon enough.

Last night, as we were sorting through the information we'd gathered and trying to decide whether the Chara needed to know which fields were covered with weeds, Carle said, "The one I feel sorry for in all this is Quentin. He was planning to retire at the end of this year, but now he'll have to wait a year or two while he trains your successor."

I was busy checking to ensure that our tent was closed tight against eavesdroppers, and so it took me a moment to realize what Carle had said. Then I replied, "What are you talking about? You were the sublieutenant; you were going to take Quentin's place when he left."

Carle was stretched along his low cot, tracing circles around the numbers we had drawn in the dirt and were trying to commit to memory in true spy fashion. He gave me one of his crooked smiles. "I told you last year that elevation of rank doesn't work that way. You're a better soldier than I am; I knew that from the moment you disarmed me. Quentin was only waiting for you to resolve matters with Fowler before he made you his partner and began training you to lead the unit."

I looked quickly down at the ground and began digging at the dust with the tip of my boot. I too had long known that I was a better soldier than anyone in the unit except Quentin, but I had not allowed myself to think about this, so confident was I that Carle would always be above my rank. Now I wasn't sure what lay behind Carle's smile, and I was afraid to ask.

Softly as the breeze whistling against the tent cover, Carle said, "No, I take it back. It's not Quentin I feel sorriest for; it's you. You could have held the most honored lieutenancy in the Chara's armies if it hadn't been for my foolishness, and I— Well, I've lost the great joy I would have had in serving under you. I suppose that I couldn't have had any worse punishment than that."

And as I looked up, I saw that he was still smiling. With a brush of the hand, he swept away the figures we had written down, and for the next hour we quizzed each other on our information.

We both proved to be equally poor at our work.

o—o—o

The twenty-first day of October in the 941st year a.g.l.

I've had no time to write for the past month, so busy have we been in our training. In light of what I wrote in my previous entry, I should add that I'm relieved to discover that Carle is a better spy than I am. At least, he's better at lying. I asked him once how he learned so well to lie, and he replied, "From living with my father." I quickly switched the subject.

He's also a master at being able to tell when other people are lying, and he can't explain how he acquired that talent. It did occur to me that his father has the same skill, but of course I knew better than to mention that to Carle. The only task I have any real skill at is hunting, and so Carle and I divide our duties the way we did in the beginning: he talks with people, and if there's a need to track anyone, I do the hunting. I feel as though we've become even closer partners than we were in the patrol.

It felt odd, then, when Wystan called me into his tent alone. He wanted to question me about how much danger I was placing myself in by returning to Koretia. I explained to him how my kinsmen would never visit Blackpass, and he seemed satisfied, but he said, "This war in Koretia has become so ferocious that I fear you might be in danger even if you are recognized by someone who is not kin to you. You will discover as a spy that one temptation you are constantly facing is to confess your true identity to sympathetic listeners. Any man of honor sickens of having to tell lies week after week, and you will reach a point where you think, 'What harm could it do to tell this one person?' For that reason, whenever possible I send Koretian-born spies back under their own identities. In your case, though, the possible harm of disclosure is double, since your life could be forfeit due to your broken blood vow, as well as due to your spying. Because of that, I am going to give you a command: You are not to reveal your identity to any Koretian. Do you understand my order?"

I nodded. I did not think it was necessary to add that I have no desire for any Koretian to know the truth of who I am. When I think of all the years I spent worshipping the gods, I am filled with shame, and no Koretian would ever understand that.

o—o—o

The twenty-eighth day of October in the 941st a.g.l.

Carle and I have finished our training. No one has told us otherwise, so I suppose we are spies now. We're awaiting our first assignment, and in the meantime we're quizzing each other so that we are sure to know our new identities if anyone should ask us.

Hylas decided in the end that it would be too dangerous to have Carle try to pass as a noble's heir; someone might know the village he came from. Instead, Carle is Calder son of Victor. His father and elder brothers were all killed in a blood feud, so he was heir to his village's barony for a short time when he was seven. But he was so ill after the murders that he went to live with another noble family, and when it became clear that he would not recover from his illness, he gave the King permission to appoint a new baron to his village. Calder stayed with the other noble family until he came of age, but because the village baron was new nobility and his father had been of the old nobility, Calder was unwilling to remain there. Since that time, he has spent his life travelling. As the former heir to a village baron, he is entitled to wear a sword.

Calder really exists; he came to live with my family when he was seven and I was four. He killed himself, though. I still remember Emlyn's face when he came to tell us that he had found Calder hanging from one of the rafters of our hall.

It was so shameful an incident that no one knows it happened except my family and the King and Calder's mother, who told everyone that she had given my father guardianship of Calder. As far as anyone else knows, Calder is still alive.

I'm my cousin Emlyn. Oh, I'm not using his name, but I based my new identity on him: blood brother to one of the old nobility, not important in my own right, but worthy of courtesy and attention. If Carle and I ask questions, the person we're talking with will feel compelled to answer two august persons such as ourselves. At least, I hope that is the case; our mission depends upon it.

o—o—o

The thirtieth day of October in the 941st year a.g.l.

Hylas brought us another letter from Quentin today. It was sealed, but of course Hylas knew what it said, since patrol guards are required to disclose the contents of their personal letters to the messengers who carry them. Hylas said that he heard from another royal messenger that Quentin has been sending out large batches of letters to a wide variety of people in Southern Emor for the past month, and that the letters were all aimed at securing the enclosed.

We broke the seal and looked at Quentin's message. It was a short note telling us that his grandfather had heard of our present situation and was pleased to offer us a house in his village, as well as jobs on his farm.

Carle didn't crow this time. Instead, he handed me the letter and walked rapidly out of the tent. I found him an hour later, leaning against the exterior side of the inner palace wall. He was gazing from his hilltop perch at the border mountains as he softly practiced his patrol whistles. I pretended not to notice the wet face-cloth that was thrust under his belt.

o—o—o

The fourth day of November in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle and I are breaking our night fast in the patrol hut while everyone here eagerly plies us with questions. I think they are trying to make up for our initial reception.

We arrived at the patrol points just before dawn, and Carle whistle-signalled Quentin, rather than wait for the patrol to sight us, as we knew how duty would require Quentin to capture two men of our supposed status. The lieutenant came down alone, with his sword still in its sheath, and Carle silently handed him the sealed letter from Captain Wystan. By the time Quentin finished reading the letter, he was wearing a broad smile; I don't think I've ever seen him smile before. Then he called down the full patrol. I could see Carle watching as the guards came forward, judging each man by how he reacted to our presence. When Quentin announced our new titles, everyone cheered without hesitation, so Carle is inclined to forgive the guards who avoided looking at us; I won't even record their names here. But as Carle pointed out to me in a whisper, Quentin is the only one we can really trust now.

We will sleep here with the night patrol today so that we can arrive at the Koretian border after dark. Tomorrow we will change into the Koretian clothes we have brought with us; we will leave our Emorian clothes here. Quentin is also allowing me to leave my journal here. Usually I keep the book in Sewell's tent, which is heavily guarded since it is in the area belonging to the high army officials. But I plan to take some extra pieces of paper with me and write journal entries while I'm in Koretia. I have Wystan's permission to do this, since I will be carrying other incriminating documents in my thigh-pocket anyway. When I return to the patrol hut, I can bind the entries into my journal.

Carle has Quentin in one corner of the hut now, and from the look on Quentin's face, I take it that Carle is carrying out his promise to tell Quentin what he thinks of him. I hope Quentin recovers from this trauma.

o—o—o

The fifth day of November in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle was yawning all through our walk last night. He and Quentin stayed up talking almost till dusk. I asked Carle what they discussed, and he said, "Our families, mainly. Quentin told me more about his grandfather. It appears that he is a very loving and solicitous man who has bullied Quentin all his life. The lieutenant as much as said that the only reason he joined the patrol was because his grandfather forced him to do so. Apparently – and again, I'm reading behind the lines here – Quentin's grandfather said that Quentin would dishonor his father's spirit if he didn't become a patrol guard. Quentin despises the work; that much he told me outright."

"But he's so good at it!" I said. "He's the best guard in the patrol."

"Possibly one of the best patrol guards of all time," said Carle, wrapping his cloak tighter against the wind that was penetrating the cave we will be sleeping in this morning. "It just goes to show how little correlation there can be between enjoying your duty and doing it well. Quentin says that every time he has to wound a breacher in order to capture him, he just tells himself that his own suffering is bringing good to Emor."

I wish that I had the courage to talk to the lieutenant about such matters, but I don't think I would ever have the nerve to start such a conversation. And perhaps that's a weakness on my part, because Quentin may have always wanted somebody to talk to. Well, he has Carle now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The twenty-seventh day of November in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle and I have been in Blackpass for the past three weeks, in a certain inn I won't name, in case these entries are confiscated from me at a later date. In any case, the inn-keeper knows only the names we gave him when we asked for a room: Calder and his blood brother Adrian.

We've spent the past week trying to fulfill our assignment, which is to determine what the Jackal is doing and whether he poses any threat to Emor. To fulfill the first part of the assignment, all that we've had to do is sit in the hall of the inn and listen to the rumors whistle endlessly through the room like mountain wind. We haven't even needed to check the rumors, for they all agree: the Jackal is playing tricks.

"This is absurd!" stormed Carle when we were alone in our room tonight. "Listen to this report: The man who calls himself the Jackal appeared in the hall of the Baron of Blackpass. All of the reports agree on this; there were multiple witnesses. The baron ordered him arrested immediately, without listening to what the masked invader had to say. The Jackal somehow managed to elude arrest – just how, the reports can't agree upon. But then the next night, the Jackal sneaked into the baron's bedroom while he was sleeping and put mud in his boots." Carle looked up at me from the report that he had written for Captain Wystan. "Put mud in his boots? He could have slit the baron's throat! What kind of childish prankster are we dealing with here?"

I bit my lip; it was not the moment for laughter, but I was still remembering the account by Blackwood's free-servant of how the baron had awoken the next morning and sleepily slipped his feet into his boots, then howled with such outrage that his entire household had awoken. "The trickster god," I murmured.

"What?" Carle looked at me blankly.

I glanced through the cracks in our shuttered window, which looked out upon the courtyard of the inn, empty except for the horses stabled there, under an overhang. Behind us, there was no sound. Carle had carefully chosen an inn which backed straight up against a rocky boulder – one of the boulders flung by the Jackal at his enemies, the old tales said. The inn corridor ends at the room next to ours, which we have also hired, under the excuse that Carle, being a nobleman, requires a separate room from his blood brother. In actual fact, Carle and I have been using that room as a buffer between us and any eavesdroppers; all of our sleep and conversations take place in my room.

Even so, our conversations have been in Daxion, which Carle has been spending the last few weeks teaching me, since that language is less likely to raise suspicion than if we conversed in Emorian – there are many Daxion bankers living in this town – and is less likely to be understood by the King's spies than if we conversed in Border Koretian or Common Koretian.

"If my accent is a bit off," Carle had said when we first arrived, "you can blame Fenton. He might have saved me the trouble by tutoring you in Daxion as well."

Now, three weeks later, I switched over to Border Koretian. "The Jackal is the trickster god. That's what the old tales call him. He played tricks on his enemies."

"What sort of tricks?" Carle had just come in from a day eavesdropping upon gossip in the marketplace; he laid his sword aside, frowning.

I thought a moment, then switched back to the Daxion tongue. "The first King of Koretia wanted to take power away from the Jackal, who was High Priest in those days. The King wanted to listen to the confessions of all his subjects, so that he, rather than the priests, could know what secret crimes his subjects had committed. The Jackal did not even bother to argue the matter with the King. Instead, he began appearing in many different guises before the King. On one occasion, he was a boy who had come to confess that he had skinned his little sister's knee. On another occasion, he was a housewife who had burnt her husband's meal. On yet another occasion, he was a soldier who had forgotten to whet his blade. . . . Soon the King had no time left in which to do anything except take confessions on such trivial matters. At last he realized that all these subjects must be the Jackal in disguise, and he understood the message that the Jackal was giving him. And so the King gave back to the Jackal the power to hear confessions and make judgments, so that the King could devote his time to defending his subjects in other ways." I looked over at Carle, who was still frowning, and I smiled. "Yes, I know. It wasn't the best decision the Jackal ever made; if the King had become High Judge, as the Chara is, perhaps Koretia would have developed a true law system rather than the gods' law."

Carle waved his hand, as though swatting at one of the blood-flies that was darting around the room. "It doesn't matter. It's only a tale. But this Jackal-man – you're saying he's imitating the Jackal of the old tales in order to try to prove that he's a god?"

"Or to send a message," I suggested. "'Mud-booted soldier' – that's a Koretian phrase for a soldier who acts without thinking; he puts on his boots without checking whether any of his fellow soldiers have smeared mud in them, as a prank. There's an old tale about the Jackal—"

"All right, I understand. So he's made himself into a trickster. Where does that bring us in understanding his goals? The Jackal in the tales tricked the King; will this new Jackal try to trick the Chara?"

I flicked away a blood-fly that had been trying to drink my blood. "The old tales never tell of the Jackal bothering the Emorians. The tales never speak of the Emorians at all."

Carle sighed as he wiped sweat from his forehead. To me, it was a cool autumn day, but Carle still suffers from the heat. "You put a lot of faith in these old tales. What if the new Jackal decides that, being a god, he can do whatever he wants?"

"But what does he want?" I took up again the pen I had been using to write my own report. "Carle, there must be some pattern to what the Jackal is doing. He wouldn't just be acting at random. Why didn't he attack the priests when he had the chance? And why did he try to speak to the baron, the most powerful of the old nobles? Why didn't he kill Blackwood when the baron was asleep? It's as though the Jackal is trying to draw allies to some great battle – but who is the battle against?"

"You know," said Carle, cocking his head at me, "you've forgotten the most likely theory of all."

"Which is?"

"The Jackal could be a madman." Carle's voice was flat. He frowned down at his report, adding, "We're getting nowhere here. It's time I went looking to the source of all this."

"You mean 'we,'" I suggested.

"No, 'I.' You're staying here." His voice was flat again – the voice of a lieutenant issuing orders to his sublieutenant.

"Yes, sir," I said meekly, and Carle laughed.

"I'm taking a visit to Borderknoll," he explained.

"Ah!" Enlightened, I smiled at him in relief. "Thank you. I'd rather not come that close to Mountside."

And so Carle will set off tomorrow to spy in the village where the Jackal first made his appearance. I'm a bit doubtful, myself, that he will learn anything; villagers tend to be close-mouthed around strangers. But if anyone could pull secrets out of them, it is Carle.

o—o—o

The twenty-ninth day of November in the 941st year a.g.l.

I've had a message from Carle, sent by way of Hylas, who knew from my reports to Wystan where Carle was, and went to Borderknoll out of his own curiosity to learn how Carle was doing.

Alas, Carle has learned no more than we learned many months ago from Malise, so he has sent word that he will be returning to the inn tomorrow. Hylas, disappointed that he would not be one of the first to learn of the Jackal's secrets, has continued south, promising to deliver our reports when he returns north, as well as any additional reports we may have prepared in the meantime. After this first time, he will no longer make contact with us in person; we will leave our reports in a pre-arranged spot that he will check each time he passes through this town.

And so Carle and I are now truly alone, for we dare not contact the other spies that the Chara has working in this land. Until Hylas returns from the south in a month's time, no one will know of our fate on this mission.

In the pre-dawn hour when Carle prepared to leave the inn, I sat in front of the fire in our hearth, which Carle had prepared for my sake, since the evening felt cool to me. He glanced at me as he was packing his bag. "What are you thinking?" he asked.

"About whether the Jackal knows that you're going alone to Borderknoll," I replied.

Carle raised his eyebrows. "You think his thieves are that good?" The word "thieves" is the word that people are now using for the Jackal's followers, since the Jackal is the thief god, and since some of the tricks played by the Jackal and his followers have involved thefts.

I hesitated, but Carle was still watching me, his eyes dark in the dark room. Finally I said, "Fenton had certain talents . . . I'm not saying he was a god. But he knew sometimes what was going to happen to him, before it happened. I've been thinking about that letter he wrote to my cousin Emlyn – it was like a farewell letter, as though he expected to meet Emlyn in the Land Beyond. He couldn't have possibly guessed that the hunter would kill a priest, yet somehow he sensed that some great change would take place in his life." I looked at Carle again, hoping I would not have to explain further.

"Mm." Carle carefully checked his thigh-dagger before strapping the thigh-pocket back on. "So you think that the Jackal might have . . . special powers? And that this is why he thinks he's a god?" Though he strove to hide it, I could hear the skepticism in Carle's voice.

"A god-man," I corrected quickly. "All of the reports agree about that: he calls himself a god-man. That's a way of admitting his powers are limited, isn't it? If he were claiming limitless powers, he'd simply call himself a god."

Carle leaned against the wall, gazing upwards, as though staring up at the Chara's throne. "Adrian, you may have something there. If this man has some sort of special talent – a sort of extra-sharp intuition – then he may have convinced himself that he's the embodiment of a god." Carle broke his gaze from the ceiling and shook his head as he turned to close his bag. "That would make him all the more dangerous, to my mind. A deceiver is easier to deal with than a religious fanatic."

I thought back to the Jackal creeping into the baron's bedchamber, quiet, undetected. "Oh, he's dangerous," I said. "There's no doubt of that."

Carle saw me shiver; out of kindness, he disguised the cause. "For love of the Chara, Adrian, put your cloak on if you're cold. We managed to keep you alive through a mountain snowstorm; I don't want you dying of chill-fever in the Koretian heat." He slung his sling over his back. "I'll be back at week's end. Try not to get yourself killed before then." His voice was light.

"And you." I raised my head. "It's not just the King and Blackwood we have to worry about now, you know. The Jackal may be our enemy as well."

"If he is," said Carle, with his quirk of a smile, "he'll soon regret ever having tangled with the Chara's spies."

For a long time after Carle left, I stared into the fire, watching it eat the black logs. Finally I whispered to the fire, "Jackal, if you have come to this world in order to play your tricks on my people, be warned: I won't let you past the border. I won't let you destroy my new homeland, the way you and the other gods have destroyed my native land."

With the words spoken, I felt better. I went back to bed then and slept until mid-morning, in a sleep untroubled by dreams of my murderous kin.

o—o—o

The thirtieth day of November in the 941st year a.g.l.

To Hylas:

I am leaving this note for you so that you will know, in case I do not come back. Carle has been placed under arrest. I have gone to try to secure his release.

Adrian

o—o—o

I have time in which to relate what happened, though I am beginning to shake now from the thought of what I did.

After a day spent following rumors in the square next to the prison, I arrived back at the Blackpass inn while the guests there were still talking of the arrest of a red-haired man who had engaged in suspicious behavior, so that the innkeeper had hailed down some passing soldiers. The soldiers had questioned the man, had not been satisfied with his answers, and had taken him to the army headquarters for further questioning.

I lingered only long enough to ascertain that the man arrested was indeed Carle. Then I wrote a note to Hylas, placed it in our message spot, and hurried to find the army headquarters.

Of course I wondered whether I was doing the right thing. But it was not only my bond to Carle that caused me to run down the street; it was the thought of what Wystan had said about the dangers if we were captured. Carle knew far too much information about the members of the Division of Disclosure. If he broke under questioning, the lives of every spy in Koretia would be at risk.

I found the army headquarters easily, by questioning a passing soldier. It was located in a part of town I vaguely remembered from early childhood visits, and it consisted of a cluster of buildings. Some soldiers were milling around in the courtyard when I arrived, but the guards at the main gate let me through without trouble, once I had stated my business.

Once I had entered the courtyard, however, I had a great deal of difficulty gaining access to the captain in charge of the Blackpass divisions. I could not remember his name, and my entry to him was blocked by a very loyal orderly who seemed to feel that his captain's time was far too precious to spend with a man petitioning for the release of his blood brother. Finally, grudgingly, the orderly entered a chamber nearby and returned with the news that his captain would see me. He ushered me into the chamber.

My first thought was that the room I was entering looked, not like a chamber devoted to army business, but like my family's home. It was a raftered hall, with a dais at the end of the chamber, similar to the dais where the baron and anyone he chose might stand to speak when issuing commands. This being Koretia, the dais was quite small in comparison to the remainder of the hall, where the lesser free-man would stand and discuss amongst themselves whether the baron's commands had any merit to them.

Against the wooden wall behind the dais hung the ancient banner of the old kings of Koretia, showing the masks of the seven gods and goddesses surrounding a gold scepter. Underneath this was a banner woven with the family seal of the Baron of Blackpass, which was not much different from the ancient royal seal. I looked around the hall for some sign that this place was used for army purposes, but could find nothing beyond some swords on the wall that looked as though they dated back to the early centuries of Koretia. A few table-tops and their trestles lay against the wall, as well as a wine-table that the orderly now stood beside. At the end of the hall nearest me, under a high window from which light streamed, sat the captain, wearing the black-and-forest-green uniform of the Blackpass army, and carefully scribing a letter upon a writing table.

The whole scene looked familiar, much too familiar. I was still trying to figure out where I had seen this hall before when the captain looked up at me, and I felt my heart plummet.

The captain was Blackwood, Baron of Blackpass.

In the silence that followed, I had time to curse myself for forgetting the customs of my native land. Of course Blackwood was captain of Blackpass's army, just as the King was Commander of his own army. Quentin had spoken a few weeks before of "the Koretian army," but no such entity existed, except during periods of truce, when the new nobility and the old nobility condescended to ally with one another. At times of feuding, there were two armies, and only a portion of their duty lay in preventing innocents from falling victim to crimes and preventing invasions from foreigners. Their main duty was to serve as murderers in blood feuds between Blackwood and the King. As Knox had said, these soldiers had been busy since the present feud began, and no doubt Blackwood had bloodied his own sword on a number of occasions against the King's noble kin.

I was the King's noble kin, and I had just walked into the hall of a baron who had taken a blood vow to kill me and my relatives.

I knew now why the hall looked familiar. I had been here before, at age seven, during one of the periods of truce between King Rawdon and Blackwood. During such truce times, my father owed loyalty, not only to the King, but also to Blackwood, the highest-ranked noble in the borderland. It was in this hall that Blackwood had announced certain changes that the King had commanded to the gods' law, while taking the opportunity to present his fierce opposition to the King's policy. It was here also that King Rawdon's grandfather had killed the last king of the old royal line and claimed the throne of Koretia. I did not need a genealogical tree in front of me to know that the only man alive whose blood permitted him to challenge Rawdon's claim to the throne was Blackwood himself.

Little wonder that the old nobility had turned this blood feud into a civil war. They must be hoping that Blackwood would claim the throne that had belonged to his great-grandfather. All that stood between Blackwood and such victory was the King and his noble kin. If he killed them all . . .

Still sitting in his chair, Blackwood said, "You wished to speak to me about your blood brother. You say your name is Adrian. Of what lineage?"

I took a deep breath. Evidently Blackwood did not recognize me; that wasn't surprising, on reflection. I had been young when we last met, and I wasn't my father's heir at that time. "Sir, I have no bloodline," I said truthfully. "My father has disowned me, and I do not take part in the present feud." It seemed important to emphasize this fact. "However, I am related, through his mother, to Emlyn son of Maddock, blood brother of Griffith, Baron of Cold Run."

Since this was perfectly true, it seemed the safest story to tell. Emlyn had lived in the south for so long now that it was unlikely that Blackwood had ever met him or that Griffith would have mentioned him to Blackwood. But my appearance would convince Blackwood that I was telling the truth. As I had informed Fowler, I had my mother's looks, and this meant that I looked much more like Emlyn and members of his bloodline than I did like my father. No doubt Blackwood had met some of my distant kin and would have noticed the resemblance in any case.

Any reply that Blackwood might have made was interrupted at that moment by a rap on the door behind me. I moved out of the way as the orderly went to answer the door. Presently he opened it wide to admit a subcaptain.

I had a small, jagged moment of fear that the newcomer would prove to be the subcaptain in charge of the Koretian border guards, but this was a man I had never met before. Without a word to me, Blackwood beckoned the subcaptain and orderly over to his desk while I backed away to give them privacy. The baron murmured something to the orderly. The orderly nodded, and then came over to stand by me. He did not draw his blade – no man draws his blade during a feud unless he intends to use it – but he watched my blade-hand in so pointed a manner that I felt my heart sink. For whatever reason, the baron had not accepted my story; I was still under suspicion.

I turned my attention back to Blackwood. He was talking softly with the subcaptain, so softly that I should not have been able to hear what he was saying – but I had been in the border mountain patrol, and Carle and I had communicated during our patrols in whispers that were softer than this. Between that and the training I had received as a spy in reading men's lips, I could follow the conversation as clearly as though it had been shouted.

Blackwood spent a moment scanning a piece of paper that the subcaptain had handed him, and then pointed to something written on it. "Him."

The subcaptain leaned over to look. He raised his eyebrows. "He's noted for his bladesmanship."

"That's for me to worry about. Your concern is to ensure that none of the men in his village with whom he has blood ties are left alive to avenge his death." Blackwood scribbled on the paper for a moment, and then handed the page to the subcaptain. "See that men are assigned to each of them."

The subcaptain glanced at the page before pointing at the list himself and saying, "This one is blood brother to a member of the next village. If we kill him, the feud will spread to that village."

Blackwood sighed heavily as he leaned back in his chair. "And what are my alternatives? Every village in the land of Koretia has men with blood ties to other villages. How do you think it is that the feud has spread this far?"

"It never used to be that way in the old days. Feuds were confined to the two villages involved, unless higher-ranked nobles chose to involve themselves."

"These aren't the old days." Blackwood waved a hand, dismissing him. "Bring me the soldiers tonight, and I'll exchange blood oaths with them."

I expected the subcaptain to salute and leave. I forgot that this was Koretia. He stood in his place, unmoved, until Blackwood said, "You have a better notion?"

The subcaptain shrugged. "Well, sir, we just don't seem to be progressing anywhere in this feud. The King wipes out a bloodline; you wipe one out in return. At the rate we're going, soon no Koretians will be left alive, other than the women and children and others who take no part in the feud."

Blackwood raised his eyebrows. "You know I've indicated to the King my willingness to exchange a peace oath with him. You know he has refused. What is your point?"

"Just that this may be the time to change tactics. Have you thought of the possibility of hostages?"

Blackwood was silent for a long moment as I felt coldness enter my belly. Then he smiled. "Thank you," he said, so softly that I knew the words only from the movement of his lips. "Yes, hostages may indeed be the way to victory. Not this one, though." He gestured dismissively toward the paper. "The King wouldn't exert himself to save that baron. We need someone who is closer to his heart."

"Perhaps that young noble who has caused all this trouble," suggested the subcaptain.

Blackwood gave a short laugh. "That would be an unconventional hostage. It can hardly be said that his family values his life."

"They value his death, though. If you told them that you held him in your custody . . ."

The snowbound cave had felt warmer than this. I crossed my arms across my chest in an attempt to keep from shivering. The orderly watched me with narrowed eyes, suspicious of what this apparent show of defiance meant.

Blackwood leaned back in his chair, appearing to consider this suggestion. "Mountside's heir . . ." he said. "I'd gladly burn him myself for the trouble he has caused to this land. Unfortunately, he's nowhere to be found. Perhaps this man who claims to be the Jackal is hiding him." The twist of his mouth told, more eloquently than words, what he thought of the claims of that man. "No, I think it's time we took this feud south."

The subcaptain shook his head. "Sir, the King has anticipated that possibility. The capital is well-guarded by his army."

"I know that. I had in mind Valouse."

The subcaptain shook his head again. "With the King's brother dead, the Baron of Valouse is now heir apparent, sir. The King will no doubt be keeping guard over the baron as well. He won't want to risk having you murder another of his heirs."

"The Baron of Valouse is well guarded," Blackwood said. "His heir is not."

The silence that followed lasted so long that the orderly flicked a glance over at Blackwood, before returning his attention to me. The subcaptain seemed incapable of speech. Finally he said, "He's only eleven."

"All the more reason that the baron will not think to guard his son."

"Sir, Tristan is a child," the subcaptain said, as though he thought Blackwood hadn't heard his words before. "The gods' law forbids the murder of children."

"Yes, I recall the King reminding us of this when he spoke in the name of the absent High Priest at the beginning of this year." Blackwood continued to lean back in the chair, his hands relaxed on the arms. "How many weeks was that, do you recall, before he killed Cole?"

The orderly, hearing the name, looked again at the baron. This time his look lingered, as though he thought his services might be needed. The subcaptain made no reply. Blackwood leaned forward in his chair. In a voice gone taut, like a bard's harp-string that has suddenly been tightened, he said, "My son was not much older than Tristan when he was abducted this spring. You know what the King's soldiers did to him before they killed him. Can you give me any reason why I should follow a law put forth by a man who orders such things? Or why I should show more mercy to the son of the King's heir than the King showed to my heir?"

The subcaptain let out his breath slowly. "No, sir. But I will have to discuss this with my men. I can't say whether they'll follow your order."

To this quintessentially Koretian statement – which would have resulted in a mass trial in the subcommander's court if such words had been spoken in the Emorian army – the Baron of Blackpass simply nodded. "Let me know what they decide. And tell them I have no intention of harming young Tristan if the King agrees to my proposed truce for peace negotiations. If he does not . . ." Blackwood shrugged. "The King, not I, will answer to the gods for my shedding of the boy's blood." He waved his hand, and this time the subcaptain took the hint, saluting Blackwood with his sword before leaving the chamber.

Blackwood was still a while, his eyes travelling over the banners showing his noble lineage. Then he seemed to recollect I was there; he beckoned to me. I went forward, while the orderly busied himself with some papers near the entrance.

"Now," said Blackwood, "tell me about your blood brother."

I went as quickly as I could through the tale of Carle's arrest. I was eager to be gone from this place before Blackwood looked too closely at my face and noticed my resemblance to certain feud enemies of his. When I was finished, the baron said, "Your blood brother Calder was arrested for suspicious behavior. He refused to give way to another man when they were both passing through the same doorway, even though the other man was burdened with heavy objects. The only excuse that your blood brother offered was that he was of higher rank than the other man."

I could have groaned then. Of course Carle would refuse to give way to a man who was of lower rank than Carle was supposed to be. To have given way in Emor would have been a suspicious act in itself, alerting everyone to the fact that Carle was not actually a noble.

Blackwood continued, "Some soldiers who were passing tried to reason with him. When he answered them gruffly, they took hold of him to try to pull him out of the way, since he was still blocking the doorway. At that point, he began to lecture them on the importance of showing respect toward their betters."

Blackwood raised his eyebrows, and I struggled with the odd impulse to laugh. I could envision the scene: Carle delivering his finest lecture on Emorian notions of rank, and the soldiers exchanging looks, wondering what in the names of all the gods this had to do with the civility of giving way to a burdened man.

"It all seemed very strange to the soldiers, so they brought him back here for questioning," Blackwood concluded. "Since his arrival, your blood brother has refused to answer any questions put to him, which of course has raised our curiosity as to the reason for his resistance."

The implication was delicately phrased. I took a deep breath. Thanks to his ignorance of Koretian life, Carle had steered us into a marsh as deep as any in southwest Daxis, but I had always known that something like this might happen, and I had a story prepared. "Sir, my blood brother is . . . Well, he had a hard childhood, sir, and so he sometimes acts a bit strangely."

I told the story then of Carle's imaginary background, which was the background of the real noble-boy I had once known. I finished by saying, "So you see, sir, though Calder is still a noble, he has lost the barony he might have held, and because of this, he is somewhat sensitive on matters of rank. And being arrested and imprisoned . . . well, that would merely make him too frightened to respond to questions. He's a bit simple, you see." I breathed up a silent apology for the slander I was placing upon my wine-friend's keen intelligence.

"Mm." Blackwood's eye was on the banners once more. "I seem to remember the story you tell. Borderhollow, was it?"

"No, sir, the village he came from was Borderknoll. Just a few miles east of Cold Run."

"Ah, yes. Hard to forget, that village. Well, your story is a plausible one. Are you prepared to swear an oath to its truthfulness?"

I hesitated. I knew what form a truth-swearing before a baron took, and that was not the sort of oath I wanted to take.

"Come, come," said Blackwood impatiently. "Either you are telling the truth, or you are lying. If you are lying—"

"I'm telling the truth, sir." Quickly I pulled my belt-dagger from its sheath, holding my left palm up in the peace position to show that I meant Blackwood no harm. He made no move to stop me, and so I carefully drew a line of blood across my left palm as I said, "I, Adrian, do swear unto my god and the god of the Baron of Blackpass that I will answer truthfully any questions the baron shall ask me concerning the matter I have brought before him. I bind myself with this vow until the questioning shall be completed today."

The traditional oath of truth-telling to a noble is carefully worded to prevent nobles from misusing their powers to ferret out secrets they have no right to, but even so, a clever baron could use the vow to learn about matters unrelated to the petition being presented.

I had no doubt that this was a clever baron.

Blackwood put out his hand, and I gave him the dagger so that he could inspect it and my palm. Some forswearers are clever enough that they never actually cut their palms. As he checked that the blood on my palm matched the blood on the blade, he asked, "Is your blood brother a spy?"

"Sir?" I tried to sound startled. It was the worst question imaginable, the one I had feared most.

"Is your blood brother a spy for the King or his kin?" Blackwood persisted.

I nearly exploded with a sigh of relief. "No, sir."

"Is he involved in the present feud?"

"No, sir."

"Is he in any way my enemy?"

"No, sir." The answer was true enough. The Chara was not at war with Koretia; he merely was seeking information in the traditional manner by which rulers sought information in foreign lands, namely through their spies.

Blackwood nodded, and for a moment I thought he would give back my dagger. Then he asked, "And who are you?"

My breath stopped at the back of my throat. Blackwood's gaze rose from the palm to meet mine, straight and dark. "You are clever," he said, "but you have the misfortune to have woven your tale around the wrong lineage. Griffith, baron of Cold Run, is my second cousin once removed, so I know that his blood brother's lineage was wiped out during a feud between Cold Run and the neighboring village. Emlyn son of Maddock has no remaining kin . . . except those who are kin to my enemy. Now tell me the name of your father."

I hesitated. I was not thinking of the gods; I would gladly be forsworn to the gods. And Wystan had made clear his orders in this matter. But I had vowed my blood, and Carle had considered the mixing of our blood to be as high a matter as our wine-friendship. What would he think if he knew I had forsworn yet another blood vow?

"Be careful," warned Blackwood. "If you lie – and I think I shall know if you lie – then I will know that the rest of what you said to me was a lie as well. Your blood brother's life hangs in balance."

And that, of course, decided the matter. I stared over the baron's shoulder at the banners: generation after generation of men who had fought and killed my kin. I closed my eyes and then opened them again and looked squarely at Blackwood. "I am Adrian son of Berenger," I said, "and I am – I was – heir of Mountside."

A long pause followed. The orderly, who had been trying all this while to pretend that his only interest lay in the papers he was sorting, was now staring open-mouthed at me. The baron stood very still; my blood glistened on the blade he held.

"Tabb," he said, without moving his eyes from me.

"Yes, sir?" The orderly stiffened.

"See to his blood brother's release. And Tabb . . . not a word of what you've heard to anyone."

"Certainly not, sir." The orderly sounded aggrieved that the baron should even consider that possibility.

Blackwood waited until he was gone before saying, "I know you, of course. You're the reason for this cursed feud."

"Yes, sir." I kept my voice quiet. I was wondering whether he planned to kill me himself, or whether I would be of more use to him as a hostage, to be returned to my father. Either way, my hands were bound. Until Carle was released, I could do nothing that might threaten Carle's freedom, and by the time I was sure of Carle's release, no doubt the baron would have me securely bound or dead. I only wondered that he had sent off the orderly.

Unexpectedly, the baron turned away, as though I was no threat to him. "Well," he said, "I suppose that, by this point in the feud, some of us understand a little of why you acted as you did. Your blood brother knows that you broke your blood vow?"

I hesitated, but the baron did not turn back toward me, and it was unclear which answer would be safest. So I told the truth. "Yes, sir. He hates blood feuds, so he has been protecting me from harm."

The baron nodded as he turned back. "And that explains why he refused to speak to my soldiers. He feared that he might give away information that would endanger you."

Since this must certainly be part of the truth, I nodded. My eye was still on the blade in Blackwood's hand, its tip slick with blood.

He followed my gaze. "You overheard the plans I made earlier for you?"

I swallowed. "Yes, sir."

His eyes rose slowly. "No doubt you have a poor opinion of me now."

After a minute in which I struggled for an appropriate response, I finally settled for a conventional reply: "It is not for me to judge, sir. Your god will judge your actions."

He nodded and contemplated the blade. "I think," he said quietly, "that such a thought has not been enough in my mind of late." With one swift motion, he thrust forward the dagger.

I took the proffered dagger from him slowly, wiped the blood off, and sheathed my blade. My heart was drumming in a way that it had not done when I had thought I was about to die. The baron, turning away again, went over to his table. Bending over, he began to scribble on a piece of paper.

The door opened; the orderly stood there. "Sir, did you want the prisoner brought up here?"

"Yes, of course. Why have you not done so?" The baron, turning to a second piece of paper, remained absorbed in his writing.

The orderly glanced at me uneasily, then back at the baron. "Well, sir, he can't walk."

I was not even aware that my vision had begun to swim until I felt the baron's hand hard on my arm, cutting through the sickness with its sharpness. "Steady," he said. "Stay here."

I did as he ordered, watching numbly as he walked over to the orderly and exchanged low words with him. At the end of the conversation, Blackwood returned to my side.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," he said. "I'll have a priest tend to him. Where are you staying?"

I told him in an automatic manner, and he nodded. "I'll see that he's escorted to your inn in . . . an hour?" He looked at the orderly, who shook his head. "Three hours," the baron amended. "Don't worry; nothing was done to him that won't mend in time. I will give him my apologies. To you—" He handed me the papers he had been writing. "I give these. A poor gift in compensation for the injury I have done your blood brother, but these will allow both of you free passage in my town. Should you encounter any future trouble with my soldiers, you need only show them my letters of passage."

I managed to mumble some sort of thanks, and Blackwood gestured to his orderly, who opened the door wide for me. The baron himself escorted me to the door. "As for what happened in your village's feud," he said, "the gods will judge you as well. No doubt they have keener insight into the rights and wrongs of all this than I do. I do my best, and I'm always glad to meet a man who shows me when I have been about to take the wrong path. May the gods go with you."

He gave me the free-man's greeting, and I returned it, which saved me from having to make any spoken reply. Released from his care, I hurried across the courtyard to the gate leading out to the town.

Then something made me pause. I looked back at the doorway, where the Baron of Blackpass was still in conversation with his orderly.

". . . passed the word on to his men yet?" Blackwood asked, his lips as clear to my understanding as before.

"I don't believe so, sir. He said something about discussing the matter with them after supper."

"Good. Tell the subcaptain that I am rescinding my order concerning Valouse's heir. Just because the King and most of his kin have turned their faces from the gods does not mean that we need follow their example. We'll fight a clean feud, and set an example for our heirs . . . or whatever heirs are left by the time this is all over."

At that moment, the soldiers behind the gate took notice of me and opened the entrance. I turned away from Blackwood. That was the last I saw of my kinsmen's greatest enemy.

So now I wait, and I would pray if I had any gods to pray to. Four hours have passed, and Carle is still not returned.

o—o—o

Carle arrived a short time ago; he walked into the room on his own two feet.

"It made me feel more kindly toward my father, I can tell you that," he said in answer to my question about what they had done to him. "I decided that his beatings weren't as bad as I'd always thought."

"God of Mercy, Carle . . ." We were being careful to speak Border Koretian, in keeping with what I had told Blackwood, though I had checked to be sure that Carle hadn't been followed. Carle had refused to let me examine his wounds, saying that the army priest had done as much for them as needed to be done, but he had collapsed almost immediately onto his bed, stomach-down.

Now he waved away the rest of my remark. "Actually, the fear was the worst part of it, the fear of what would happen next – especially as they were so courteous as to describe what they would do to me if I didn't talk."

"But you didn't," I said flatly.

"No, I recited to myself the Law of Vengeance, just as I'd planned – though I was beginning to wish that I'd memorized the whole thirty pages of the Justification."

I was sitting next to him on the bed, and I moved slightly to take a closer look at the back of his tunic. Despite the fact that his back had been bandaged by the priest, the tunic was soaked with blood. As I moved, he let out a gasp, then bit his lip shut.

"How many lashes did they give you?" I asked miserably.

"Enough," he replied. "I was glad that you rescued me."

That was all he would tell me about what happened, so I gave him drugged wine, and now he's sleeping, though he keeps moaning every few minutes. My mind is divided now between thoughts of Carle and thoughts of what Wystan will say when I tell him that I disobeyed his command.

o—o—o

The fifteenth day of December in the 941st year a.g.l.

We arrived back at the headquarters today, having stayed in Blackpass for two weeks, both to dull the interest of any spies that Blackwood might conceivably have set on us and to give Carle a chance to heal before the long walk back. Fortunately, the mountain pass is not yet snowbound.

I told Carle that I thought we ought to make our reports separately, and he made no protest at this. At first I thought he had guessed how it was that I was able to obtain his release – I had given him only a vague explanation – but then I realized that he must be feeling just as guilty over having been captured as I was at having disobeyed orders. So the first thing I told Wystan after I entered his tent was that I thought Carle should receive a silver honor brooch for refusing to speak under torture.

Wystan said that tortured soldiers are generally honored in some manner and that he planned to speak to the subcommander about Carle's action; then he listened as I told him what I had done. When I was through, he said, reassuringly, "A vow is a serious matter, whether taken on a blade or in blood. From what you say, you did not place Emor in any danger by revealing your identity under oath; in fact, I will feel even more secure about sending you and Carle back to Blackpass, since you have evidently won Blackwood's confidence."

I said uncertainly, "But I shouldn't have disobeyed your order."

Wystan leaned against the tent pole. As usual, he was standing in my presence. "It is a difficult choice to balance, as I remember from my days as a low-ranked soldier. My belief is that the only way to decide such matters is to determine what would be of the greatest benefit to Emor. You made the decision that the danger of having Carle break under torture was of greater importance than your own life, and I think you made the right choice. If I had been there in Koretia with you, I would certainly have advised you to come to me and ask me what to do, but the Chara's spies sometimes have to make important decisions on the spot, and on rare occasions that may require them to disobey orders." He smiled and added, "The important thing, you know, is to serve the Chara, not me, and you and Carle certainly served the Chara by what you did."

He then asked me to give Carle a more thorough explanation of the behavior appropriate to a Koretian nobleman, after which he sent me back to my tent. And I was left to muse on the complicated subject of obedience.

o—o—o

The twentieth day of December in the 941st year a.g.l.

Carle and I were summoned to Wystan's tent late last night. Wystan pinned Carle's neck-flap closed with a silver honor brooch. Then he did the same to me.

"I told Wystan that you deserved a silver brooch for risking your life for me by revealing your identity," Carle explained afterwards.

"How did you know about that?" I asked.

"Blackwood told me before he released me. He said I ought to know that I have a very brave and loyal blood brother. I told him I knew that already." Grinning, Carle reached over to take my brooch from me so that he could give both brooches to Sewell in the morning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The ninth day of August in the 942nd year a.g.l.

Two seasons have passed, with very little changed in my life and very little opportunity in which to record my daily life. However, there is breathing space now for me to write.

Carle and I arrived back from Koretia today and found two letters awaiting Carle. One wasn't sealed and in fact appeared to be written on some sort of skin; it was rolled into a scroll and tied with leather knots. The second letter was attached to a parcel. Carle took one look at the seal on the second letter and went off into the corner of our tent. I announced that I had business in the city, and then I left and went in search of a way to occupy myself. When I arrived back an hour later, Carle was still sitting in the corner, staring at the letters.

He waved me inside, though. "Odd to receive these two letters on the same day. I suppose that the lieutenant would say it was fate at work."

"Who are they from?" I asked, crouching down beside him.

"The one on the cat-skin is from Erlina. She wrote it last year, but it has taken this long to make its slow way down from the mainland. She wanted to let me know that she is safe and happy."

"Alaric married her, then?" I said, reaching over to pour myself some wine.

Carle stopped me and handed me his half-finished drink. "Yes, in a barbarian ceremony that defies description. She is now Princess Erlina of the Whitenosed Tribe, a very important woman in the ten square miles of territory that Alaric helps defend. She tells me – Erlina is very practical in these matters – that even if Alaric should one day grow tired of her and set her aside, wives of the prince have great standing in the tribe, and she'll still be able to have a comfortable life there. She says that the winters aren't as bad as everyone claims, and that the baby is due – was due – this past December, and that, in summary, I should forget all about her because she doesn't plan to write me again, and the Chara's fortunes couldn't tempt her back to Emor. And just in case I should disagree with her assessment of her situation, she has conveniently failed to tell me where she is or how I may contact her."

I looked at Carle, who was staring with reddened eyes at the smooth underside of the skin. I said, "At least she's happy."

"Oh, yes, there's that. But I know perfectly well that the only reason she won't tell me where she lives is because she's afraid our father will find out. I just wish I had some way to tell her that she has nothing to fear on that score."

"She should know that you wouldn't tell him," I said.

"I couldn't tell him if I wanted to." Carle picked up the second letter, and I caught a glimpse of the seal: it depicted a sword holding a balance on its tip. "This letter is from my mother. My father died while we were in Koretia."

I noticed then that Carle was wearing the seal-ring I had seen on his father's hand two winters before. I said, "Oh."

Carle gave me a rueful smile. "Exactly. What can you say when a man like that dies? I won't say that I'm sorry. It is a blessed release for my mother, though she is too loyal to even hint this in her letter. He wore her out, and I'll be surprised if she lives many years more. I also expect that my father's servants have been holding secret celebrations."

I took my dagger from my sheath and began drawing pictures of the Chara's seal on the earthen floor beneath us. "How did he die?"

"He was bitten by a viper – an appropriate death, since he was certain that his enemies would murder him through a sneak attack. The physician was called, but he couldn't do anything except try to make my father drink some drugged wine to ease his pain. My father threw the wine in his face. And then . . ." Carle voice grew softer, and his hand stretched out to touch the Heart of Mercy I had just drawn. "He told my mother to send me this. He said that he wanted me to wear it to the Chara's palace one day, as a way to show how much I honored the Chara."

He pulled from the parcel a brooch: it was made of rose-gold, and it depicted the emblem I had just been drawing.

"That's not your family's seal," I said with surprise.

"No, my grandfather Carle created our family emblem based on the royal emblem. But this brooch once belonged to my grandfather – I remember my father showing it to me when I was small. It belonged to the Chara Purvis originally, so my father always kept it safely locked away. Now it belongs to me."

I looked over at Carle, whose eyes were carefully lowered to look at the emblem. Then I reached over and unpinned the cheap brooch he was wearing, replacing it with the royal emblem brooch.

Carle looked down and touched the brooch briefly before unpinning it and placing it back in the parcel box. "I can't wear this now; I'm supposed to be a man in disgrace. I'll have to hide it with my honor brooch. But some day . . . I'm glad that my father forgave me in the end. I would hate to think that he went to his death still hating me."

"What about his will?" I asked. "I suppose he didn't have time to change that back?"

"No, but my mother tells me that he wasn't able to change it in the first place." Carle leaned back on his pallet, his feet scuffing the drawings on the floor as he stretched his legs. "We have strict inheritance laws in Emor. A man who wants to disinherit his first-born son must receive permission from his baron to do so. I'd figured that Gervais would give that permission once the news arrived at Peaktop of my supposed army dismissal. But from what my mother tells me, Gervais apparently was wary enough of my father's intentions that he took the trouble to write to Captain Wystan, asking him for the full details of the dismissal. Wystan wrote back, telling him that the details of the case could not be disclosed but that my crime was not severe enough to warrant my disinheritance. So Gervais refused to allow my father to change his will."

"Wystan never told you this?" I said.

"I suppose he didn't want me to know what my father had tried to do. In any case, the house and the land are now mine. My mother is begging me to quit the army and come run the estate."

"And will you?" I asked hesitantly.

"Don't be ridiculous. The free-servants will be perfectly capable of running the house and orchard, as long as I pick the right ones to do so; the ones my father selected would never do. I'll have to ask for leave to go home and put things in order, not to mention visit my father's grave and show the proper respect – which is easy for me to do, considering his last act." There was a smile on Carle's face now as he added, "When I was a child, I told Fenton that my father had been taken over by a demon. I'm pleased that he was able to exorcise it from himself in the end, just as you exorcised mine."

"Yours?" I said, startled.

"Mine," he said firmly, then changed the subject to his journey plans. I was left wondering what he had meant.

o—o—o

The twenty-first day of August in the 942nd year a.g.l.

Carle and I underwent a great shock early this morning, soon after Carle arrived back from Peaktop: we learned that Captain Wystan is no longer our high official.

"The Chara has been making changes to the ordering of the army," Sewell said, helping me to scramble into my tunic, since Carle had ducked out of our tent to use the latrine. "He has decided that three divisions are too many for one official to command, so he has placed the Division of Disclosure under the care of Subcaptain Radley – Captain Radley he is now."

"What sort of official is this Radley?" I asked, checking hastily that my thigh-dagger was secure in its pocket and had not come loose during the night. I sleep with it on, of course.

Sewell raised his eyebrows. "You'll soon see. I can tell you, though, that he is hard on matters of punctuality. You and Carle had better get over to his tent with the speed of the vanguard."

The vanguard, I think, would have been forced to follow in the wake of two former patrol guards wakened to the sound of a Probable Danger whistle, yet the first thing Radley said when we walked into his tent was, "You took your time arriving." Then he looked down at the papers in front of him.

I drew in my breath to speak, but quickly closed my mouth again as Carle's elbow speared me in the ribs. After two minutes, Radley raised his gaze from his paperwork and said, "You are Lieutenant Carle."

His voice was so loud that I felt Carle move edgily beside me. Wystan always addressed us in low voices, lest our ranks in the army be surmised by foreign spies.

"No, sir," I said. "I'm Sublieutenant Adrian."

"I see." Radley leaned back in his chair and narrowed his gaze upon me. "In that case, sublieutenant, I would like to know why you entered the tent first."

It took me far too long to understand what he was saying. I could almost breathe Carle's anxiety besides me, but I dared not look toward him for a clue. Finally the answer clutched at me, and I said, "I'm sorry, sir. I won't forget Lieutenant Carle's rank again."

"Your lieutenant's seniority to you in years of service should have been reason enough for you to have remembered the order of entrance." Dismissing me from his view, he turned his attention to Carle. "Well, lieutenant, you have quite an . . . interesting record."

Carle said nothing. He was standing in sentry position, his gaze travelling over Radley's head to fasten upon the seal of the Chara's armies, which was hanging on the tent pole behind the captain.

Radley stared down at Carle's record books. "Reprimanded on several occasions for disobedience to orders. . . . Very nearly given a dismissal of high dishonor. . . . This is not the sort of record I am accustomed to seeing from one of my soldiers."

Carle remained silent. Radley drummed his fingers on the table. Finally he added, "At the risk of pointing out the obvious, lieutenant, I need to make one thing quite clear: I will not stand for insubordination. You will obey my orders. You will not question my orders. You will do as you are told, and you will do nothing that you are not told to do. You will keep your mouth shut unless I address you with a question, and when I question you, I expect a direct answer, limited to the matters about which I have enquired. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." Carle was clipped short.

"Now, then. You."

It took me a moment to realize that Radley's attention had turned back to me. "Yes, sir?" I said.

"You are Koretian." The captain's voice was flat.

"Yes, sir, I was born in Koretia. I gave my oath of loyalty to the Chara in—"

"Are you deaf, or did you not listen to what I just told Lieutenant Carle?"

I felt myself stiffen. "Yes, sir, I listened."

"Did I ask you when you had given your oath of loyalty to the Chara?"

This time, I kept my response as short as Carle's had been. "No, sir."

"Can you think of any possible reason why I should desire to know information that is plainly set out in your army records?"

"No, sir."

"Does it even matter whether you think I should know that information?"

A spell of silence. There was no breeze in the closed tent; the banner behind the captain hung lifeless. Outside, Radley's orderly denied entrance to someone who wished to see the captain.

"I'm sorry, sir." This seemed a safer answer than responding directly to Radley's question.

Radley's fingers drummed again; then he looked down at my records. "You are Koretian. Well, no doubt that gives you certain advantages in your work."

I heard Carle's breath travel swiftly in. As for myself, I was struggling not to form my hands into fists. From the tone of his voice, Radley could not have made clearer that he thought I was a traitor, working for the Koretians.

Perhaps fortunately, our new captain didn't hear Carle. He closed my record book and pulled toward him an army map of Koretia. "You come from . . ." He paused to consult the map. ". . . a village to the east of Backpass. Mountset."

"Mountside, sir," I corrected politely. "And it's located to the west of Blackpass."

Radley looked up at me and gave a thin smile. He said, in a voice just as polite as mine, "Mountset, east of Backpass."

I said hesitantly, "Sir, the map . . ."

Radley stood up and leaned on his fists. The wicker table, not designed for such weight, creaked ominously. "Koretian spy," he said in a voice as thin as his smile, "this map was prepared by the surveyors of the Emorian army. Are you saying that your expertise in cartography exceeds theirs?"

From where I stood, I could see that the largest town in northern Koretia was marked clearly on the map as Blackpass, not Backpass. But it was true enough that Mountside was misspelled and misplaced on the map.

"Sir," I said somewhat desperately, "I lived in Mountside for sixteen years. Whichever surveyor made this map—"

I stopped. Radley, acting as though he had not heard me, sat down, opened my record book, and picked up his pen. As I watched, he wrote a dated entry that said, "Reprimanded by his captain for insolence. Recommendation sent to the Chara that the sublieutenant be dismissed from the Division of Disclosure."

Without even leaving time for the ink to dry, Radley closed the book. He looked up at me and waited expectantly.

This time I had sense enough not to speak. I stared over his head at the army seal, my throat closed.

"I can see," said Radley after a while, "that if I am forced to work with you, you will be even more difficult to handle than Lieutenant Carle. Well, I have no time to deal with you at the moment. You and your lieutenant will receive my orders for your next assignment in due time. Dismissed."

I saluted him with my blade, as stiffly as I had ever saluted any official in the Chara's armies; beside me, Carle did the same. Radley had already lost interest in us. He was writing down some notes to himself concerning our assignments in "Backpass."

I waited until Carle and I were back in our own tent, with the flap safely closed. Then I asked, "How did a man like that become a captain?"

Carle raised his eyebrows. "You need to ask? Didn't you recognize his name?"

I stared. "He's that Radley? The Chara's brother-in-marriage?"

"I heard he made a mess of his last command. The Chara must have thought that even Radley could handle soldiers of such high caliber as the men in our division." Carle's voice was dry as he pulled off his blade and rummaged in his back-sling.

"But Carle . . . for the Chara to assign as poor an official as that to be captain of one of his most valuable divisions . . ." I floundered, searching for words.

Carle shrugged as he pulled his wine flask out of the back-sling. "Bloodlines are the highest law, as they say in Koretia. The Chara could hardly have given his own brother-in-marriage the type of post he deserves."

Carle's words slapped me into silence. I don't know what my face revealed, but Carle, sighing, handed me the wine flask. "Oh, dear. You've been thinking of the Chara as perfect? As a god above all human frailties?"

"I thought . . ." Tears stung my eyes; I turned away under the pretense of opening the wine flask under a shaft of light that travelled down from the small hole at the top of our tent, where the pole stuck through.

Carle's hand wrapped over my shoulder, warm and strong. "My mistake. I'm so enamored with the Chara that you've probably heard me babble on about him as though he were a god. I forgot that, coming from Koretia, you'd be likely to take my words the wrong way."

"You've talked about the Chara's high honor in court—"

"And I was telling the truth." Carle squeezed my shoulder before removing his hand. "There is something . . . uncanny about the way in which the Charas have maintained integrity over the centuries in court matters. But outside the court . . ." Carle took the flask back from me as I turned and wiped the back of my hand over the wine that had spilled on my lips. "Well, I don't want to paint too bleak a picture. Radley has a reputation for being brilliant on the battlefield. Maybe the Chara thought his brother-in-marriage could acquire similar brilliance in a command position. Who's to say that he's wrong? Perhaps Radley will wake up one of these days and realize that accurate information from his subordinates is more important than feeding his own sense of self-importance."

"You don't believe that." I sat down on my pallet cross-legged and stared up at him.

Carle shrugged. "After my father's death-bed reformation, who's to say? But at my best guess . . . no. Some men aren't willing to reform themselves. Still, the Chara's mistake is likely an honest one, even if tinged somewhat by considerations of family loyalty. No doubt the Chara will realize in time that he needs to assign another captain to our division."

"But until then . . ." I looked down at the earthen floor of the tent, trailing my finger across it. "What will you do if Radley gives you an order that would bring harm?"

"Bring grave harm to Emor? I'd go over his head to the Chara." Carle's response was without hesitation.

"But what if . . ." I couldn't seem to bring myself to look up. "What if the harm were only to you?"

This time, Carle's response was longer in coming. He had turned away to place his empty flask in his back-sling, and he took quite a while rummaging around in its small number of contents. Finally he said, "Any order that Radley gave me which would bring harm to me would most likely bring harm to you as well. It's my duty, as your official, to protect you from unnecessary harm. So the same would follow: I'd appeal to the Chara for the overturning of those orders."

"And if the orders weren't repealed?" I looked up finally.

Carle flicked a glance at me. "I won't let you come to harm, Adrian. Don't worry yourself about that. Look, I need to see Sewell and tell him about the mistake on the army map. He can pass on the information to the army surveyors, who will no doubt prostrate themselves with gratitude; they're forever frustrated by the fact that they're dependent on spies' reports to try to reconstruct foreign territory. Do you want to come?"

I shook my head, and Carle, after a moment's pause to scrutinize me, left the tent.

Where I was left to my thoughts. I understood – more clearly, perhaps, than Carle had intended – what Carle's response meant. If he was given an order that would endanger me, without benefit to Emor, he would disobey the order, risking a dismissal of high dishonor or perhaps even death.

But if he was given an order that would unnecessarily endanger himself. . . . I felt a chill cover me, as though I were sitting in a snowbound cave. I hugged my legs, thinking that, in a certain sense, I had learned nothing today that I had not already known for months. It had simply not occurred to me before that Carle would be willing to sacrifice his life, not simply to obey the orders of the Chara, but to obey the orders of an ignorant, vile official such as Radley.

I think there has been no moment, since I first left Siward alive, when I have been more tempted to commit murder. But remembering that the Chara's law regards the discussion of murderous plans as being of equal gravity as actually committing murder, I cleared my mind of all thoughts of how I could exploit Radley's self-chosen ignorance of Koretian ways. Sheathing the dagger of my imagination, I set myself to work preparing for my next assignment in the Chara's service.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The first day of September in the 942nd year a.g.l.

I was sleeping at dawn when Carle woke me by placing his hand over my mouth.

I am used to this, though danger usually comes when we're on a mission, rather than when we're safe in the Emorian army camp. I lay still, trying to ascertain the source of the danger. Carle leaned forward and whispered in my ear, "Get dressed. Be as quiet as you can."

I reached for my tunic at the bottom of the bed, then paused. The tunic was black. On its sleeve was the familiar sign of a mountain shielded by a sword. I looked at Carle, who was still crouched inches from me, dim in the moonlight, but not so dim that I could mistake the color of his uniform. He merely raised his eyebrows at me.

I scrambled into my clothes, trying to think through the haze of my sleepiness. No point in asking how Carle had been able to get hold of our old uniforms; he had contacts everywhere in the camp. The question was why we were disguising ourselves this time as border mountain patrol guards.

I checked that my thigh-blade was secure in its pocket, then took my belt from Carle's hand and knotted it round my waist. He had a sheathed sword awaiting me to hook to the belt. As he opened the flap of the tent, I saw that he too was openly armed, as though we had never been made spies.

The army camp was asleep. Only a few scattered guards remained awake; Carle, who knew the patterns of their patrolling, deftly guided us around them. We were headed, I saw, toward the northern inner gate of the palace.

Suddenly I had the feeling that this was not a mission I should be on. "Carle," I whispered, "I really don't think we should—"

"Don't you trust me?" he whispered back, arching one eyebrow.

There was only one answer to that question, of course, so I shut my mouth. We reached the guard-post of the inner gate, whose guards were watching our approach oh-so-idly, with their hands not-so-idly resting on their sword-hilts. Two of the guards, I noticed with a sinking heart, had spears.

However, those guards allowed us to come within speaking distance before they lowered their spears crosswise to bar our way through the gate. Carle said not a word; he merely held up a piece of paper, folded four times in the manner of Emorian letters. As he did so, I caught a glimpse of it: it was blank of everything but a seal impressed upon black wax.

The lieutenant of the watch glanced at the seal no more than a second before shouting an order. The spears were raised, and we walked through the gate. The lieutenant asked, "Would you like an honor escort, sublieutenant?" He looked at Carle rather at me; the colored hems of our old tunics showed our former ranks.

Carle declined with a courteous word, and we continued on our way, climbing the hill toward the palace. I waited until we were well out of earshot before I said furiously, "Carle, that was nothing but Quentin's latest letter to us. It must be a death-sentence crime to lie your way past the palace guards like that."

"Did I lie?" Carle looked cheerful. "It's not my fault if other men make incorrect assumptions. Anyway, you needn't worry – it's only a flogging offense for you, and then only once you've entered the palace."

He had not, I noticed, indicated what the penalty would be for him if we were discovered. I opened my mouth to protest further, and then let it hang open. I had just seen what we were approaching.

Even in the dawn hours, the palace was brightly lit from the flames that shone upon it. The light danced upon what I had never seen from outside the wall: carvings in the marble. Carvings of men fighting, judging, embracing, feasting, drinking, gambling, dancing, and, I swear, sitting down to play Law Links. All of the glories of Emor's peace were there, etched in figures so real that it seemed they would walk out of the palace's marble at any moment.

I did not realize that I had stopped until I felt Carle's hand on my shoulder. "Happy birthday, Adrian," he said.

I could not speak, nor even turn my eyes from the carvings. After a moment, Carle added, "Arpeshian artists. Enslaved, no doubt, but they served their art nonetheless. I hope they were granted their freedom afterwards. . . . Well, come. We need to be inside before the day's first hour."

He did not say why. I continued forward, trailing behind Carle now, thinking more and more that, all other considerations aside, I did not deserve to enter this place. Besides, I told myself with some relief, it was doubtful I would be able to enter. Carle had managed to fool the lieutenant of the watch at the northern inner gate, but there would be more stringent scrutiny of us at the northern entrance to the palace, which lay ahead.

But Carle did not go that way. Instead, he veered to the left, following along the side of the palace as we made our way past the carved figures. They were growing more archaic in tone now, and as I scrutinized them, I realized that the artists had set out to tell the tale of Emor's history. Here was the Battle of Mountain Heights, which had widened the empire. Here was the civil war of Emor's early history. And here, at the very beginning—

But I did not see how the artists had chosen to depict the first Chara, for just before that point in the carvings came a set of steps leading down to a dark doorway that I might easily have missed if I had not still been following Carle. There were no guards at the door; I wondered whether the door led to one of the underground furnaces that were said to heat the palace.

Carle tried the door, found that it was unlocked, and swept it open with one arm. He stepped inside—

—and stopped immediately. A blade touched his throat.

A sword was at my heart, and a second one had slid between my hand and my sheathed sword, though I had barely made it over the threshold. A voice, cool and dark with humor, said, "Visitors, gentlemen? Or have you come to stay with us?"

Whatever this place was, I gathered that it was not the sort of place which normally received visitors. Carle cleared his throat, which was rather brave of him, considering that a dagger tip still lay upon it. "Our apologies," he said. "We were told to come in by way of the north entrance. I take it we have entered through the wrong door?"

The passageway beyond the door was as black as the Jackal's fur. All I could see in the wavering torchlight was my captors – two young guards with determined looks on their faces – and the speaker: a lieutenant who held his blade against Carle with such ease that I guessed he was not unfamiliar with the use of sharp instruments. I glanced round at the darkness again, feeling my uneasiness increase.

The lieutenant, for his part, was taking in our appearances. He snapped the fingers of his free hand, and the guards lowered their swords, though they remained watchful. The lieutenant lowered his own blade but did not sheathe it. "Credentials," he said crisply.

Carle silently showed the letter, and then, at the lieutenant's gesture, handed it over. The lieutenant held it up to the light and scrutinized it for a long moment as I felt sweat trickle down the back of my neck. I could hear the faint sound of moans now, further down in the dark passage, and my nose was twitching from unpleasant smells.

"Well," said the lieutenant finally, "if you are a forger, then you are a good one. And I dare not break this particular seal to check the contents of the letter. My congratulations, sir. If you are a spy, you are a spy of high skill."

Carle bowed silently, as though he had been granted a genuine compliment, as indeed he had.

"I suppose," said the lieutenant, still with that dark humor that seemed to characterize his profession, "that you have an urgent need to see the Chara." He cocked his head at Carle, and I found myself wondering which of the cells beyond us were reserved for potential assassins.

"No, sir," said Carle firmly. "Basil son of Orson."

"Indeed? You are creative in your pursuits. —Innis. Cedron." The lieutenant turned his attention to the guards. "Give these men an honor escort to the council chamber. Stay until they are received by the council. You will forgive me," he added, "if I do not escort you there myself. I have work to do this morning." He fingered his dagger.

Carle cleared his throat. I did not think he did so this time out of acting. "My thanks," he said briefly.

The lieutenant gave him a brief smile. "Perhaps we shall meet again."

"Perhaps not." Carle's voice was expressionless.

The torturer laughed then and waved us past, escorted by the guards. As we left, I looked back and saw that the torturer was watching us, as though memorizing our appearances.

That is how we managed to break into the Chara's palace, the most heavily guarded building in all the world.

o—o—o

The main guard at the door of the council chamber was a subcaptain, but he barely glanced at the letter Carle held up before saying, "I fear that the High Lord's clerk is not available this morning, sublieutenant. He has been called into an early-morning meeting of the council."

"Oh?" replied Carle in so bland a voice that it took all my training not to look sharply at him. "We will wait for him in his office, then."

I held my breath, but the subcaptain, who was standing in front of two copper doors that reached halfway to the sky, merely barked an order at a guard in front of a much smaller door to the left of the council chamber's entrance; this door was so dull-looking in appearance that I had missed seeing it. Our escort guards from the dungeon, relieved of their burden, turned away, and I felt something that had been tight around my throat loosen somewhat.

I took a final glance down the corridor we had been walking. It was filled with people and sunlight, being lit from above by windows high in the wall, next to the arched ceiling. Nobody seemed to be taking notice of us. Why should they, when this corridor was filled with high-ranked army officials? It was a mercy that we hadn't stepped into the path of Captain Radley.

The corridor made the palace look like an extension of the army camp. I wondered where the civilian palace officials dwelled.

I discovered the answer in the next moment, as Carle and I entered the narrow passage running alongside the council chamber. We had to squeeze our way past a man carrying a large stack of books, another man carrying a map so large that it threatened to drown us, a third man juggling various papers in his hands as though deciding which ones to drop, and a large group of boys, all with ink-stained hands, standing in a group and discussing loudly the probable reasons for today's council chamber meeting.

I wonder how the Great Council managed to think amidst all this chaos. Then I realized that the passage did not run immediately next to the chamber; a set of rooms separated the corridor from the chamber. I caught a glimpse of one such room as someone slipped through its doorway: it was filled with men sitting at desks, making calculations with abacuses and occasionally jotting down the results on slates or paper. None of the men spoke a word as they worked.

"Carle," I whispered, "how are we going to find the clerk's office?"

Carle looked at me the same way he had the first time he tried to teach me to memorize the complex clauses of the Law of Grave Iniquity. "The clerk's office? Don't be silly. That will soon be filled with those chattering boys we just passed. Undergoing an inquisition by a trained torturer is easy in comparison to being quizzed by a room full of boys. They'd have our names, ranks, and lineages within half a minute. —Ah, here we are."

Without pausing, he swept open a door that was ajar. I stepped in and found myself in a cubbyhole of a chamber, barely large enough to accommodate a desk and chair that were set against the far wall. Light poured in from the skylight above, onto a stack of books on the desk. An inkwell, papers, and pen stood ready at hand. I went over to inspect them.

"These have recently been used," I reported as Carle closed the door to the corridor. "The ink is barely dry."

"If its owner returns, we can easily explain our presence," Carle said serenely. "This is one of several study chambers, used by any palace official or guest who visits the council for research purposes. We, of course, are here to research the origins of the border mountain patrol, and we were accidentally assigned the wrong room." He was busy moving back the chair to the middle of the chamber. I saw him inspect the corridor door as he did so, obviously wondering whether he could block the entrance, but the door was so old-fashioned that it had a hinged panel toward the top. The panel had no latch we could tie closed, and it was too high up to block with the chair, so there was no point in trying to block the rest of the door.

As I came forward to help Carle move the desk, I said, "You do the best pre-mission scouting of anyone I know."

Carle flashed me a smile. "Pre-mission scouting of the Chara's palace? Don't be ridiculous. The army officials and palace officials are as closed-mouthed as a Koretian god about the layout of the palace. They wouldn't have told me anything about this place."

"But then . . ."

"I had Myles write to Neville and ask. Myles told Neville that he was planning a visit to the Great Council – he was vague about when. There are advantages to having a baron's heir as one's childhood friend. Myles says that he hopes you have a very exciting birthday, and that if you're caught and flogged, he'll never forgive me."

Evidently, Carle had not revealed to Myles that his own punishment if we were caught was likely to be far worse. I opened my mouth to voice my misgivings, and then closed it again as Carle stepped toward to what had been half-hidden behind the desk we had just moved: a door.

He opened it a crack. Light laughter entered the room like a scented breeze. The laughter subsided quickly, and I heard a man speak, authority cloaking his tone. I could not quite catch the words that he spoke.

Carle was peering through the crack in the doorway with as much concentration as though he had just sighted the Jackal. I silently made my way up to him and tapped his arm to remind him that I still existed.

He took his gaze away from the scene long enough to whisper in my ear: "They're all there. All thirty council members. The High Lord is closest to us, at the head of the table. He's the one speaking." He peered at the scene again, widening the door's gap so that he could look further down the chamber. I saw the moment when the blood drained from his face.

"The Chara?" It took all my effort to speak the words.

Carle nodded but did not move. I remembered my wine oath and did not draw my dagger to force him out of the way.

Perhaps he remembered his own oath, for after a moment, he shook his head, like a man who has been stunned and is returning to his senses. "You watch now," he whispered to me. "The Chara is at the far end of the table, next to the lowest-ranking lords. He looks quite ordinary in appearance; I wouldn't have recognized him if I hadn't given my oath to him when I became a patrol guard." He stepped back, and I began to step forward, my heart beating a rhythm through my entire body.

Then Carle abruptly shut the door. Before I could scream in anguish, I heard Carle say, in a voice of forced cheerfulness, "Well, fancy meeting you here."

I turned to look. Neville stood in the doorway to the passage.

o—o—o

I could have cursed myself then – cursed myself and Carle too, for not thinking of this possibility. "This is one of several study chambers, used by any palace official or guest who visits the council for research purposes," Carle had said. Any palace official – such as Neville, of course. Neville had told Myles about the chamber he himself worked in when he visited the council.

For a moment, Neville merely stared at us. He was holding a book, the book he had no doubt gone to fetch for his work. He looked very much like the summoners' clerk that he was. Then his face cleared. He stepped inside, closed the doors, and said sharply, "What are you doing here?"

"Spying," Carle replied blandly.

Neville responded by groaning. "You fools. Don't you two know that it's a death offense for men such as yourselves to enter the palace? Even if you were still an army official, Carle, it would death for you to persuade Adrian to enter here, since he was under your care."

Carle said nothing. I could not say what he was thinking. Myself, I was wondering whether the dark torturer we had met in the dungeon below the palace would be brought into such matters.

Neville groaned again and laid his book down. "Fools," he repeated. "How did you sneak in here, anyway?"

"Through the dungeon," Carle replied. "It is a weak point in the palace's defense. You should alert the captain of the palace guard to that fact."

"I should— For love of the Chara, will you listen to yourself? Your trial will be all the alert that the palace guard needs. And once you made your way through the dungeon, how did you find this place?"

This time Carle kept quiet. After a minute, Neville's mouth twisted. "I see. So I'm as much a fool as you are. I should have remembered your Peaktop connections. Did Myles know that you—? No, never mind." He waved away the question. "You have to get out of here quickly – and it won't be through the dungeon. It's not as easy to leave there as it is to enter." He sighed heavily. "I'll have to try to smuggle you out through the east entrance, I suppose. If you walk behind me, the guards may assume that you're my guests."

"That is kind of you." Carle's voice was grave. "And it is generous of you to be speaking to us."

For the first time, Neville hesitated. His eyes slid away, and he cleared his throat. "Yes. Well. Whatever you've done in the past, you don't deserve to receive a Slave's Death for a mere prank – and since the world hasn't ended, I'll assume that you have not sold your loyalty to one of Emor's enemies. Therefore, this must be a prank." His voice was firm, but his gaze flicked toward Carle as he spoke.

"It is Adrian's birthday," Carle explained. "I wanted him to have a chance to see the Great Council."

"Ah." Neville's voice lost its harshness. "That I can believe. Unfortunately, there's no provision in the Chara's law to allow for breaking into the palace for the sake of granting a birthday wish. We had better get both of you out now."

Carle cleared his throat. "Perhaps," he said, "it would be best if you helped us leave one at a time. We'd be less conspicuous that way."

Let it be recorded here: Carle is the most manipulative spy that the Chara has ever possessed the good fortune to have working under him. Five minutes later, I was alone in the chamber.

I waited until I was sure that Neville wouldn't nip back to retrieve his book, and then I cautiously opened the door.

The Council Chamber was a vast room, bigger than any I had ever seen in my life. Much of my village could have been housed in it. Like the side chambers and the corridor, it was lit by a skylight. Now that the sun was well above the horizon, the blue sky shone over the chamber, with a patch of sunlight falling upon the head of the table, where a book lay open.

The chamber was empty.

Slowly, as though drawn by an invisible chain, I walked over to the head of the table and looked down at the volume lying open there. My hand reached out to touch the neatly scribed words:

For though the Chara is the Embodiment of the Law, he is also a man, and unless there is a private man willing to undertake the burdens of becoming High Judge, there can be no High Judgment in this land. And if there is no High Judgment, this land ceases to exist, for its peace is the peace of the Lawmaker and the laws which he gave to the Emorian people. It is the Chara's duty to proclaim those laws, and it is his foremost duty to place thoughts of others before his own needs. Yet, lest his duties become so burdensome that he be broken in spirit and body—

"I hope, young man, that you are not a spy."

I flinched back, not only out of guilt at being noticed, but also out of an awareness that if I allowed myself to be caught this easily while in Koretia, I wouldn't live long.

The man beside me looked to be between fifty and sixty years of age; he was dressed in a gold-edged tunic and had a finely gilded sword clipped to his belt, but it wasn't clear whether he was a lord or a town baron. He was smiling, but there was a stern undertone to his words that told me he wasn't joking.

"A spy, sir?" I tried to sound as though such an ambition had never occurred to me.

The man pointed wordlessly to the table. Only then did I notice the pen, inkwell, and wax box sitting next to the paper scribbled with words.

Innocence and fear caused me to stammer, "I didn't see— That is, I didn't notice the paper, sir. It was the book – I've never read a law book before. I wanted to know what the laws look like when they are scribed on paper."

"I see." The man's voice relaxed. "Well, that is just as well. You are better occupied in reading the law than in reading my poor interpretation of what it means."

I stared at him with helpless awe for a moment; then I remembered to bow.

"A lover of the law, are you?" he said.

"I try to be, High Lord." I felt myself growing warm with embarrassment.

The High Lord reached over and closed the book to reveal the title stamped on the spine. "This is the volume dedicated to the Great Three. Have you heard of the Great Three?"

My mind was still so much on the volume that I promptly picked up where I had left off reading and said, "'Yet, lest his duties become so burdensome that he be broken in spirit and body, the people must be willing to respect the manhood of the Chara and take on whatever burdens they can for his sake. For the Law is like a golden chain which binds all people together, freeing each man through this binding to pursue his individual duties and joys. Each link of the chain is of equal worth, and the failure of a single man to follow his duty can cause the chain to break and the land to fall into war and chaos. Yet by the same token, any man who goes beyond the normal bounds of his duty and undertakes extra suffering for the sake of the Law can relink the broken chain and bring peace once more. Though no one but the Lawgiver may know of his sacrifice—'"

I stopped in confusion, realizing that I had been reciting for far too long and that the High Lord had no intention of interrupting me. His smile deepened as he said, "Not many men can recite by heart the Justification to the Law of Vengeance. What caused you to memorize that section?"

"I used to be a border mountain patrol guard, High Lord," I said. I hesitated, but the High Lord was nodding as though this were explanation enough, so I was emboldened to add, "A friend of mine taught me the law. He knew more about the law than anyone else in the patrol."

"Ah, then you two must be the soldiers who brought my clerk the message from Lieutenant Quentin; the subcaptain of the watch told me that you were here. May I see the letter, please? I expect that it is a response to a matter that the clerk and I have been discussing."

I felt the same sickening of the stomach I had experienced when the Baron of Blackpass came close to finding out my secret. I had been able to deceive Blackwood, but I could not lie to the High Lord. "There is no letter, High Lord," I replied in a low voice. "We just said that in order to be able to sneak in here."

The High Lord's smile disappeared. His forehead was now creased with lines of concern that dipped low like his eyebrows. "Well, then," he said quietly, "I fear that I must ask for your name and division."

This was a question I was never supposed to answer truthfully, but again I could not imagine lying to the High Lord. "My name is Adrian son of Berenger, High Lord," I said. "I am a sublieutenant in the Division of Disclosure."

After a moment, the side of the High Lord's mouth quirked up. "I identified you correctly, it seems. What caused you and your companion— Who is he, by the way, and where is he?"

I said reluctantly, "He is Lieutenant Carle of the same division, High Lord. He is trying to sneak back out of the palace right now."

"Good luck to him, then; we will see how skilled the Chara's spies really are. What caused the two of you to slip your way in here?"

I stared down at my toes as I answered. "We have long wanted to see the palace, High Lord. Lieutenant Carle has often told me about this chamber. He hopes to work for a town council some day, and we both love the law. I suppose," I added miserably, "that it makes no sense for me to say that, since we have both just broken the law."

When I finally looked up again, I saw that the High Lord was still smiling. "No, but to witness the truth, I probably would have done the same when I was your age. Tell me about yourself. You are a borderlander, are you not?"

"Yes, High Lord, I am from the Koretian borderland."

"Does Koretia have a borderland? I had not realized that."

I suppose that my face must have reflected what I thought, for the High Lord laughed as he said, "One of my notorious failures as a council lord is that I have little knowledge of affairs in other lands – which can be a great disadvantage at moments like the present, when a war is bubbling at our borders. But I have no fear that Koretia's civil war will affect Emor in any serious way, so I would rather devote my time to studying the law, since that is a hard enough duty as it is."

I bit my tongue to keep myself from commenting on what the High Lord had said. Perhaps my silence came across as shyness, for the High Lord gently added, "I wish I could spend more time with you, learning about your native land, but I must meet privately with the Chara in a short while. Do you have any questions about the council before I go?"

I was encouraged by this indication that he would not order the council guards to arrest me, so I said boldly, "Lieutenant Carle told me that the Chara was here earlier, and that he sat at the very bottom of the table, next to the junior-most lord. Why is that?"

"A good question," said the High Lord. "Tell me, do you know the law-structure and the division of powers?"

"Of course, High Lord," I replied rather blankly. "Doesn't everybody? I memorized that at the beginning of my studies."

"Perhaps in the border mountain patrol that sort of knowledge is common, but you would be surprised how few Emorians actually understand what the Great Council does. I need not tell you, then, that the council has independent duties with which the Chara may not interfere; the council is servant only to the law where those duties are concerned. Thus, the Chara may not even speak in this chamber except with my permission, and he attends meetings here only as the council's guest, not as the master that he is to us at all other times."

"So you are like the Chara to the council," I said, musing aloud. "In a way, that makes you an embodiment of the law."

After a while, I realized that the High Lord had not replied. When I looked at him, I saw that he was scanning my face.

"In a way," he said slowly, "though my duties are not so burdensome as those of the Chara. Tell me, do you plan to stay in the army long?"

I found this question ominous, and was opening my mouth to deliver an extended apology for breaking into his council quarters when my attention was caught by a figure nearby, gesturing desperately at me.

The High Lord caught sight of him at the same moment. "Is that your companion?"

"No, High Lord," I said hastily as Neville unhappily complied with the High Lord's gesture to join us. "He is just a palace dweller I know. He did not help me to sneak in here."

The High Lord made no reply. He had opened the inkwell on the table and was leaning over to write something on a fresh piece of paper. Neville took the opportunity to frown at me and mouth questions, but I ignored him as the High Lord finished scribing his words, took a ball of wax from the box, and sealed it with his ring. As he handed me the paper, he said, "This will allow you to leave the palace without being stopped by the guards, but I would like your word that you will not enter here unlawfully again. I suspect that you will have lawful opportunities to visit the palace in the future."

I could not interpret his smile, so I said, "You have my word, High Lord. I am grateful to you for your mercy and your kindness."

"Not at all," said the High Lord. "I always enjoy talking with another law-lover. You never answered my question, though. Had you thought of doing council work in the future?"

I was aware of Neville standing at my elbow and gazing at me with suspicion, no doubt wondering what lies I had been telling the High Lord, so I phrased my reply carefully. "I have no idea whether I would ever have such an opportunity, High Lord, though I would like to do some sort of work with the law. It is really my friend, though, who deserves to do council work. He is quite learned, and everything I know about the law comes from him."

"I wish that I had had a chance to meet Lieutenant Carle," said the High Lord, blithely unaware that he was destroying my cover, "but talking with you, sublieutenant, has certainly given me a new perspective on what the Chara's spies are like. Perhaps our paths will cross again some day."

He left then, and I bowed. When I straightened again, I found that Neville was staring at me, his mouth hanging open with shock.

o—o—o

The second day of September in the 942nd year a.g.l.

The scene after the High Lord left me yesterday was an unpleasant one, with Neville asking me over and over whether what I'd told the High Lord was true, and me urging him for love of the Chara to keep his voice down. In the end, to hold him quiet, I had to admit that Carle and I are spies – whereupon matters grew worse, with Neville apologizing repeatedly for his error while council officials and other passersby looked our way in curiosity.

Because of this, it was some time before Neville reached the point of telling me the important news, which was that Carle had been caught and arrested while trying to leave the palace.

I would have flown at once to Carle's defense, but Neville, showing more sense than he had during the past minutes, pointed out to me the folly of such an act. As yet, Carle was charged only with entering the palace unlawfully. If it became known that I, his student, had entered the palace with him, the charges against him would likely double. For Carle's sake, I must pretend that I knew nothing of what had happened.

Thanks to Neville and a misuse of his powers as clerk to the Chara's summoners, I was soon able to ascertain that the army court, to which Carle had been taken, had placed Carle back under the care of Captain Radley. After that, all I could do was go back to the tent I usually shared with Carle and spend a sleepless night staring into the air.

In the morning, I received a command to visit the captain.

Carle was already there when I arrived. He glanced briefly my way before turning his attention back to Radley, who was flipping through a bound book.

"Ah, sublieutenant," Radley said when he finally deigned to take notice of me. "I have been reading through your records, and I see that you have been a sublieutenant for a year now. Given your excellent work on the field" – he gave me a thin smile – "it seems time that you were elevated." He cut off my stammered thanks with a wave of the hand. "I trust that your work on your next mission will be in keeping with the privilege you have received. Report to me tomorrow morning for your assignment." And he returned to his work. After a while, Carle and I surmised that we'd been dismissed.

I could scarcely hold myself back until we had reached the security of our tent and could talk freely. "It doesn't make sense; I thought for sure Radley hated me! And yet he gives me such a wonderful gift— Carle, what's wrong?"

"Nothing at all." Carle made a reasonable attempt at a smile. "Your elevation is indeed well-deserved. You ought to have been made lieutenant months ago."

I caught hold of him. Faintly through the tent cloth came the sound of army life: the clash of swords, shouts from lieutenants drilling their men, horses snorting as they were led forward. "What is it?" I asked in a low voice. "Did Radley punish you?"

"As much as he could, short of arranging my dismissal," Carle replied, turning away to pick up a wine flask. "You witnessed the punishment yourself."

I was silent a minute, then began to curse Radley methodically in every language I knew: Border Koretian, Common Koretian, Emorian, and even smatterings of Marcadian I'd learned from Sewell. Finally Carle laughed as he raised the wine to his lips.

I was in no mood for laughter. "That god-cursed demon— Carle, he can't do this to us."

"Of course he can," Carle replied calmly. "If Radley, your high official, judges that you are deserving of honors – which you are, even if he thinks otherwise – then he can elevate you to the lieutenancy, and once elevated, you are no longer my student. So our next missions will be separate ones." He cut off my further flow of curses by handing the flask to me.

The wine steadied me somewhat, but I found myself saying, as though it could change matters, "We work much better paired than we do alone."

"Of course we do, and no doubt our records show that." Carle sat down next to me on my pallet and took the flask back from me. "Adrian, we're under the care of a man who would position the vanguard's back to the enemy if he thought it would help him take petty revenge. There's no use weeping ourselves dry about it. Fortunately, Radley doesn't know the finer points of the law." Carle grinned.

What Carle knew – what he had discovered months before, when memorizing minor laws related to our work – was only a small compensation, a very small one. According to army law, a spy who believes that his life will be endangered during a mission can, without prior permission from his high official, request another spy to assist him on that mission. Carle and I both had a lengthy laugh about this law, which was obviously created by someone who knew nothing about spying. Our lives are always in danger when we go out on the field. But we agreed that some time in the future – just once, because Radley would ensure that we never did this again – we could take advantage of this law to work together again.

I suppose this is the point at which I truly begin to sacrifice my happiness for the sake of the Chara. I only wish that the sacrifice was freely given.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The twenty-sixth day of November in the 942nd year a.g.l.

I arrived back from my mission a short time ago; I'm writing this in the patrol hut. My three months in Koretia aren't worth recording here, except to say that I had never realized that it was possible to be so homesick in one's own native land. I think that the only reason I didn't feel like this on previous trips is that I always had Carle with me. I don't know how I'll be able to stand waiting until next spring to see Carle, when he returns from his own mission.

It's about an hour after sunset. Quentin stayed to talk with me for a short while after the patrols changed, but he left soon. Devin was wounded last week and sent back to Emor to heal. Since Quentin had been partnering with Devin in order to train him to take over the lieutenancy, the lieutenant has been left without a partner until Devin returns. That means Quentin can't spend time with the day patrol as he usually would, since that would leave part of the pass unwatched.

I haven't yet changed out of my Koretian clothes, but Fowler has requisitioned my thigh-pocket to show the others what its Koretian design looks like. Payne, who has been in charge of the day patrol during Devin's training, has taken the opportunity of my arrival to tell the two newest guards the story of the snowbound patrol, while Levander, who is anxious to demonstrate that he is an old-timer, is contributing details that he begged out of me on our patrols together. The story of our deathly experience in the snow has apparently taken on the status of a legend, for three guards decided to join the patrol after hearing about our experiences. I would have thought that the story would have had the opposite effect.

I plan to wash myself in the waterfall, for after three months in the same clothes I feel—

o—o—o

I was just finishing the above entry when I heard a sound that caused me to fling my journal in my back-sling, throw the back-sling on, and join the rush for the door. It was of course an Immediate Danger whistle, but it was unlike any I had ever heard before. Patrol guards are required to hold a danger whistle for at least six heartbeats, in order to give the other guards time enough to locate where the signal is coming from. This whistle lasted two heartbeats. Nor was that the only reason I joined the patrol in its rush toward the danger, for I had recognized the source of the truncated Immediate Danger whistle: it came from the lieutenant.

By the time I made it out of the hollow, the guards were already scattered. I could hear the whistles from the night patrol coming in, all denying that they had been able to locate the direction of the danger. Near me I could hear the echo of Payne softly cursing. I paid no attention to Payne's words, but closed my eyes and listened to the mountains. Then I began to run, whistling to the others as I went.

What I had heard was a man's ragged breathing, and what I saw, when I arrived before all the others, was Quentin: his eyes were closed, his empty dagger-hand was pressed against the stain on his right side, and he was sagging in the arms of the border-breacher who was holding against him a bloody blade.

The hunted and I stared at each other for a brief moment. Like me, he was dressed in the tunic of a Koretian lesser free-man; like me, he was young, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. In the dim moonlight, I could see that his face was light brown. He was staring at me with wide eyes, and he was breathing nearly as heavily as the lieutenant. Then his head swung around and he took a step back toward the mountain wall, dragging his fainting hostage as he went. The point of his dagger started in toward Quentin's heart.

"Stay back!" I shouted in Common Koretian for the breacher's benefit. Payne hesitated, then signalled the others to halt. They stood where they were, in a prickly semi-circle, the thorns of their blades pointed toward the hunted.

The breacher was staring at me again. He said, "You're Koretian."

"Yes." I saw Payne's gaze switch from the breacher to me, but this was no time for qualifications. I added in Border Koretian, "I'm a borderlander, like you."

The breacher stared at me a moment more, his breath still heavy. Quentin's eyes were closed, and the blood was continuing to flow from his side. Finally the breacher said in Border Koretian, "Tell them to go away. I'll talk to you, but no one else."

I saw one of the new guards glance over to Fowler with a questioning look on his face, but Fowler shook his head. With Quentin unconscious and Devin in Emor, I was the only one who understood what the breacher was saying.

"Get back." I motioned with my hand to the others. "He wants to talk to me."

I thought I saw an expression pass across Payne's face, but I had no time to analyze his reaction; I returned my attention to the breacher. Behind me, Payne whistled the patrol back. The breacher's eyes flicked from me to them, and then back to me. When he had apparently decided that they were far enough away, he said, "Get me out of this. I'll see that you're well paid by the King."

I shook my head. "I'm in service to the Chara. You're a spy?"

For a moment, I thought he would deny it; then his lips twisted. "I've made that obvious enough, I guess. My first mission. Looks like it might be my last."

"Surrender to them," I urged, my thoughts on his bleeding hostage. "I promise you, they won't kill you at once."

"No, they'll place me on trial and then kill me. I heard all about them in my training, from a man whose blood brother was executed by the patrol. Look." The breacher's voice deepened. "You evidently care about this lieutenant of theirs, or you wouldn't be bothering to talk to me. You get me out of this, or I swear I'll kill him."

"You'll be killed yourself if you do that." My voice sounded calm; my body was cold. I wondered how long this conversation would last. Every minute was bringing Quentin closer to death from loss of blood.

"So? Blood for blood; at least I'll have avenged my own death."

I knew then that there was no point in talking further with him. He was Koretian through and through; he could not think further than payment for his own death. "If I help you, will you let the lieutenant go?"

The breacher's eyes narrowed. "If you take a blood vow."

Fowler still had my thigh-pocket with its dagger, but since I was in Koretian clothes, of course I was armed. I drew my belt-dagger, nicked my palm, and made my vow. The breacher looked uneasy when I replaced the god's name with the Chara's, but he evidently decided that this was no time to quibble. "All right," he said. "Now you tell the patrol. I don't want any trouble from them."

Payne and the others came running forward as soon as I whistled. I stopped them from coming too near. "I'm taking him back to the Koretian border," I told them, speaking Common Koretian for the breacher's benefit. "If you promise to let us pass, the lieutenant won't be harmed."

There was a long silence, longer than I had expected. Then Payne said, "Blood brother of yours, is he?"

I stared at him, then at the others, who were beginning to murmur amidst themselves. The two newest guards nodded in response to what Payne had said. Levander looked like the Sun God in the moment he burned his enemies.

I stared down at my left hand. My blood was fresh from the blade-cut.

"Look," I said, a little desperately, "this isn't a time to argue. The lieutenant is dying."

Payne's expression turned hard; too late, I realized that my words could be taken as a threat. But all that Payne said was, "If you release the lieutenant, we will permit both of you safe passage."

Sylvanus, the patrol's latest physician, gave an audible sigh of relief; he had been casting uneasy glances toward the lieutenant. Not wanting to prolong matters and further shorten Quentin's life, I beckoned to the breacher. Payne whistled the patrol back, and all of them watched, gloomy or angry or cold-eyed, as the breacher hurried past them, leaving his victim lying motionless on the ground.

We had reached the path again when I heard my name whistled. I looked up and saw Payne standing on the ledge above us. Sylvanus was kneeling beside Quentin, wrapping cloth around his wound.

"Adrian," said Payne. "A suggestion for you. When you reach the Koretian border . . . just keep walking. That would be safest."

o—o—o

I've written all of the above entry in snatches whenever I and the breacher paused during our walk to the border. He hasn't spoken a word since we left the patrol; I think he is regretting having been so candid with me. I have little to say to him either; my mind is back at the patrol hut, wondering what is taking place there.

o—o—o

The twenty-seventh day of November in the 942nd year a.g.l.

I awoke in the middle of the night to find that the breacher had left me. I supposed that, since we had walked beyond the patrol area, he found me an unnecessary burden. I waited only long enough to listen for his footsteps; he was walking south, as he had promised. Then I hurried back to the hut.

I reached it a couple of hours before dawn, but everyone in the day patrol was still awake. They were all standing in the hut, talking in low voices to each other. Their conversation cut short like the life of a sacrifice the moment I slipped inside.

Payne had his sword out before I could speak. The others were slower, and I noticed that Fowler didn't bother to draw his at all. I wondered whether he was trusting me to remember an old lesson I had learned under his tutelage.

"How is the lieutenant?" I asked, trying to ignore the blades pointing at me.

"Why, do you want to make sure you killed him?" shouted Levander. He looked as though he was trying not to cry.

Payne waved him silent. "You are under arrest," he told me. "I charge you with conspiracy in the attempted murder of Quentin, Lieutenant of the Border Mountain Patrol."

My body sagged with relief at the sound of the word "attempted." I said, "I'd like to see the lieutenant."

"You are under arrest." Payne gestured toward Fowler for assistance. Fowler ignored him.

"Payne," I said patiently, "I am a spy under the immediate care of the Chara. Only the Chara or one of his army officials can call for my arrest. If the lieutenant wants me arrested, he'll tell you so. I want to see him."

Payne hesitated. One of the new guards muttered, "Have you heard of that law?"

"Wish Carle was here," muttered Levander. "He'd know."

Fowler finally moved; he came up close to Payne and whispered something in his ear. Payne frowned at whatever was said, but as Fowler stepped back, Payne told me, "The lieutenant will probably want to question you. You will be taken to him now. Unarmed."

The two new guards, who had evidently learned their lessons in Koretian customs, sucked in their breaths. Levander looked highly alarmed at this development. Fowler merely rolled his eyes.

As for myself, I was trying, with all my might, to keep from using my blade. I was an Emorian, I told myself. If I had been walking in Emor, in civilian clothes, I would not be wearing a blade. To give up my blade meant nothing. It meant only that I was no longer Koretian.

Somehow, I managed to get the blade out of its sheath and into Payne's hand without using it on him. I felt as naked as though he had stripped me of my clothes. Payne gestured to Sylvanus, who had just emerged from the storeroom and was listening to this exchange with an uneasy expression on his face. "Sylvanus, escort this Koretian to see the lieutenant. Do not allow him to come closer than a body's length to the lieutenant. If he causes any trouble, capture him and sound the Immediate Danger whistle." His dark gaze said, as clearly as his words, that he considered the Probable Danger whistle to have been sounded already.

o—o—o

The lieutenant was lying on the cot that was brought out as a sick-bed when needed by the patrol. The storeroom was warm with the heat of a brazier near the door. Sylvanus took the opportunity to poke its flames with an iron rod, never removing his gaze from me. I ignored him. Standing next to the door, I asked Quentin, "How are you, sir?"

He gave something that faintly resembled a smile. His head was propped up with the patrol's only supply of pillows; blankets covered his legs and torso, including his wound. "I have been worse," he replied.

This was no more than the truth, unfortunately; it was a wonder to me that Quentin had managed to live this long. He still showed no signs of retiring – had not had the opportunity, actually, since both Devin and Payne would need to be fully trained before Quentin dropped his reins of power.

"The light here—" The lieutenant stopped to cough. Blood spattered onto his handkerchief with the cough. I glanced at Sylvanus; he was frowning, but showed no signs of greater concern, so I turned my attention back to Quentin. He said, gasping in an attempt to regain control, "Hard to see you in this dim light. Will you come closer, lieutenant?"

It felt odd to be addressed in such a manner by a man whom I had once served. In any case, extra civility seemed best under these circumstances. "I'm afraid I can't, sir. I'm not permitted to."

"Not permitted—?" He stopped, and his gaze travelled over to Sylvanus, who was watching me carefully. Then his eyes went back to me, and I saw his gaze drop to the empty sheath at my belt. "Soldier Sylvanus," he said slowly, "I would like to know what has taken place in my absence."

Sylvanus hesitated, glancing at me. I said nothing, so he recounted the tale. His narrative was true, as far as it went, though colored by his perception of my motives.

"I see." It was difficult, at all times, to read Quentin's emotions, and now it was impossible. For a long moment, he was silent; then he said, "Sylvanus, I would like some wine, if you will permit that to your patient."

Sylvanus glanced at me before saying, "I am supposed to be on guard here, sir."

"Between us and our four blades, I am sure we can protect ourselves against an unarmed man." Quentin's expression remained blank; I could not tell whether he was joking. "I would appreciate that wine now, if you please."

His tone left no doubt that he was giving an order. Sylvanus squeezed past me in the narrow space between the shelves, watching me over his shoulder as he drew wine from a tap. I stayed where I was. Quentin was no longer watching me, and I wondered whether I should leave, or whether it would be better to wait to see whether an order for arrest was forthcoming. I could feel sickness building in my belly.

Sylvanus knelt down to help the lieutenant higher up onto the pillows, so that he could easily sip the wine. Quentin drank from the cup, still not bothering to look my way. I felt the sickness increase.

"Thank you," he told Sylvanus when he had drained half the cup. "I appreciate your assistance. Lieutenant, would you be willing to finish this wine for me?"

My breath stopped. Sylvanus stared at Quentin, slack-mouthed. The small smile was back on the lieutenant's face as he reached out his hand to offer me the wine.

Slowly I walked forward, knelt next to the cot, took the cup, and drank from it. Next to me, Quentin said, "Thank you, Sylvanus; you may go now. I would like to be alone with my wine-friend."

Sylvanus had sense enough not to argue. I could see that color was beginning to rise in his cheeks. After another, swift glance at me, he stood and made his way to the door.

As the door closed behind him, Quentin shook his head. "You train them day after day, and then you learn that your lessons have been for naught. Thank you for saving my life, Adrian." His voice had turned quiet.

I swallowed the last of the wine of friendship before asking, "How did you know?"

"It was the only possible explanation for your actions."

I gave a laugh that, even to me, sounded bitter. "Didn't you consider the possibility that the other guards are right about me?"

"I would like to think," said Quentin carefully, "that I have a certain amount of intelligence. Adrian, you are a spy. You are one of the subtlest, smartest men I know. If you had planned to betray the Chara, you would hardly have done so in the presence of a dozen witnesses, then returned here in order to allow yourself the convenience of being arrested and placed under the high doom. . . . Thank you, by the way, for being patient with Payne. I almost wish you'd duelled him when he demanded your blade; that would make him less careless about spouting forth such demands in the future."

I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm an Emorian."

"And you're a very forgiving man. I thank you for that as well."

I chewed on my lower lip for a moment before raising my eyes to meet Quentin's. "I'm not sure I am. I mean, I'm not sure I've forgiven them."

Quentin said nothing. He had black blood on his left cheek from the struggle with the breacher. Under the flickering light of the brazier, his gaze was steady upon me.

"The newer guards I can understand," I said slowly. "They don't know me well. And I think Fowler was on my side. But Levander – he and I were partners. And Payne and I were snowbound together. How could they have ever thought I would help a breacher, except to save an Emorian's life?"

"You are of Koretian blood," Quentin said quietly. "It takes a long time for some men to forget that, as I found during my early years as a patrol guard."

I stared at Quentin's hands. His face's pallor from the wound made him look more northern than usual, but his hands were nearly as dark as the blanket they lay motionless upon. "Maybe," I said. "And maybe it will take me some time to forget this. I'm not sure I can ever forgive it."

After a while, I said, "Aren't you going to say anything more?"

"Urge you to forgive them? No. You voice a dilemma, and you spoke the answer to that dilemma a short while ago. Once you pair the answer to the question, I'm sure you'll see your way clear. In the meantime . . . I can't regret entirely that this episode has happened."

I looked down at the cup in my hand. "Nor I, if you're referring to the wine. But I'm sorry that you were forced into the position of having to offer it."

His faint smile returned then. "Say rather that I was given the opportunity to do what I should have done long ago." He hesitated, then added, "When you grow up under the care of a man who alternates daily between telling you he loves you and giving you harsh beatings, it's difficult to extend trust to others. Carle understands that from his own experience, and can take that into account in dealing with me. But I wasn't sure whether you . . ." His voice trailed off.

I gave him my own faint smile. "Have you forgotten what event caused me to leave Koretia?"

After a moment, he gave half a laugh. "Yes, I suppose I had. Well, then, it's right that the three of us should share the wine of friendship, since we share that experience. And as long as the chain remains unbroken—"

He stopped suddenly, choked by a fit of coughing. The blood came more heavily onto his handkerchief. Concerned, I set the cup aside. "Shall I fetch Sylvanus?" I asked.

He nodded, unable to respond otherwise, and I quickly rose to my feet.

The day patrol was still standing in a cluster, except for Fowler, who was rolling up his pallet to leave room for the night patrol's pallets. Once I had finished beckoning to Sylvanus, Fowler tossed me my thigh-pocket, with its dagger still sheathed within.

I waited until Sylvanus had hurried into the storeroom, and the coughing there had been replaced by the sound of Quentin's steady voice; then I gave Fowler a quiet word of thanks for the thigh-pocket and for his earlier intervention.

He shrugged; there was still no affection between us, but as he put it, "I know what you are capable of. Duelling your partner when he gets on your nerves, yes. Taking a blood vow of friendship with a breacher who has just attacked your former army official – never. Anyone who knows anything about blood lines of loyalty in Koretia could have figured that out."

He raised his voice as he spoke. I glanced over my shoulder at the cluster of remaining patrol guards. The two new guards were avoiding my eye. Levander was looking to Payne for guidance. Payne, when he saw me looking his way, came forward. He silently handed me my belt-dagger.

Gazing into his narrowed eyes, I knew that he would never beg my forgiveness. He had too much pride for that, and he had made too big a fool of himself. If I made clear that I considered him a fool, his anger at himself would transform into anger at me. And so it would build between us, this bitter enmity that had begun with a simple mistake.

I'm an Emorian. I heard again the words that I had spoken in the storeroom. Those were the words that Quentin believed offered me the answer to my dilemma, I realized. A Koretian would allow his resentment to build higher and higher until it could only be resolved by bloodshed. An Emorian, if he truly served the Chara, either placed charges against the man who had harmed him, or he set the matter aside.

"I'm overdue to return to Emor," I said to Payne, giving him something that approached a friendly smile, "but would you like to play a game of Law Links before I go?"

Surprise entered Payne's face, followed by relief, quickly hidden. "It is too close to my duty hours," he replied. "Perhaps next time."

I nodded. "I'll look forward to it." I waved my farewell to Levander and the others, gave the free-man's greeting to Sylvanus as he emerged from the storeroom, and left the patrol hut with a high heart, having taken yet another step further in my road to serving the Chara.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The fifteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

To Calder son of Victor:

My love and greetings, blood brother. I know that you will be surprised to receive this letter, as I do not know where your work has taken you this month, and in fact it seems likely that you will not be able to read this until we meet again. I have heard exciting news, though, and I am eager to share it with you.

My work has kept me in the borderland for several months now, and I have been impatient to return home to see you and my other friends. Yesterday, therefore, I was quick to finish my business, which involved visiting the market square at Blackpass. As I was turning away from the market stall where I had been transacting business, I caught sight of someone looking my way. I only saw him for a brief moment, and then he turned his face away, but I felt sure that it was someone I knew.

This made me very uneasy. As you know, my father and I did not part on good terms when I left my family home, and though I know that my father would not visit Blackpass during the present feud, it's possible that one of the younger members of my family – for example my brother-in-marriage – would be daring enough to visit here, now that Blackwood has said that he will not allow blood vows of vengeance to be fulfilled on the streets of his town. I therefore decided that it would be best to ascertain who had caught sight of me.

The man was several spear-lengths away. I stayed far enough behind him that he would not be able to notice that I was following him – for I have not forgotten, Calder, the tricks you taught me during our many hours of playing Jackal and Prey. Frustratingly, though, the man's back remained toward me as he went from stall to stall, examining the wares of a potter, exchanging a joke with a fruit merchant, paying for a bag of blackroot nuts. Finally I decided that I would have to circle around to the front of him, and so I put forward speed to accomplish this.

I am sorry to report, blood brother, that I seem to have been a poor student of your lessons, for I had no sooner started to rush forward than I crashed into the fruit merchant, who had just emerged from his stall with a basket full of limes.

By the time I had picked myself up, the man I had been hunting was out of sight, so I took the time to apologize to the fruit merchant and to help him pick up the limes that had not been immediately trampled by passersby.

Fortunately, he was a man of good humor and even refused to take money from me for his spoiled merchandise. As we hunted under people's sandals and boots for the scattered limes, I thought it best to fall into conversation with him – for as you know, Calder, I am very interested in learning what lesser free-men think about the present feud.

This seemed to be a day, though, when all my enterprises would be frustrated, for I discovered that the fruit merchant was far more interested in talking about his sister's young sons. By the time that the limes were salvaged, he had dragged me back to the stall to show me profiles that an Arpeshian artist had drawn of the boys. I learned far more than I ever wanted to about the daily lives of borderland boys.

My politeness, though, was rewarded when Morgan – for such was the fruit merchant's name – mentioned that his nephews were so mischievous that he had been forced to prevent them from spying upon the Jackal's thieves.

My hearing heightened then, for you know well, Calder, that I have long been interested in the god-man and in his activities in our land. Though the merchant seemed inclined at this point to turn the conversation toward the feeding habits of his youngest nephew, still a babe in arms, I managed to tear the story out from him.

It seems that the boys were wandering after dark during one recent evening – evidence, Morgan said, of how spirited the boys are – when they overheard a group of men talking in low voices in an alleyway. From the conversation that the boys heard, they became convinced that these men were none other than the famed Jackal's thieves, who have caused such trouble in recent months by committing thefts and pranks in the houses of the nobility, especially the new nobility. It appeared that this alleyway was a regular meeting point for the thieves. The boys later made plans to return to the alley, but fortunately Morgan learned of their plans and was able to dissuade them from their dangerous enterprise.

Once again, I was hard pressed to keep the conversation on its track – this time Morgan wanted to discuss the pranks that his nephews engage in – but I was able to elicit from him that he had not told anyone the boys' stories. No, not even his baron's soldiers – and here he raised his eyebrows, for I confess that I had momentarily forgotten how unlikely it was that he would do such a thing. After all, we Koretians are not like the Emorians, running off to soldiers for help every time a crime is committed.

Naturally, I asked Morgan where the alleyway was located. Until now, Morgan had told his story with a smile; he seems to be a naturally affable man, as is shown by the incident with the limes. But when he guessed that I wished to visit the alley myself, he grew greatly alarmed. "I know about you young men," Morgan said. (He is of about age thirty.) "You always seek excitement and danger. Believe me, the Jackal's thieves are not the type of men you want to be clashing your blades against – nasty lawbreakers that they are."

In the end, though, I was able to persuade the reluctant fruit merchant to give me the location of the alley, as well as the information that the previous meeting had taken place two hours before midnight.

So now at last there is a good chance that I will be able to learn more about the Jackal's thieves and perhaps something about the man claiming to be a god. I am zealous about tonight's hunting and look forward to telling you more in my next letter to you.

Please give my love to all of your family, and especially to your eldest brother, Quentin.

Adrian

o—o—o

The sixteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

For reasons I will eventually make clear, there is no longer any reason for me to maintain the fiction of the above letter, so I will tell in a straightforward manner what happened when I went to the alley last night.

Two men arrived there; I could catch no more than an impression of their faces in the darkness, but I thought I would be able to recognize them again if ever I met them in daylight. I pressed myself back into the shadows, unwilling to come too close, so I couldn't hear clearly what they were saying, but I caught the words "Jackal" and "thieves." Then one of them said, in a voice just loud enough to reach me, "Come, if we bring the Jackal our report now, he'll be able to tell us what to do next." The other man nodded and murmured something; then the two men left the alley.

They were easier to track than I had thought they would be; it appeared that the Jackal's thieves received no better training in slipping through dark streets than the Chara's spies. The moon was below the horizon, so I followed them from sound, in the same way that I used to hunt breachers on moonless nights. Once I thought I had lost them; then I heard them again, just reaching the end of a black alley. Quickly I stepped into the alley behind them.

It was the sound of a breath that alerted me to what was about to happen, and my hand sped toward my dagger, but it was too late. In the next moment I found myself thrust front-forward against the alley wall, with my empty dagger hand pinned painfully against the small of my back.

My dagger slid out of its sheath; then I felt my back-sling taken from where I had draped it, on my left shoulder. This was not being done by my captor, but by a second man, who then felt my boots for weapons before reaching under my tunic to unlace my thigh-pocket. I was motionless and silent through all this; I could feel the edge of a blade biting against the back of my neck.

"Take him inside," the second man said. His voice was low, but memory began groggily stirring within me. My thoughts were cut short by a light blinding my eyes: it came from the house whose wall I was trapped against, for the second man had pulled open a door in the alley. I felt myself jerked back from the wall, then propelled through the door. As the door closed behind me, I was released, and I stood still for a moment, blinking in the bright torchlight as I took in my surroundings.

I was in a storehouse of some sort; I could see bags of grain around me and small doors leading into further rooms. Surrounding me were half a dozen armed men, four of whom I recognized. Just coming through one of the small doors were the two men I had been following; they must have arrived by way of another outer door. A third man was standing so close to me that I knew he must have been my captor: this was Morgan the fruit merchant, his smile just as broad as before. Holding my belongings was a fourth man, the one whose face I half-recognized yesterday. He turned without a word and handed the dagger and back-sling and thigh-pocket to Morgan, who took them so compliantly that I knew that this last man must be the leader of the group.

I felt my throat close in and my heart pound, but I found the strength to say, "You have no right to take me, Griffith. I let your brother live; I am no longer part of the feud."

The baron of Cold Run looked upon me with cool and steady eyes. Since I had last seen him, he had acquired a deep gash along his right arm, and I wondered whether one of my kin had attempted to make him a victim. He was dressed in a dark tunic that gave no indication of his rank, but though he appeared to be the youngest man there, everyone else was watching him expectantly.

He said, "That is why you are the prey: because you are no longer part of the feud. We have captured you upon the instructions of the one to whom you broke your blood vow."

To my knowledge, no man there was my kin by birth, yet standing in the bright light, I felt myself bound once more by the dark terror that has followed me since I left Mountside. Griffith stood waiting, his hand hanging beside the free-man's blade at his belt. With a dry mouth, I said, "My father?"

"No," said Griffith. "The Jackal."

o—o—o

The seventeenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

I am being held in the storehouse where I was captured, in a room empty but for a pallet and basins, and with only narrow slits near the ceiling for windows. These let in enough light for me to see by, as well as the smells and sounds of the outside world. I hear people passing by periodically and could shout for help, but what would be the use? The Jackal's thieves would merely tell the Koretians that I am a spy, and I would be handed over to Blackwood's soldiers, to meet a fate as terrible as the one I am now facing.

I have been left unbound, and food and drink is brought to me regularly. My back-sling, after being examined, was returned to me. Gone was the blade I'd hidden in the back-sling's secret pocket, but my letter and blank paper and writing materials were still there. That is why I am able to write these entries. I know, of course, that what I write will be read by the thieves, but as long as I do not write anything that would betray Emor, it doesn't matter what I say here. The thieves already know most of my story anyway.

They know that I am a spy and that I was in the border mountain patrol before that; I suppose that one of the Koretians we sent back to this land spread word that a Koretian-born soldier of my name was in the patrol. They also know about Mountside's blood feud and my broken vow; Griffith would have told them that. But they also know of things no one else knows, secrets I only told Fenton. These, they cheerfully inform me, they learned from the Jackal.

I suppose they tell me this in order to frighten me. They needn't have bothered; I am scared enough as it is. I have known, of course, that I would one day face the Jackal and be forced to pay the penalty for breaking my vow. I have even rehearsed in my mind on several occasions the speech of defense I would give; I patterned it after the law defenses Carle taught me. But I thought that I would be giving this speech when I reached the Land Beyond. Now I will have to give it in just a short time.

In the meantime, I am being treated well. Every few hours, a thief visits my cell – to keep me from getting bored, each of them says, though I suppose the real reason is to try to trap me into revealing something about my work. So far they have asked me no direct questions about my life in Emor. Instead, they have questioned me about the people I knew in Mountside and Cold Run: Fenton and Hamar and Emlyn and Griffith and Siward and my father and many others. I have answered all their questions; I am not sure what they would do to me if I remained silent, and I would prefer to save my defiance for the issues that really matter.

They have also talked freely about themselves – not about their work for the Jackal, naturally, but about their ordinary jobs that they use to disguise their thieves' work. Since they seem willing to answer any questions I ask, I have been trying to discern some pattern to what sort of men the Jackal recruits. Not that I will be able to take this information back to Emor, but I would like to satisfy my own curiosity.

I've had no luck in discovering such a pattern. The Jackal's thieves come from all the ranks except, of course, that of the slaves – they say that they have been trying to find recruits among the Reborn, but those men, above all others, are unwilling to become involved in unlawful activities and risk being punished. The thieves come from the borderland and from central and southern Koretia, and they hold the usual mixture of trades and professions. The only feature they hold in common, if their words are to be believed, is that they all hate the civil war and the blood feud that started it. In fact, they have gone to great lengths to tell me how much they hate blood feuds, as well as demon-stonings and Living Deaths and all the other religious atrocities of this land.

I suppose they are trying to lure me into showing how great my hatred is of the gods. I have not lied to them here either; speaking of this to them saves me the trouble of saying these words to the Jackal. Now that I am forced to meet with the god, I am eager to tell him how much I despise the horrors that he and the other gods have instituted in this land.

o—o—o

The eighteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

When Morgan delivered my food this evening, I finally had the opportunity to ask him a question that has been bothering me. He laughed at length before saying, "Knox? May the gods bless his spirit – why would he tell us where to find you? Not that he had a chance to do any talking, once you'd delivered him back to the King's men." He raised his eyebrows, and I felt myself flush. Morgan took pity on me then, saying, "No, it wasn't Knox or any other breacher who told us where to find you. It was Piers."

"Piers?" I said slowly. "He's one of you?"

"He wasn't at the time you met him. You remember him, then?" Morgan placed his leg on the bench I was sitting on and slung his arm over his knee. He was taking care, I noticed, to stay out of arm's reach of me, but I was not such a fool as to think that I could fight my way past both him and the thieves in the room outside.

I nodded slowly. "He gave me directions to the underground market here. And he talked about how he enjoyed playing pranks when he was young. . . ." My voice faded away.

Morgan nodded. "When Griffith recruited him to our cause not long afterwards – they're distant kin to each other – he told us that, ever since that conversation, he had been thinking about how much more exciting his life was when he was young, and how he wished he could be as afire with ideals as he had been before the duties of manhood weighed him down. Well, Piers has the right blend of fire and restraint we look for in thieves. And he did us a favor by telling us about his conversation with you."

"I didn't give him my lineage, though," I protested.

"You hinted you were kin to the old nobility; he mentioned that to Griffith. And when Griffith asked for your description, your appearance matched. Piers told us you'd been with another man – 'with skin so white you'd think he was Emorian,' was the way he put it. So Griffith checked with our border guards— Oh, yes, we have men there too," he said, seeing my expression change. "This was only a fortnight after you had spoken with Piers, and the guards still remembered a certain dark-skinned mountain patrol guard who had breached the border as a prank with a light-skinned mountain patrol guard. . . ." Morgan's smile broadened. "The rest was easy. Or at least, it was easy for the Jackal, once he had the clue he needed as to where you had gone after you fled from Cold Run. Ever since he learned that you became a spy after you were released from the patrol, he has been waiting for you to return. He thought you would be back, in the end. He's very patient in such matters." He glanced down at my untouched plate. "Aren't you going to eat that?"

I shook my head, and with a shrug he removed the plate. I sat for a long while, cold with sickness, thinking of the Jackal patiently waiting for his prey to return, so that he could pounce on me. . . .

I don't feel I can write any more tonight.

o—o—o

The nineteenth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

Morgan came by again this morning and read what I had written so far in this portion of my journal. Keeping up the pretense that I am an honored guest rather than a prisoner, he asked my permission first. He laughed as he was reading but would not say why. I am trying not to be too bitter about this. I can remember many times when I and the other patrol guards laughed and joked while bringing a prisoner to the hut. I suppose that, in every blade-wielding profession, one becomes callous to other people's misfortunes.

I haven't seen Griffith again since my capture. When I asked about this, Morgan told me that he had gone to fetch the Jackal from one of the villages. This implies that the Jackal's powers are limited, as I and another Emorian I know had guessed; otherwise, the Jackal would have known about my capture without being told.

Since I have little else to do between the thieves' visits, I have found myself wondering what the Jackal is like in his human form. What is it like to live as a god-man, having the power to destroy or preserve all men around you? I cannot imagine that the god-man has any more understanding of human suffering than the god did before he came to the Land of the Living, since he himself can't have undergone any suffering. Perhaps he doesn't even fully understand that he puts his people through agonies when he demands their blood sacrifice – but there my sympathy extends too far, for he is a god, all-knowing, though not all-compassionate.

All this has led me to wonder why the Jackal bothered to take on a human body. Why live among men when he himself cannot truly be a man? Is it his way of pretending that he is one of us? If so, he is like a king who puts on the clothes of a slave and parades through the city, then returns at day's end to his fine sheets and velvet cushions.

So curious have I become about this question that I couldn't even wait for the Jackal's arrival, but instead asked Morgan. He said that I would understand when I met the Jackal – that some things cannot be explained but only experienced. This is the first thing any of the thieves have told me that I am sure is true. I can only hope that my curiosity will overcome my fear when the moment comes. I do not want to meet my death in a manner that would be shameful for one of the Chara's soldiers.

o—o—o

The twentieth day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l.

He arrived this morning. He is not what I expected.

The sound of Griffith's voice was what first alerted me to his coming. I pressed my ear against the door and did my best to make good use of my patrol-guard training. I could hear a tumble of voices and much laughter; from the snatches of phrases I could identify, it appeared that the thieves were giving their reports on what I had said during my imprisonment. Then the voices died down, and I could hear someone new speaking. He had a light, lilting voice, not what I would have imagined in a god, but whatever he said kept his thieves quiet. There was no more laughter, and from this I concluded that he must be telling them what he planned to do with me, and that the thieves were not as callous as I'd thought. Or perhaps the fate he planned for me was so dreadful that even they could not laugh.

I have tried hard while writing these entries to avoid recording my various fears about what form my death would take, for I knew that the thieves would read this journal, and I didn't want to give the Jackal any ideas. But those fears were very much in my mind as I heard the voice stop and footsteps come toward my door.

At moments like this, when waiting for a door to open and dark doom to enter, I found that one becomes occupied with trivialities. In this case, I could not figure out what to do with my hands and arms. Should I fold my arms over my chest as a sign of defiance? Should I place my hands behind my back, as though I were a prisoner brought before his judge? Should I lean casually against the wall, as though I was fearless?

I was still worrying about all this when the door opened and the Jackal entered.

His eyes were gold. That was the first thing I noticed. His eyes were bright gold and slanted; his whiskers were thin and sleek; his teeth were razor-sharp and curled into a grin. All this was just a mask, of course; I had known that it would be. But it is surprising how effective a painted god-mask can be when it is worn. I felt as though I were truly looking at the god's face.

Something more entered the room with him, and this I cannot describe. I suppose that all this time, the skeptical, Emorian side of me was waiting to disprove that the man called the Jackal was a god. It was my only way to escape, after all; I could not escape death, but I would escape judgment if this was only an imposter. But what I felt when the man entered the room was what I had felt on the day of my coming of age. That could not be counterfeited; I had known the presence of the god's power then, and I knew it now.

This alone kept me speechless to await the god's words. When they came, they matched the smile on his mask. "Well, Adrian," he said, "how do you like being the prey once more?"

This mockery stung me. I heard myself reply, "I would rather be the Jackal."

"Oh, I doubt that," he said. He was standing with his body swayed to one side, like a wild dog relaxed in its posture after a hard day's hunting. "You wouldn't want to be the Jackal all of the time. Even as a patrol guard, you have not had to take on the duty of sitting in judgment over men."

I swallowed, then launched into the first stage of my defense. "You have no right to judge me. I'm an Emorian now."

"Then you ought to have stayed in Emor. I could have reached you in Emor, but I left you alone as long as you stayed there. Now you are in my land; now you are under my care once more. And so you must answer for the promise you made to me."

The slanted eyes on his mask were punctured by eye-holes, but oddly enough, the human eyes behind the god's eyes appeared gold as well. I stared at them, trying to grasp at some thought that would not come. Then I realized that the Jackal was still waiting for my reply, so I said, "I made my vow to you when I thought that you and the other gods were good and just, but you're not – you're evil, and you have brought evil to this land. You command men to kill each other, just to satisfy your own blood-thirst, and when one man refuses to murder, you, the God of Mercy, condemn him for it. You said a moment ago that I am under your care; why should I believe that you care about me or any other human?"

There was a pause, and then there was a soft, rippling sound, like that of a wind stroking the leaves of a tree. The god was laughing.

Feeling my face grow warm, I shouted, "Stop that! It's not funny!"

"Only because you do not see the joke," the Jackal replied. "When the gods look down upon human suffering and laugh, it is not because they are heartless to what men feel, but because they see widely enough to know the irony of all that happens. Laughter is only the other side of crying; I have done enough of both to know this."

I willed away my own impulse to tears and countered, "I don't believe you. I don't believe that you've ever cried."

"What were Fenton's first words to you when he returned from the priests' house?" the Jackal asked softly.

I was silent, remembering the day during my twelfth year when Fenton had appeared at my home after his years spent living in the south. He had taken me up the mountain and told me the story of how the Jackal had fought to protect the Koretians against their enemies and had suffered grievous wounds, and then had wept for thirty days, not from his pain, but for the pain of his people. His tears, Fenton said, had turned into the black border mountains.

"In any case, it is not for your broken blood vow that you must answer to me," said the Jackal. "It is for this."

His left hand, which had been curved until this moment like a mighty claw, thrust forward suddenly with a rapidity that startled me as he tossed something at me that was round and black. I caught it automatically, then stared down at the twisted, blackened object in my hand.

"It is not the same one, of course," said the Jackal. "The one you threw lies buried in the ashes of your birthday fire. But I thought it would remind you of what I gave you and of what you promised in exchange."

I felt my stomach lurch in a sickly manner as I continued to stare at the blackroot nut before me. "I never told anyone about that, not even Fenton," I whispered.

"You told me," the Jackal replied succinctly.

My hand curled into a fist so that the jagged edges of the fire-burnt nut cut into my palm. "I asked you to give me the strength to do something that would please Fenton," I said firmly. "Killing his murderer wouldn't have pleased him; Fenton would have hated that. He would have wanted me to break my blood vow to murder."

"I know," said the Jackal. "That is why I gave you the strength to do so."

One of the slit windows above was casting down a shaft of light that illuminated the swirling golden dust before landing on the hair of the Jackal, which was black and tawny gold, like the fur of a beast. A second thought I could not place stirred within me, but I set it aside for the moment, saying, "You can't make me believe that you wanted me to break the vow."

"Why should I lie to you?" The smile on the Jackal's mask remained. "You are under my power; I can do with you as I wish."

"You can't make me worship you," I said. "That's what you're trying to do: you're trying to make me believe that the gods are good and that I should return my allegiance to you. It won't work. Whatever you do to me—" My breath failed me for a moment, and I had to swallow hard to chase away the tears before I said, "You can say what you like, but you can't change this fact: Fenton was sacrificed to satisfy your bloodlust. He was my friend, and I will never forgive you for that."

There was a pause, and through the window slit I could hear the sound of men and women passing and talking. I thought to myself, This is the last sound I will ever hear. The Jackal bore no weapon on his belt, but somehow I knew that he did not need one.

Finally, the Jackal asked softly, "What are the last words that Fenton spoke to you?"

Not all that men will in the gods' names is the will of the gods. The memory of Fenton's blasphemy whispered in my memory. I could think of nothing to reply. The Jackal took several steps forward, and I tensed. Halting a short way from me, he said, still softly, "I did not will Fenton's death. I would have prevented it if possible. Both as a god and as a man, I loved him."

I felt my breathing grow heavier, and I wished that he would kill me now, before the tears became too painful to contain. "How can I believe that?" I said with fury. "Fenton told Siward that it was your will that he die. Do you expect me to believe your word over his? I don't believe that you care about Fenton or anyone else."

I waited to see whether he would laugh again, but he simply stood motionless for a moment. Then his hand reached up, and he pulled the mask from his face.

"Then accept this as your proof," he said. "It is the only one I have to give."

I stared dumbly at the brown face before me, set with a plain snub nose and a dented chin and the same golden eyes I had noticed before and which were now pressing frantically at my thoughts. Then his lips curled up like a leaf weighted with dawn dew, and I saw the human smile I had heard in his voice.

"You don't remember me, I see," he said. "Well, it has been many years. I am your cousin Emlyn, and Fenton was my blood brother."

o—o—o

The twenty-first day of May in the 943rd year a.g.l. (continued from yesterday)

I continued to stare at the face of the man before me: the snub nose he and I shared, the dented chin he had acquired from a misbegotten childhood prank played with his blood brother Griffith, and the golden-brown eyes I remembered now so clearly from our days spent together on the mountain.

I found my tongue finally and said, "You were always the best Jackal."

"And you were the best prey. I had Griffith trace where you had gone after you left the border mountain patrol, but it has taken me this long to trace your movements in Koretia as a spy. I think that my thieves were beginning to have some doubts about my abilities as a god-man."

The lines about the edges of his eyes, which had not been there when I had last seen him, were crinkled with humor. Slowly, I was beginning to retrace my final conversation with Fenton and to recognize the hints he had given me. I took a deep breath and said, "I never knew. I never guessed when I was a child."

"Nor did I. I thought for many years that my visions meant I had a demon within me and that I would be killed by stoning – another of those religious barbarities you assumed I approved of." He placed the back of his hand against his forehead and swept his hair back, a move so achingly familiar that I could almost forget the mask that was in that hand. "It was Fenton who helped me to discover what was within me and to join myself fully with the god. He stayed with me even after I foretold that he would be murdered because of me."

I felt myself staring once more at the flames of Fenton's sacrificial fire, holding his letter to Emlyn in my hand, the one that spoke of Fenton's coming departure. "But he said that he was going to meet with you again," I said. "He must have known that he was going to die – he must have known from the moment our blood feud started with Cold Run. Why did he think that you two would be reunited?"

Emlyn's smile had slowly slid away, but his voice continued to hold its innate lightness as he said, "He told you that himself, with his final words of life. 'The Jackal must eat his dead.'"

I felt myself growing hot, as though the gold in Emlyn's eyes was the flame I had stood before in my memories. "No," I said. "No, how could you do that? How could you . . . take him like that if you loved him?"

Emlyn sighed as he let the mask pivot beneath the gentle hold of his fingers. "It is hard to explain – hard to explain even to myself at times like this, when my godly powers are hidden deep below, and I am little more than a man. My powers are limited at most times, but even the god with whom I am united has limited himself in his dealings with men. The gods will not take away men's freedom of will; therefore they cannot take away men's freedom to will evil. The best I can do is to take what men will, make it my own will, and use the evil event to do good. Fenton offered up his sacrifice to me; therefore I was able to use his death to bring about good."

"What good?" I whispered. "What good could be worth his life?"

"His death sent you to Emor."

I was still a moment. Then I shouted, "No! Don't say he died because of me! I'd rather have been on that pyre myself, dying conscious of the pain, than be alive in Emor because he died."

"Adrian, he would have died in any case. Would you have his death be useless to ease your conscience?"

For the first time, his voice turned stern. Feeling as though Quentin had brought me forward for disciplining, I stared at the floor and mumbled, "What does it matter whether I live in Emor? It makes me happy, but it's of no importance to anyone else."

After a while, I looked up. Emlyn was smiling again, a smile that looked oddly old for such a young face. "I know so little about you, Adrian," he said. "Some things I learned from Fenton, some from Griffith, and some things – a very few things – have been shown to me by my powers. Many years ago, I saw that you would one day be in danger. Later I saw you sitting in a snowbound cave, talking to an Emorian, so I knew that you would one day go to Emor. I sent Fenton back north to prepare you for that. He could not tell you who I was – I bound him from letting anyone know my dangerous secret until the time came for me to wear my mask – but I know that you and he were friends, as he and I were. I am no longer your god, but we share a blood brother and so are doubly kin. Will you therefore trust me enough to tell me what you have been doing in Emor?"

I shook my head. "I cannot betray the Chara. I have given my oath to him."

"You need not break it. I would just like to know what caused you to flee to Emor and why you have decided to stay there."

I hesitated, but what he asked was not unreasonable, so I told him what he wanted to know, even about Carle, though I did not give his name or hint that he had become a spy as well. By the time I was through, Emlyn and I were seated together on the room's floor-pallet, as though we were no more than cousins catching up on each other's lives. In a way, I suppose we were.

When I had finished speaking, Emlyn was silent a minute, fingering the strap of his mask. Then he said softly, "Carle."

My breath hit the back of my throat. Emlyn must have heard me, for he looked up and said in a matter-of-fact manner, "Fenton told me about Carle when I was a boy. It was easy enough to guess, from the way you described him: a young man who joined the patrol against his father's wishes, who had ties with an older patrol guard before entering the army, who knows Border Koretian and is familiar with Koretian customs. . . . I'd wondered why it had to be Fenton who prepared you for Emor. Now I know."

I felt an uneasiness growing inside me. Emlyn had been bright-witted as a child; his guess about Carle was evidence of his continued intelligence. How much of our conversation was the result of his cleverness rather than of godly powers? Most of it? All of it? I tried to remember back. The nut he had shown me . . . I had been the one to tell him the promise attached to it. He had said nothing more than that I had tossed a nut into the fire on my birthday. Fenton might have told him that much. Perhaps there was even a simple explanation as to why Emlyn knew Fenton's final words to me. And the presence that I had felt when Emlyn entered the room – might not that be a product of my own certainty that I would be facing a god? Or, at best, a sign that Emlyn had received the priestly training that all orphan boys do in the priests' house? Was the Jackal in fact no more than what Carle thought, a keen-minded fraud?

I realized that several moments had passed since Emlyn had spoken. Trying to avoid Emlyn's light-filled eyes, I ducked my head and pulled the back-sling closer to me, saying, "Carle thought it was an understandable coincidence that he and I met. He was able to help Fenton past the patrol because he wished to join the patrol, and I was able to impress the patrol because Fenton had taught me the signals that Carle had taught him—"

"Yes," said Emlyn, "that is one explanation."

I looked up quickly to see that Emlyn was smiling at me; his eyes were bright under the noonday light. "Your meeting with Carle could have been a coincidence," he said, "as could Fenton's meeting with me. For that matter, our meeting today might be due to nothing more than the alertness of the Jackal's thieves, while the Jackal himself might be no more than a man who learnt a great deal in childhood about tricking people. All that could be true."

A passing cloud cast a shadow into the room. It fell upon Emlyn, shading his smile. Only his eyes, by some trick of the light, continued to glow. There was a pause of sound, for nobody outside the storehouse was passing at that moment, while the thieves in the next chamber, whom I had heard faintly while telling my story, had chosen this moment to fall silent. Under the shadow, Emlyn's smile did not waver.

I knew then what I had only suspected before, that in certain ways I will always be Koretian. If Carle had been sitting in that room, he would have witnessed no more than a change in shadows, a quiet spell – nothing unexpected or out of the ordinary. As for myself, my heart was beating as rapidly as it had in the moment that I was faced with the choice of fighting Quentin or throwing away my blade. I heard myself say, as I had said many months before, "The Jackal is the trickster god."

There was a sigh in the world, and the cloud continued on, withdrawing its shadow from Emlyn's face. He said, as though nothing of importance had occurred, "I've never known whether it was the god who decided that Fenton and I would become friends, or whether it was a decision the three of us made together, but having him as my tutor as a child made all the difference to me. Because he was Emorian-born, he was able to recognize evils in the Koretian religion that no other priest could, evils that the Jackal has come to this land to fight."

My breath flew inwards. "Is that what you're planning to do? Fight against the gods' law?"

"Against the corruptions in the gods' law, yes."

It took me a moment to recover from this stupendous announcement. My spirit was still dwelling upon what I had seen before. I was remembering the angry priests who demanded that the Jackal show him their powers, and the borderlanders who had been invited to be his thieves and had failed the test. Had the Jackal indeed refused to show his powers to these men? Or was it instead the case that the Jackal's proof had gone unnoticed by men who had already convinced themselves that he was not a god because he did not fulfill their preconceptions of what the gods must be like? And I, who had been so sure that I knew what the gods were and what they wanted . . . how close had I come to failing the Jackal's test?

I felt a shiver go through me and forced such thoughts away, saying, "But why this way? You're not even fighting the priests. You and your thieves have been playing pranks against the nobility. How will that cause them to change the gods' law? Wouldn't it be better to go directly to the King—?" I stopped; Emlyn's smile had returned. I said slowly, "That wasn't the way the Jackal God fought. He never fought his enemies directly."

"Nor did I, as a child," said Emlyn. "You're not the first person to think I'm mad for fighting a war this way, but Griffith and I have much experience in this. Children can't fight their elders directly; Griffith and I found ways to fight them through pranks, ways that were more effective in the long run. Griffith and I forged the weapons for this war, but it was Fenton who taught me the reason for this war. I believe that the god brought him to this land for that purpose."

I thought about this awhile, as the shadows shifted to afternoon. Emlyn was seated cross-legged beside me, still fiddling with his mask as though it were simply a toy to be played with. He looked at the moment like nothing more than a young borderlander of four and twenty years. Once again the incongruity of our conversation and of what Emlyn was supposed to hold inside him tugged at me. Carle had dismissed that incongruity as evidence of the Jackal's falsehood, but I wondered now whether the incongruity was instead a clue to the Jackal's nature.

I said finally, "Fenton came to Koretia with Carle's help in order to teach you what needed to be changed in Koretia. And I . . ." I hesitated, feeling a flush surge over my neck and ears.

Emlyn nodded. "Yes, that's what I think as well: that you were sent back to Emor in order to teach the Emorians what needs to be changed in their land. Perhaps through Carle, since he seems to be the key in all this."

"But I don't believe that anything should be changed in Emor," I said. "It's exactly the opposite. If you really want to help Koretia – if the god wants to help Koretia – then you should allow the Emorians to take control of the Koretian government. As a dominion, Koretia would still have the independence to keep its culture, but the gods' law would be replaced by the law – by the Chara's law, which would end the blood feuds and everything else that is evil in this land."

The words poured out of me. I had not realized, till I spoke them, how great my desire was to see this happen. I expected Emlyn to be angered by this suggestion, but he simply wrapped the band of his mask around his finger and said, "If you have children, will you teach them that the gods are worthy of honor?"

I was startled by this sudden change of topic. "I wasn't— I mean, I hadn't intended to, but . . ." I was silent a while, absorbing into my memories the truth of what the gods had actually willed during all those months when I thought they had executed Fenton. Then I said quietly, "I'll have to think about it more, but . . . Yes, I think so. I won't teach my children that the gods' law is worthy of honor, but I'll teach them that the gods who hate the evils of this land are worthy of honor."

"And your grandchildren? Do you believe that your children will teach them to honor the gods?"

Startled into an understanding of what he meant, I made no reply. Emlyn put the mask to one side as he said, "Adrian, don't think that I'm unappreciative of the virtues of Emor. In your own way, I believe that you and the other Emorians serve the gods. But that is your way, and Koretia has its own way. If the gods' law were destroyed, in a generation or two the Koretians would have forgotten to worship the seven gods and goddesses of Koretia. This I am sure of."

"But you can't let the gods' law continue!" I cried. "The blood feuds—"

"The gods' law existed before the blood feuds did. The corruption in the Koretian law can be removed without destroying our law—"

"The corruption will return," I said firmly. "It must return, because there are no alternatives for the Koretians but to avenge crimes through feuds. They need the Chara's law to provide that alternative—"

Emlyn rose to his feet, sighing. "Adrian, I didn't bring you here to fight about whether your religion is better than my religion. . . . No, listen." He held his hand up. "You've evidently given this a great deal of thought, much more than I have; perhaps this is part of the gods' plan for you. But you're speaking to the wrong person. You have your role to play in Emor, and I have mine here in Koretia – we each have our own duties. If Emor is to take part in this war in any way, it will have to be through you. The god has not placed that duty upon me."

I played with the leather of my back-sling strap, realizing, for the first time, that I would walk out of this room alive. Finally I lifted my head and forced myself to say, "Emlyn . . . if you let me go, I will have to tell my official about our meeting."

"I want you to do so. That is one of the reasons I have been hunting you so hard for the past months." Emlyn reached forward with his hand and helped me to rise from the pallet, saying, "Adrian, you've seen for yourself that I have no interest in meddling in Emorian affairs. If Emor takes part in this war that the Jackal is waging, it will do so in the gods' time, but I will not bring Emor into the war myself by troubling its people. Yet I know that the Chara doubts this; he fears that my activities will spill over the border. I want you to tell the Chara what you've heard me say: that my battles are against the new nobility and the other Koretians who will not accept reforms of the gods' law. I have no quarrel with the Chara or his land."

I said, my voice tight, "For my report to be complete, I would have to tell my official who you are."

Emlyn was standing in shadow. I could see no more than that he was not smiling. "That is a choice you will have to make for yourself," he said quietly. "All I can tell you is that, if I am unmasked, my life will not be long. I can use my powers to protect myself against individual men, but not against a unit of soldiers sent to arrest me."

My throat ached with tears withheld; I stooped to scoop up my back-sling. When I looked back at Emlyn, he was smiling. "Follow your duty," he advised. "If your duty truly takes you that way, I won't think the less of you for revealing my identity."

I said in a voice still strained, "You said that was one reason you hunted me. Is there another?"

Emlyn nodded. "Yes. To warn you to stay away from your village."

I slipped the back-sling onto my shoulder, feeling a dull ache grow inside me. This time I did not bother to hide the wound. "My father is still angry?"

"He has taken a blood vow to give you over to the new priest for judgment, should you return to the village. The new priest believes in the gods' law as it stands, and all of your family is bound to aid your father in his vow. You will find no assistance there."

"If you . . ." I hesitated, but Emlyn was already shaking his head.

"I tried to speak to your father, both masked and unmasked." He gave one of his bright smiles. "I was lucky to escape alive on both occasions. No, cousin; the only help I can give you is to offer you this warning."

I swallowed the pain in my throat and said, "I appreciate it. And for telling me the rest, especially the part about Fenton. If there's anything I can do for you – anything that wouldn't go against my duty—"

Emlyn reached the door before I did and rested his hand on the latch. I could hear Griffith and Morgan chatting outside in a relaxed manner while the Jackal interviewed his kinsman. "The debt is mine," he said. "Only a spy could have carried my message to the Chara. Is there anything that I can do for you? Any wish that needs fulfillment?"

"Thank you, but no," I replied politely. "I'm really quite—" And then I stopped, and I felt my heart drive blood to my farthest extremities.

Emlyn was still standing next to the door, his hand on the latch. His tunic was that of a lesser free-man and was sober in color for that of a jeweller; his bladeless belt was frayed. And his face was that of the Jackal.

He had not put on his mask; the mask had shaped his face, turning his amber eyes to gold, and his smiling mouth to a snarl. The whiskers shimmered like cutting wire, and the teeth glowed silver under the shadows. The fire in his eyes was of the type that eats men.

I did not realize that I had retreated until I felt the wall against my back. Sweat ran into my eyes, blurring my vision. The voice I had heard at the beginning of our conversation, the voice so much like Emlyn and yet so unlike him, whispered in thunder, "Tell me what you wish, son of Berenger."

"I—" My throat was so dry I had to start again, while my mind groped like a sick man for the nearest thought at hand. "I'd like to make a sacrifice for Carle. I've always wanted to do that. And— If it's possible, I'd like to make a sacrifice for the Chara."

The Jackal walked forward. I could feel the heat of his fire like the breath of a wild beast. His hand, glowing like embers, reached up toward my forehead, in the gesture of a priest pronouncing a curse upon those who break the gods' law. It hovered above my skin as my gaze rose to it. Then the rumbling whisper said, "Be at peace, servant of the Lawmaker."

The hand fell, and with it something fell from me – I could not say what. When I looked again at the Jackal, he held my cousin's face.

"Do you have time to dine with us before you leave?" he asked. And his smile was the smile of the Jackal, yet it was the smile also of the boy I had known as a child.

He opened the door, and waiting there was Griffith, holding in his hand the jewelled dagger I had given Siward: the High Priest's dagger, Fenton had told me, made by a craftsman in the south. Emlyn showed it to me with a smile before placing it sheathed upon his belt. I found myself being swept forward by the other thieves toward the meal awaiting us.

That is all I can remember of my meeting with the Jackal. It will be enough for me to think upon for years.

Law Links 6

THE BALANCE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The second day of June in the 943rd year a.g.l.

It's dawn now; I can hear Quentin whistling the night patrol home. The day patrol has already gone outside the hut to break its fast. I will have to start for the army camp soon, though I still haven't decided what I will tell Captain Radley about my meeting with the Jackal.

I did have sense enough to wait a week before slipping over the border. I knew that Radley would never forgive me unless I followed standard procedure for losing a hunt that is after me. I know better than Radley that, if Emlyn chose to hunt me after he released me, the best of the Chara's spies couldn't have prevented him. But I can't explain that to Radley.

I arrived here yesterday afternoon to find Quentin awake early. He wounded his dagger arm last month, in a daring rescue that I only heard about from the others, and the pain has been keeping him awake during the day. After I had enquired after him and the patrol, and had ascertained that Carle was returned to Emor from his latest mission, I hesitantly told Quentin what the Jackal had told me – not about his identity, but about the war he is waging.

Quentin, crouching down to stir the dinner pot with his unwounded hand, was silent a while after I finished. Then he said, "And is he?"

I smiled at Quentin's ability to cut through to the heart of matters. "Does it matter to you? You don't worship the gods."

Quentin added a stick to the fire. "It wasn't part of my grandfather's training. But still . . . I'd be interested to hear your opinion."

I took the ladle from his hand and continued the stirring. "Yes, he is. You could tell from his eyes." I took a sip from the stew, wincing as it bit at my tongue. "I'm not sure how to tell Carle. I'm afraid that he'll think less of me if I say that I believe the Jackal is really a god."

"Among the many worries of a spy," Quentin said, "one that you need not concern yourself with is that Carle will ever think less of you. His debt to you is too great."

I sat back on my heels, staring. "Whatever do you mean? The debt is mine; if he hadn't taken me under his care—"

"The stew is boiling over," Quentin said.

For the next minute, we were preoccupied in tossing dirt on the fire to extinguish it. As I wiped my hands clean on the grass afterwards, Quentin said, "You've met Carle's father."

I nodded. "Have you?"

"Briefly. He accompanied Carle to the borderland when I was fourteen and Carle was eight—"

"When you and Carle helped Fenton to escape. Yes."

"Carle was mainly responsible for that; I wouldn't have had the courage." Quentin leaned forward to stir the stew carefully, then sat back again on the grass, saying, "When Carle first entered the patrol, I greatly feared that he would become like his father."

"But—" I stopped suddenly. The sun was beginning to dip behind the peaks. Nearby I could hear the day patrol exchanging weary signals with each other.

"The day Carle and I met," I said slowly. "What he did to me then . . . Had he done that before?"

Quentin nodded, leaning back onto his hands and then shifting his position so that his weight was upon his unwounded arm. "He had never before disobeyed my orders, but on several occasions he disciplined prisoners or guards under his care in a manner stricter than necessary. To say that of a patrol guard is to say a great deal, of course. With most guards, the problem I have is teaching them to show appropriate sternness, but with Carle the problem was the opposite. He knew only his father's discipline, and even a gentle version of that was beyond what was necessary. And aside from that . . ."

"Yes." My voice was firm; all was clear to me now. "I've seen that too. He has the seed of his father's cruelty in him. He keeps it deeply buried, though."

Quentin shook his head. "Not during his first three years in the patrol; then he was like a man riding a wild horse. He was barely able to keep control of himself. If he'd been any less talented than he was, I would have dismissed him from the patrol, for I could see the shadow of disaster whenever I looked at him."

"But he's not like that now," I said, bewildered.

"No," Quentin replied. "He met you."

The sun slid behind the peaks, and Quentin rose with a whistle, beckoning the patrol to supper. Nearby, Devin joyfully whistled the day patrol home. The night patrol emerged from the hut, some of the guards heading for the food, while other guards started for the latrine and waterfall. Fowler caught sight of me and called out his greeting, so I had no opportunity to talk with Quentin after that.

It is just as well. I could not have found any words to reply.

o—o—o

The fourth day of June in the 943rd year a.g.l.

In the end, Carle gave me the answer to my dilemma.

"Let me be sure I understand you correctly," he said after I had told my tale on the evening of my arrival back at our tent. "You spoke with the Jackal – you ought to receive a gold honor brooch for that tracking, by the way – and he offered you information. Some of it is information on his goals; we've been under orders to obtain that information, and so you'll report your findings to Captain Radley. But one piece of information that you learned could place a kinsman of yours at risk of losing his life if you told anyone, and you're not sure whether your duty requires you to report that information as well." Carle drew off his undertunic. Many months have passed since he was last ashamed for me to see his whip-torn back. "This information that relates to your kinsman – did Captain Radley order you to obtain it?"

I shook my head, and Carle smiled as he dipped a rag in the bucket of cold water next to his feet. "That's an easy conclusion to your quandary, then," he said. "Tell him."

The evening was chill, as all Emorian evenings seem to be. I hugged my naked chest with my arms. "You believe that it's my duty to tell him?" I said in a low voice.

Carle's smile broadened, and he tossed me the rag so that I could take my turn with the water. "What I ought to have said is, 'Try to tell him.'"

I understood what he meant the next day. After listening to Captain Radley explain at length how I was a sly Koretian liar for pretending that I had met the Jackal, and then hearing him upbraid me for not giving my report from the moment I entered his tent, I told him about the Jackal's plans, the plans that I had been under orders for several months to obtain. Then I tried to tell him who the Jackal is. And tried again. After six attempts, and after hearing Radley tell me six times that he had no interest in any speculation on my part concerning matters that lay outside my orders, I finally left, but only because Radley had his orderly drag me out of his tent. The last I heard was Radley shouting that he would have me up on charges for my insubordination.

Carle was lying on the floor of our tent, rolling with laughter, by the time I finished telling the tale, which eased my heart greatly. When he had sobered himself, I said, "But oughtn't I to tell somebody else? Should I write a letter to the Chara?"

"Any letter from you would be sent straight back to your official, to see whether it was important enough to occupy the time of the Chara." Carle passed me a flask of cider from last year's pickings at his orchard.

I sipped from it before saying, "I could try to go see the Chara. Technically, we're under the Chara's immediate care. If I said that it was an emergency, the guards might let me see him."

"And end up dead because the Chara judged it not to be an emergency?" Carle took the cider back from me. After the silence had stretched far enough to break, he added, "Yes, I'd advise that you risk yourself if the matter is important enough. But is it? Do you believe that Emor is in danger from the Jackal, and that the information you know might help the Chara to defend our land?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm quite sure that the Jackal was telling the truth when he said that he had no quarrel with the Chara." I eased my dagger out of its sheath, gave it a perfunctory wipe with our all-purpose rag, then slid it back into its casing. "I could be wrong, though. I think that the Chara is the only one who could truly judge this matter."

"If the time comes when you discover you're wrong," said Carle between sips of cider, "then you can go to the Chara and give him the information he needs to break the power of the Jackal."

"But if I should be killed before then . . ."

"You'll write about this in your journal, I suppose? Well, then . . ." Carle leaned back on his elbows. There were dark circles under his eyes, and I wondered whether his latest mission had brought him more weariness than usual.

"Adrian," he said, "do you remember our conversation in the cave three winters ago?"

I smiled at him, not needing to reply. He said, "So what do your instincts tell you?"

After a moment, I said slowly, "That this isn't the right moment at which to offer up my sacrifice."

Carle tossed me the empty cider flask to put aside. "You know," he said, "great as my loyalty is to the Chara, I'm not sure that you're right when you say that the Chara is the best person to judge the intentions of the Jackal. I think that a Koretian-born Emorian is likely to be a better judge in these matters than the Chara."

Which, of course, is not at all true, but it is typical of Carle to end our conversation with such warm thoughts.

o—o—o

The fifth day of June in the 943rd year a.g.l.

I received very little sleep last night; Carle woke me thrice.

After the third time, neither of us found it easy to return to sleep. When I turned my head, I could see the glitter of Carle's eyes from starlight that had made its way through the smoke-hole at the top of the tent.

I said, "Has this been happening recently?"

Carle was a long time replying, and when he spoke, I had to roll over to his side to hear him. "It happens sometimes when I'm on long missions," he said. A pause meandered while the palace trumpets proclaimed the midnight, and then he added in a lower voice, "When I'm away from you."

I placed my hand over his. "Carle, he's dead," I said quietly.

Carle carefully pulled his hand out from mine and turned his face toward the tent cloth. "Sometimes I think he's only sleeping," he said in a muffled voice.

If I hadn't spoken with Quentin three days ago, I would not have understood what Carle meant. I moved onto the blanket Carle had pushed aside – what is a chilly night for me is a warm summer's eve for Carle – and asked, "Would you like for us to leave the army and find other work?"

He rolled over, and in the moment before he rid himself of his expression, I saw the spark of hope in his eyes. "We couldn't do that," he said firmly. "You've been a lieutenant for less than a year—"

"I don't enjoy my work," I said, almost truthfully. "I was only ever half a spy, and without you to help me, I feel as though I'm doing half-finished tasks. I want to keep serving the Chara, but I'm beginning to believe that I'd serve him better doing work elsewhere in this land."

Carle sighed as he placed his hand down onto the small space between us. "I know what you mean. I feel the same way, as though the work I'm doing is unworthy of one of the Chara's soldiers. And I must admit that I've been toying in my mind with that old idea we had of seeking work with a town council. Neville has been hanging over my shoulders since last year, urging me to allow him to do us a favor, in order to make up for how he treated us before. Palace officials hear about open positions in the councils of this land before the rest of us do. He'd be able to tell us when any council is seeking two men at the same time."

So it was settled, but of course Carle and I were so excited that we stayed up until dawn discussing our future, and then spent the early morning composing a letter to Neville about our hopes.

Neither of us mentioned that the real reason we're leaving the army is that we can't do decent work under the care of Captain Radley.

o—o—o

The twenty-fourth day of August in the 943rd year a.g.l.

It has been very hot this month, especially for Emor. Captain Radley has been in a foul mood, trying to sort through all the reports on the Jackal's increasing activities. He can't make anything of the reports, of course, since he doesn't understand Koretian religion. Periodically, he has been calling me into his tent to ask me about various small matters, but I think it galls him to be forced to seek the advice of his inferior. I've tried on a few occasions to volunteer information that would allow him to see the larger picture of what the Jackal is and thus be able to figure out for himself the small matters, but this only infuriates him more.

Since Carle and I are presently awaiting orders on our next missions, we have mainly been keeping to our tent, seeking to fight the heat with shade and cool wine. The latter comes from the lieutenant, who is in the cooler mountains, and who sends flasks to us periodically by way of one of the royal messengers who can make it here quickly enough that the liquid is still cool by the time it arrives. (The messengers are happy enough to do this in exchange for a share of the wine.)

Carle has been worst affected by the heat, of course, and I advised him to keep his movements slow, lest he overexert himself in the heat. He has taken my advice, saying that I am the expert in these matters of southern weather. Thus I was surprised when he rushed into the tent this afternoon, waving a letter in and dancing about the place.

It took me some time to make sense of what he was saying; when I found out, I was ready to dance myself. It was a pass from the Chara's summoners, allowing Carle to attend tomorrow's court.

It was a gift from Neville, of course. "The fool, the low-brained, muddle-minded fool," Carle said happily. "He must have had to crawl on his hands and knees to the summoners to get this pass for us."

"Us?" I said, certain that I must have misheard him.

"Us! I can bring a guest, the pass says. I suppose that means I can bring my brother or son, but the pass doesn't actually specify that. If anyone asks, I'll imply you're a kinsman of mine – that's close enough to the truth. By the spirits of the dead Charas, Adrian, what should I wear?"

I laughed and held onto the wine-table, which Carle was in danger of knocking over. "You sound like a young woman about to meet her betrothed for the first time. What does it matter what we wear? No one will notice us. The question is, When should we get there? If we arrive early enough tomorrow, we'll be able to find a place right in the front, so that we can have a good view of the Chara."

Carle stopped dancing and began fiddling with the sheath of his dagger, which he had begun wearing in the army camp, in keeping with his forged reputation as a dangerous, lawless man. "To witness the truth, I was thinking of hiding us away in one of the corners of the court. I'm not sure that I want a good view of the Chara in judgment; I've heard tales of strong men fainting away when they saw the look of the Chara for the first time."

"Oh, Carle."

"Very well, very well." He laughed, but somewhat nervously. "We'll take a place in the front, as close as you want. I'm still not sure what to wear, though. I want to wear something that will honor the Chara."

"Then wear the brooch."

"Of course!" Carle hit his forehead with his palm. "I am a fool, a dog, a dull-witted schoolboy. Thank the wisdom of the Charas that you're here to tell me what to do. I'd forgotten about the royal emblem brooch, but it's exactly the thing to wear. I'll be offering tribute to the Chara and will also be honoring my father, poor miserable man, who did at least one kind act in his life by leaving me that brooch. So will you come with me, Adrian?"

I laughed in reply, but he said seriously, "No, I mean it. This is a formal occasion, so I am formally inviting you to accompany me to the Court of Judgment. There is no one else I would want there beside me."

It took me a moment to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat during this speech, and by the time that moment was over, my reply was delayed by a rap on the tent-post.

It was Hylas, bearing a letter for me from the lieutenant.

"He's probably telling us that he has run out of mountain-cooled wine," Carle said cheerfully. "Never mind, we have more heady wine to draw upon now."

"It's not from the lieutenant himself," said Hylas, so pointedly at our wine that Carle turned away to fetch him a flask. "It comes from Koretia; apparently a Koretian delivered it to the patrol. He was a borderlander with a scar along his right arm – the lieutenant said to tell you that, in case his identity was important."

I looked down at the letter. It bore no superscription, and the seal was smudged, but for anyone who was looking for it, it was easy enough to recognize that the seal was in the shape of the mask of the Jackal.

I tore the letter open and read it. It was without greeting or signature.

You asked whether you could do anything for me; now comes the moment when I must take up your offer. By the time that you receive this, Carle will have asked you to do something for him. Do not comply.

I cannot tell you what the consequences of your action will be, for in all truth I do not know them myself; my powers have not told me. This much I do know: you will not be breaking your oath to the Chara nor bringing harm upon your fellow Emorians in doing this, and Carle will receive the reward of your action. What will happen to you, I do not know, and so, speaking as your kinsman now, rather than in my other role, I cannot advise you on what to do. I can only remind you that the gods will watch over you, whatever happens.

I was still staring at the letter when I became aware that Carle had sent Hylas on his way and was watching me closely. "Bad news?" he said.

I quickly closed the letter and went over to the side of my bed, where I store my flint box. Keeping my face turned away from Carle, I said, "It's from one of my contacts in Koretia. I'm afraid that I won't be able to attend the court with you tomorrow; something has come up."

"Oh, may the high doom—! Can no one else handle this? We won't get another chance like this in our lifetime!"

I shook my head as I sparked the flint and set the letter blazing on the earthen floor of our tent. "You'll have to tell me all about it afterwards. I'm sure that it will be just as exciting for me from your description. And this will give someone else a chance to go."

"I'm not interested in bringing anyone else," Carle said glumly. He came over and knelt beside me. I was watching the tiny flame die down as it finished eating the Jackal's letter. "Oh, well," he added with a sigh. "I knew that it was too good to be true. Never mind, I'll go by myself, and I'll wear the brooch, not as a tribute to the Chara or my father, but as a tribute to you, the great law-lover. You ought to be there instead of me."

"Perhaps I'll have another chance some day," I said. "Just don't pin on that brooch until you reach the Court of Judgment. If Captain Radley sees it, he'll guess that something is up and find an excuse to keep you from the palace."

Carle laughed and said that my advice was wise; then he spent the rest of the day trying to decide between his two formal tunics. I've spent the day worrying. Emlyn gave me the one incentive he could be sure would make me follow his instruction: he told me that Carle would benefit from what I did. But was he telling the truth?

o—o—o

The twenty-fifth day of August in the 943rd year a.g.l.

Carle arrived back at the tent at noonday; he must have run most of the way from the court. I had a story ready to explain why I hadn't gone to Koretia, but he was too excited to think of such matters. When I first saw him, he was still trembling from the experience.

"Never again," he said firmly. "It was the most wonderful morning of my life, but never, ever again. I swear that I will die a Slave's Death before allowing myself to stand in the same chamber as the Chara again. I scarcely survived as it was."

"Where did you stand?" I asked eagerly.

"I knew that would be your first question. Well, I took the coward's way out. Since you didn't come with me, I stood in the area behind the throne, where you can only see the back of the Chara's head. And that just goes to show that cowards get their just reward, because it turns out that the Chara walks through that area on his way in and out of the court. As he was leaving, he walked within an arm's length of me."

"What did he look like?" I asked, barely breathing.

"I was determined not to see, so I bowed very low – and when I raised my head again, he was standing right in front of me, stopped in his tracks. I suppose that his attention was caught by my bow. No one else did that."

"Carle!" I flung myself off my pallet, where I had been rereading entries in my journal. "What did he say?"

"Why should he say anything?" Carle was grinning with sheepish joy, readjusting the emblem brooch so that his neck-flap wasn't closed so tight. "I'm nobody important. I could see that he noticed my brooch, though – I was glad about that. He only stopped for a moment; then he continued on, which was a great relief to me, because all the stories about his look are true. I was on the point of passing out."

He still looked pale, so I took out a flask and handed it to him. "What does the face look like?"

"It's hard to describe." He sat down on the pallet with me, first unhooking his army sword from his belt. "It's very stiff and rigid – a bit like your Koretian masks, only it is built into the Chara's features. When he looks at you, you feel as though he is seeing through to the depths of your spirit and searching out every dark deed you have ever done. I found myself wondering whether I had accidentally broken some law during my manhood – if I had, I'm sure that the Chara would have known it. His face looked as ancient as Emor itself, as though he was holding in his expression the accumulated wisdom of a thousand years' worth of Charas. Thank that wisdom that I will never again have to face the—"

There was a cough, and Carle and I looked up in surprise to see that a well-dressed boy had pushed back the flap to our tent. "Carle son of Verne?" he said in a voice stilted with formality.

"That is I." Carle stood up. "What can I do for you, young man?"

The boy raised his chin as though he was offended by Carle's question. "I am a page to the Chara, and I bear a summons from him. He wishes to see you in his quarters immediately." He held up a document that confirmed his words. It bore the seal of the Great Chara.

I looked over at Carle. He had turned as white as new snow, and his fingernails were biting into his palms. Seeing this, I realized that he did not have the ability to answer the boy, and so I said hastily, "He'll come right away. Are you to escort him?"

The boy shook his head. "Come in by way of the east entrance," he told Carle. "The guards will let you through. But do not keep the Chara waiting."

With this pompous addition of advice, he left us alone. For a moment, Carle remained frozen. Then the page's final words apparently penetrated his mind, and he began looking frantically around, as though he had lost something.

"May the high doom fall upon me," he moaned. "What have I done? What have I done? Perhaps I should have knelt when he stopped next to me."

"Don't be absurd." I was just as panic-stricken as Carle, but it was obvious that one of us needed to remain calm, so I took on the harder task. "Only Daxions kneel to their ruler. He probably just recognized you as one of his spies and wants to talk to you about Koretia."

"How would he recognize me? I haven't seen him for six years, not since I gave him my oath as a patrol guard. No, I've done something terrible, that's clear enough, and now I'm to face the wrath—" He stopped; he had found what he was looking for and was on the point of clipping his sheathed sword onto his belt when he stopped and carefully laid the weapon back down on the pallet. He had remembered that prisoners appear before the Chara's judgment unarmed.

I said impulsively, "Let me come with you."

He shook his head and moved rapidly toward the tent flap. "He only wants to see me, and I'm wholly to blame for whatever has happened. You weren't there." He left without another word.

I wasn't there. Those are the words that have been haunting me all this afternoon while I await Carle's return – if he is returning. I wasn't there, and I wasn't there because the Jackal didn't want me to be there. Have I betrayed my fellow Emorian after all? Is Carle now in danger because of me?

o—o—o

Danger indeed. Carle returned to the tent a short while ago and announced his presence by hurling his royal emblem brooch into the corner.

"Cursed be the spirit of my father!" he shouted. His face was as red as it had been white when he left. "I ought to have known that any wine of friendship he offered me would be poisoned."

"What happened?" I asked, my alarm having reached its peak. "What did the Chara say?"

Carle, though, took no notice of my words; he was still staring darkly at the brooch in the corner. "That dog-bred, mud-dwelling, perfidious man! He always knew how to hurt those under his care the most. I might have known that he would pick an appropriate revenge. Not only does he reveal to me how ignorant I am of the law, but he stabs me through to the very heart of my spirit by tricking me into doing the one thing I'd sworn I'd never again do: be disloyal to the Chara. If my father were still alive, I'd—"

"Carle!" I cried. "For the gods' sake, what has happened?"

I had lapsed into Border Koretian; this was probably what attracted Carle's attention. He turned his head, and there crept onto his face that dark, sickening smile he had inherited from his father. It was directed, I knew, not at me but at his father's spirit.

"It is treason to wear the royal emblem," he explained lightly. "Only the Chara and the Chara To Be may wear the emblem. Anyone else who wears it is considered a pretender to the throne. It is a crime under the Law of Grave Iniquity, and it is punishable by the high doom of death by torture."

A Slave's Death. That was the common name for the week-long death reserved for disobedient palace slaves and the most treacherous free-men. I ought to have been overwhelmed by the image of Carle being slowly broken by the branding, the racking, the gelding, and all the rest, but only one thought remained in my mind: He tricked me. The Jackal tricked me.

"Carle, they can't do this to you!" My voice came out as a whimper, so close was I to weeping. "I'll go to the Chara; I'll tell him it was all my fault. I was the one who persuaded you to wear the brooch, and if I had been there, you wouldn't have hidden in the back and been seen by the Chara. I'm to blame for all this, and I should bear the punishment. I'll invoke the Sacrifice division . . . I'll make them do it to me instead—"

I stopped. Within a short time after I began talking, the darkness of Carle's smile had disappeared. All that was left was his pure, crooked smile, accompanied by his wise eyes watching as I made my wild and needless offer. I ducked my head and felt my ears burn.

"Would you really have done that?" he asked quietly. "Would you really have given up your life for me like that?"

"I'm a fool." My voice was muffled by the tears that still clogged my throat. "I ought to have known that it would only take the Chara an instant to see how loyal you are. It was stupid of me to think that you needed my help."

"I might have needed it." Carle's voice was still soft. "And how many men, do you think, would have troubled even to offer witness in defense of a man who had broken one of the Great Three? By the laws, it takes an event like this to offer me supreme proof of who my truest friend is."

I looked up and found myself barely able to bear the look that passed between us. Perhaps Carle felt the same way, for he turned abruptly away and went over to pick up the brooch from the dust. "Well, it's as you say – not so much that the Chara saw I was loyal, no doubt, but that he must have seen I was too much of a fool to be plotting treason. He was very kind to me and asked after my family. He remembered my father from when they grew up together at the palace, and he remembered me because of our border-breaching prank. I continued to be such a fool that I wasted his time by babbling to him about how I wanted to work for a town council some day. I'm lucky he didn't fall asleep from boredom. He even said that I could keep the brooch, since it was a family heirloom. Needless to say, I'm going to put it away in a box and never let it see daylight again."

"But you had the chance to talk with the Chara," I said, looking for some comfort in the midst of this disaster.

Carle turned back from the corner, holding the brooch in one hand. He was smiling again. "I was able to talk with the Chara. Some day, when I am dying and I review the accomplishments of my life, that will still be at the top of my list: I once spoke with the Chara. And you're right, Adrian: you're entirely to blame for what happened, and I owe it all to you."

I felt and continue to feel uncomfortable because I know that what Carle said wasn't true, not wholly. Carle owes his good fortune, not so much to me, as to the Jackal, yet I will never be able to tell him that his dearest dream came true through the help of a Koretian god. I still don't understand why the Jackal did this for Carle. But I remember telling the god that I wanted to do two things: to make a sacrifice for Carle and to make a sacrifice for the Chara. It is good to know that at least one of my own dreams has come true.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The first day of September in the 943rd year a.g.l.

I'm writing these words from the patrol hut, which is chilly tonight, since the autumn winds have already started. It is likely, I think, that the snows will begin earlier than expected this year, but the patrol soldiers, having been forewarned by their earlier brush with death, will no doubt take appropriate cautions and retreat from the mountains in time. Of course, I will not be here to witness that.

Carle is here tonight as well; I can just hear his voice rising up in triumph as he wins another Law Link over the others. Their fire is beyond my view from where I sit, but it is comforting to hear their voices, raised in the ancient game of law that will no doubt continue long after all of us here tonight are gone. Even the last link that I heard no longer frightens me, though earlier today it seemed for a while as heavy on me as the chain that binds an unwilling slave.

My first clue to its arrival came this morning, when I received word that Captain Radley wished to speak with me. I went to his tent and was surprised to see Carle standing outside, awaiting entrance.

"I thought that you had left for Koretia," I said.

Carle shook his head. "My mission was cancelled; I've no idea why. Perhaps the captain thinks that matters are too unsettled there at the moment, what with the recent fighting near the border. I vow, if the Koretians don't find some way of controlling their blood-thirst, we'll eventually see this war spill over into Emor."

"Perhaps it would be well if it did," I responded. "Then the Chara would be forced to bring Emorian civilization to that land."

"Perhaps," said Carle, but I could see that he was distracted. His mind, I knew, was still on his recent meeting with the Chara. He brought himself back to his surroundings with an effort and said, "What dirty mission does the captain have planned for you?"

"I really don't know," I replied. "Do you suppose that he has called us both here so that we can work together on—"

"Lieutenant!" It was the voice of Radley's orderly; Carle and I both looked his way. "Lieutenant Carle," the orderly clarified. "Oh, and you might as well go in as well, Lieutenant Adrian. The captain is expecting you."

Carle raised his eyebrows at me, then stepped aside and allowed me to enter the tent first. I took advantage of his offer, and that was my first mistake. Perhaps it was my last one too; I don't think I could have changed anything that happened afterwards.

As I entered the tent, I realized my mistake from Radley's expression. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. By the time that Carle entered, though, Radley's expression had taken on a curious blankness, the sort of look he usually reserves for distinguished but not high-ranked visitors to the headquarters. "Ah, Lieutenant Carle," he said, fingering the document in front of him. "I have a message that needs to be taken over to the Great Council's quarters. It is highly confidential, so I am depending on you to see that it reaches the right person. You are to give it to the council clerk and wait for an answer. No doubt," he added, spreading his lips in a thin smile, "you can find ways to occupy yourself while awaiting the reply."

The slight twitch of Carle's dagger hand revealed his thoughts, but he said no more than, "Yes, sir," and took the sealed letter from Radley.

I carefully avoided Carle's eye, lest he make the mistake of exchanging glances with me. The way that Radley had failed to acknowledge my presence while Carle was there told me that trouble was coming. And in fact Carle had no sooner left than Radley's eyes narrowed once more. His voice growing thin and unpleasant, he said, "I see, lieutenant, that you have taken it upon yourself to elevate your rank to such a degree that you not only precede those senior to you but you also enter a captain's tent unannounced. I congratulate you on your advancement."

I remained silent, not wishing to reveal the orderly's error in allowing me entrance. Radley drummed his fingers on the table as he squinted at me. Then he said, "Well, Koretian spy, I have been going through your records, and I see that your multitudinous talents have been wasted in one respect."

He was obviously waiting for a response, so I asked, "In what way, sir?"

"Why, here we have a spy whose greatest value – I might say your only value, but I do not want to be prejudiced – is your ability to assimilate into Koretian life. Yet it appears that Captain Wystan never took full advantage of this fact and sent you back to your own village."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again at Radley's look. He continued, "I hear from other spies that there has been considerable unrest in Mountside and its neighboring villages because of the recent fighting in the borderland. I want to know whether the Jackal has been to Mountside recently. You are to go to your village, find some old acquaintance there, and uncover this information. It is an easy and quick mission, so I will expect you to report here seven days from now – eight at the most. You are dismissed."

After a while, he looked up from his papers again and said sharply, "I said that you were dismissed, lieutenant."

"Sir, may I have permission to speak?"

"No, you may not. I have this" – he indicated the pile of papers on his desk – "to get through before noonday, when I am to meet with the subcommander. If you have any questions about your mission, you may ask my orderly."

"Sir—" My voice was so dry that I had to stop to swallow, and this gave Radley time to cut me off.

"Lieutenant," he said, his voice thinning to a whine, "I know that you have a difficult time understanding orders, but this one is clear enough: Leave."

I swallowed again and said rapidly, "Sir, I am sorry, sir, but I really must speak. I have additional information that may affect my ability to complete the mission, sir."

There was a long pause in which the loudest noise in the tent was my heart, which sounded like a Marcadian war drum. Then Radley said, "Very well. Make it short."

I knew he would not stand for a long explanation, so I tried to compress a month's worth of lessons about Koretian customs into two sentences. "Sir, when I left the village, I broke a blood vow I had made to my family. In the eyes of my people, I am god-cursed, and because of that, there is not a man in the village, not even my own father, who would not capture me the moment he saw me and turn me over to the priest for execution."

Radley looked at me through thin-slitted eyes. "I see. Well, lieutenant, I will offer you a choice. Either you go on this mission as ordered, or you can deliver to the army court summoners my request for your summoning on the charge of disobedience to an army official. Such a charge would be entered into your records and, if you were found guilty by the army judge, you would be sentenced to up to thirty lashes. Which action do you prefer to take, lieutenant?"

It was a warm day, and the sun streamed in brightly through the tent flap, but the day suddenly seemed very cold and dark. Almost, I thought, I could be sitting in a cave, watching snow whirl to the ground. And if that were the case, I would be listening to myself speak certain words that were more powerful than any blood vow.

"I will obey your orders, sir," I heard myself say.

A smile crept onto Radley's face. "I knew that you were lying," he said.

"Sir?"

"I was testing you, Koretian spy; you fell right into my trap." Radley leaned back in his chair, folding his hands together in a satisfied manner. "I do not know what your true reason is for not wanting to return to your home, and I do not care. You had your chance to tell me the truth. I know that what you said was a falsehood, because if you really feared for your life, you would not be scared at the idea of being beaten instead."

I felt a painful hollowness in my chest, as though a great weight of stone was lying upon my ribs. I knew that it would be of no use to speak further, but I said, "I was telling the truth, sir. I just do not wish to disobey your orders."

"I am sure that you can come up with an explanation for what you did." Radley leaned forward again and took up his pen. "I have no intention of wasting my morning listening to your pathetic Koretian deceits. I am finished with you, lieutenant. You may go."

"Yes, sir." I doubt that he heard me; my voice came out as no more than a whisper this time. I turned and walked stiffly to the tent entrance; then I looked back. Pulling my dagger from its sheath, I held it flatwise against my face for a moment before sheathing it once more. Radley did not look up.

o—o—o

Four hours later, Carle said, "By the law, I'm glad that you're still here. I thought that you would have left me by now."

I didn't look up as he sat down next to me, both of us leaning back against the exterior of the inner palace wall. My eyes were fixed on a mountain near the horizon. I said, "Do you think that you'll be buried in your family's graveyard, Carle?"

"I expect so. What makes you ask?"

"I was thinking that must be nice, to have your whole body in a place of rest like that. I like it better than the Koretian custom of burning bodies."

"What gloomy thoughts for a beautiful day! Here, have this to cheer you."

I took the bag automatically from his hands; then I saw what I was holding and was startled out of my thoughts. "Where in the name of the dead Charas did you get these, Carle?"

Carle chuckled as I stared down at the nuts. "That's what took me so long: I was driving a long, hard bargain with a Daxion merchant at the city market. I managed to bring him down to a price that did not deplete all my savings. No, keep them," he said as I began to hand them back. "They're for you – they're a birthday present."

I gave him a blank look.

He misinterpreted my look and laughed. "Did you think I'd forgotten what day it is? I remembered you had said that you'd like to try Daxion nuts some time. Look, are you headed back to Koretia on a mission?"

"Yes," I said faintly.

"Good!" Carle laid his arm over my shoulders. "Because I have news that I want our old unit to hear. I'll tell you first, of course, but I'd rather tell you when we reach the patrol – or rather, when they reach us. They've grown so good, I doubt that even you or I could slip by them if we were trying to break our way into Emor."

"Well," I said, my gaze returning to Carle's home near the horizon, "you don't have to do that. You can return to Emor any time you want."

"Your command of the Emorian tongue is slipping, lieutenant – watch the number of your pronouns. Come on!" Carle jumped to his feet. "Let's start back, and you can tell me all about your new mission."

I stood up, my look lingering on the northern Emorian view. "I'll tell you tonight," I said. "We can exchange confidences, and then we can try those nuts and see whether they're as good as they're supposed to be. Thank you for buying them for me."

"I'd thought of waiting till next year, when I'll have more money," said Carle, springing down the hillside ahead of me. "But then I thought, Why wait? Life is too short. —Adrian, you're becoming slow in your old age; I'll race you to the gate."

I watched him for a moment, leaping forward with his light, smooth rhythm. Then I began to run also, and in the end, I beat him to the goal.

o—o—o

It was an odd journey to the mountains that day. I remained silent most of the time, but Carle scarcely noticed. He was chatting away about rank, about even the least important men in the empire contributing to the empire's welfare. It was the sort of topic we had discussed many times before, and I wondered what had brought the subject fresh to his mind. In an odd way, I found his words comforting, especially when he said, "You know, even the smallest duty is worth fulfilling. You never know how a tiny job you do will link itself up in such a way that you bring glory to the Chara and his law."

I nodded, unable to trust myself to speak.

Quentin, though, did not need speech to read me. He was on his way out with the night patrol when we arrived, so he would ordinarily have done no more than exchange a greeting with me, but I saw his gaze rest on me as Carle began to offer the others his friendly insults about how lax they had become in their performance since our departure. After a minute, Quentin said, "May I have a word with you, lieutenant?"

I nodded, and he waved ahead the remainder of the night patrol, taking me outside of the hut to stand by the tunnel. Nearby, the day patrol was starting to build a fire.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked without preliminary.

My head had been slightly bowed – I told myself that this was only in order to keep my eye on my step – so that my gaze rose with what must have been a sudden jerk. For a moment I stared at Quentin; then I realized that he had no more than a vague notion that I was in trouble.

Well, he was only a lieutenant, and we were not even under the command of the same captain. Telling him would do no good, but would only distress him. "I don't think so," I replied. "It's something I'll have to deal with alone, I think."

Quentin tilted his head. Even at this moment, his eyes were scanning the horizon, and I knew that he was hearing more than I was. "Can Carle help?"

I stared at the ground again. "I'm not sure."

Quentin turned his head suddenly, and a moment later there came the low sound of a whistle rising, then falling again. Quentin lightly touched the hilt of his sword and began to slide away from my side. Then he stopped and placed a hand on my arm. "Ask him," he advised quietly. "I know he'll help you if he can." He paused, unsheathed his sword, and saluted me. "Good hunting."

With no more sound than a soft breath, he was gone.

Carle was over by the fire, beckoning to me. As I came forward, he showed me two flasks. "Wall-vine or wild-berry?" he asked with a quirk of a smile.

I wondered whether, if I asked for wild-berry, he would be startled out of his obliviousness. "Wall-vine, please," I said, and took the flask he offered me.

The others were sitting on the rocks within the hollow, but Carle gestured me closer to the fire, where we would not be heard over the fire's rumble. The nut bag was awaiting us there. I picked it up and handed it to Carle, saying, "You first."

Carle rustled around in the bag until he had found a nut that satisfied him. He cracked and peeled off the shell, popped the meat of the nut into his mouth, and chewed on it for a while, his face adopting a look of careful judgment.

"Well?" I said.

"Fairly good. In fact," he added with a grin, "if I had a nobleman's income, I might want to eat these all the time. Now you."

He offered the bag to me, but I shook my head, saying, "Let the others eat their share. I'll take whatever is left."

"Generous man," commented Carle, claiming another few nuts out of the bag. "You'll regret it, you know. Hold a bit—" He got up and went over to where the others were sitting.

I stayed where I was, staring at the tongue-red flames before me. For some reason, it was the thought of fire that bothered me most – having my corpse burnt, being eaten by the Jackal. Then another thought came into my mind: perhaps they wouldn't wait until I was dead before they brought the fire. This had all begun with a young man burning alive; perhaps they would consider it fitting to end it that way as well.

I huddled my arms around my knees. The autumn winds had already begun in the mountains, and I was without a cloak. Not fire, I thought. Please, not fire. Let it end with a blade.

A shadow fell over me: it was Carle, standing above me with a wine flask in his hand.

"So tell me about this mission," he said, settling himself beside me again.

I hesitated. He was smiling so easily that I did not want to see that expression end yet. "Tell me your news first," I said. "Does it have to do with your visit to the council quarters?"

He nodded. "By the law-structure itself, what a place! We didn't see the half of it when we sneaked in last time. We didn't even see the law library."

"The library?" I said in an automatic manner, fiddling with my flask as something to do. "The council has books, then?"

"Books! By the wisdom of the Charas, Adrian, you have never seen so many books in your life! They told me to wait in the library when I first arrived there, and I had the place to myself. I was just trying to figure out whether the Chara would place me under the High Doom if I touched any of the books when in walked a man – one of the council workers, I assumed – and asked me what my favorite law was."

"Just like that?" Somehow, I managed a smile.

"Just like that, no preliminary. I figured that, in a place like the Chara's palace, this was as conventional a greeting as asking a person's name. So I told him, of course, that the Law of Vengeance was my favorite, and we talked for a while about why, and we exchanged bits of gossip about the latest law cases, and we even discussed the tutoring I'd received from Fenton, and what fine handwriting he had, and it took me an entire hour to figure out why the man named Godfrey was asking me all these questions."

My mouth slid open. I think I had entirely forgotten everything but the tale I was hearing. "Carle!" I said. "You don't mean—!"

"Fool, fool, fool!" Carle slapped his forehead three times, grinning broadly. "As though I hadn't made enough of a fool already with the Chara, I had to go and make a fool of myself with the High Lord! I can't imagine why he decided I was worth it in the end."

"Worth what?" I practically toppled Carle over, grabbing his tunic. "Carle, what did he want?"

"Oh, nothing important." Carle suddenly looked sheepish. "A council scribe suddenly quit, without warning, and the council has a new set of documents that need to be scribed this week, and not enough scribes with which to do it— Adrian, you're strangling me!"

"I knew it!" I flung my arms around him. "I knew that you'd end up working for the Great Council!"

"For love of the Chara, Adrian, it's only a scribe's job." Carle's face had turned deep red, and he was avoiding my eye. "A tremendous honor for someone such as myself, of course, but I'm the lowest of the low. —No, no, listen, here's the important part. I assume that the Chara must have mentioned me to the High Lord – how else would he have learned of my existence? – and I suppose that I must have chatted on endlessly about you as well, because the first thing the High Lord said after he offered me the job is that he wants you working for the council as well! He said the only reason he didn't hire you this week was because Captain Radley said he was about to send you out on an important mission, but the next time a scribe's job is open, the High Lord will offer it to you. Isn't this wonderful, Adrian?"

I was silent, all of my joy doused by the cold water of my memory. The Chara, yes – he had no doubt played a role in my hiring, but it was likely that the High Lord remembered me and Carle because of the conversation Lord Godfrey and I had held in the council chamber. Because of Carle's arrest, I had never given Carle more than a brief summary of that talk.

I remembered the High Lord saying, "A lover of the law, are you?" And I had replied, "I try to be, High Lord."

How could I go to the High Lord and say, "I am a law-lover, but I refused to follow my official's order because I feared for my life"?

Carle hadn't noticed my silence. "Just think of it, Adrian. You won't have to stay a scribe forever. There are opportunities for elevation within the council. You can rise in rank, and someday – someday, I swear, you'll sit in the chamber of the Great Council. Someday you'll be a council lord."

I said nothing. Across the fire, the day-patrol guards chatted and laughed. An autumn wind made its way down from the cold mountain peaks and sent me shivering.

Carle, nudging my hand with the wine-flask, said, "Here, drink up. You look cold. What was your news? I know that it will be an anti-climax to mine, but still . . ."

I stared down at the mouth of the wine-flask. "You already heard the news. I'm being sent on a mission. Carle . . . do you remember how, last year, we talked about the possibility of doing one last mission together?"

"Mm?" Carle was peering at the guards, who were playing tug-of-battle with the bag of nuts. "Yes, I remember. It's a shame we never did that."

"I don't suppose . . . I don't suppose you could do it now? For this one last time?"

"Adrian, I'm sorry." There was genuine regret in Carle's voice as he turned his attention back to me. "I'd like to, but the High Lord made clear that the only reason he's hiring me is that he needs a scribe right away. Otherwise, I'm sure, he would have given the job to you or some other worthy candidate." He squeezed my shoulder. "You know I'd go if I could. What's the mission? Something filthier than usual?"

I opened my mouth. I still don't know what I would have said. But at that moment, Fowler appeared at my elbow. "Here you are, Adrian. We saved the last for you, so that you could have one more." He slipped away.

"One more? One more?" Carle bounded to his feet. "You cursed thieves, what do you mean, gobbling up Adrian's birthday present? I will hand you over to the Chara's torturers personally—!"

He left my side, roaring like a mountain cat in heat. I didn't watch to see how the guards reacted. My eye was on the fire, leaping and crackling.

If I told Carle the truth, I thought, he would either come to Koretia with me, or he would go to the Chara and risk angering our ruler with tales about Radley. Either way, he would likely lose his chance to work for the council.

So telling Carle was not an option. But what options did I have? I could go to the Chara myself. I tried to imagine explaining the entire history of Koretia's blood feuds to a man who had ordered that a feud victim be delivered to his murderers. The Chara, as Carle had once told me, was human. In all likelihood, the Chara would be so angered by my refusal to follow his brother-in-marriage's orders that he would order my dismissal from the army.

Did it matter? Was it of any importance whether I was regarded with dishonor by the Chara? Wasn't that better than losing my life in order to gain information that would probably make no difference to Emor?

I heard myself then, saying in the cave, The best path to take is to obey orders, even if it seems that Emor will receive no reward for our sacrifices.

A log fell in the fire, sending up sparks of fire, like the Jackal's eyes. I pulled out the lone nut left in the bag. Three years, I thought. I had served the Chara for only three years. Surely I was born for more than this? Surely, as Carle believed, I was meant to climb to higher paths in life? Was it right for me to deprive the Chara of my gifts, simply in order to fulfill my oath of obedience to the Chara?

"We can never know the full consequences of disobeying orders," Carle had said as we sat in the cave. I thought of that: saw my disobedience rippling forth, destroying my honor, destroying Carle's work, destroying the reputations of Quentin and Wystan, who had trained me.

And against that— What? What reward lay in dying as a dog does? What was this thing called "sacrifice" that I had spoken of so lightly on so many occasions, when balanced against the pain and horror of death?

The nut was warm in my hand. The sparks flew upwards. I curled my palm around the nut. God of Judgment, I prayed, I have only the judgment of a mortal man. I am neither god nor High Judge. If you ever loved me – if I ever served you, as either god-lover or as cousin – help me to know whether I have made the right decision.

I threw the nut above the fire. It cracked, clear and clean.

The relief swept over me like cool air on a summer's day. I was not such a child any more as to believe that I could receive a sign from the god by hurling a nut into the fire. But the feeling of relief when the nut cracked before it reached the flames told me all that I needed to know. I had made the right decision. I knew that this was what I should do.

"Thank you, Jackal," I whispered.

I became aware that someone was standing next to me. I turned my head and saw Carle, staring down at me with puzzlement in his face. "Why did you throw the nut into the fire?" he asked.

I looked back at the fire. "For good luck," I said, and felt the pain again, still present under the relief.

I heard him pull in his breath. In another moment, I think, he would have spoken. Perhaps, if he had asked me to explain, I would not have been able to hide my secret from him. He was too skilled at being able to read men's thoughts.

But at that moment, Devin appeared on our side of the fire. "Lieutenants, we were wondering whether the two of you would be willing to join us in a game of Law Links. We could use your skills." He smiled at me, and I knew that this was the guards' attempt to apologize for having eaten nearly all the nuts.

"All right," I said. "Carle?"

He was looking uneasy, sensing, I think, that more lay here on this night than he had been aware of before. But Devin was already drawing me away, so he nodded and followed me over to where the guards sat, waiting anxiously to see whether I would forgive them for their unintentional greediness.

I knew only three of them: Devin and Levander and Fowler. Payne was killed by a breacher nine months ago, not long after he and I made our peace together over the misunderstanding about the attack on Quentin. When the news arrived of his death, I'd been grateful that our last conversation had been a good one.

Now I sat down on the guards' side of the fire, while Carle announced his news, and all of the guards raised their cups to toast Carle and me for our good fortunes. I thought Devin was watching me rather closer than usual, but I must have passed muster with him, for as soon as the toasts were over, he launched us into the game. I sat silently, listening to the exchange of links, and feeling the questions I had asked before tumble unanswered in my mind, except for the most important one: what I should do.

Finally, I became aware that the link had been passed to the man next to me. Carle paused to take a sip of the fire-warmed wine, then turned to me, and with the steady gaze that he used when he was challenging me to the limits of my power, he said, "'And being as it is gravest of all—'"

"Too hard, too hard!" called out Fowler. "Give him an easier one, lieutenant. It is not fair to make him recite one of the Great Three when he has only been learning the law for three years."

"He is up to the test," Carle announced calmly as he handed me the wine. "The final subsection. 'And being as it is gravest of all that anyone should attack the manhood of the Great Chara—'"

"'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or enslavement or the high doom.'" I took a deep breath and leapt to the end of the Justification to the Law of Vengeance: "'For it is yet another of the Chara's burdens that he should at all times be prepared to sacrifice himself for the sake of the people. And this he must be willing to do whenever the task is required, whether in the day or in the night, whether in Emor or in foreign lands, whether in old age or in youth. For the land cannot endure unless its High Judge be willing to give all that he has to it, even if he should be required to sacrifice his body or his spirit or his life's blood. And in this respect also the Emorian people—'"

I paused, and in the silence that followed I could hear nothing but the crackle of the fire. The night patrol's whistles had long since died out; the hunted had been captured. Carle was watching me with a faint smile, and as I met his eyes, I felt all the fear and unhappiness in me drain away. Whatever I could have contributed to Emor, I thought, Carle will do for me, and he will do it far better than I could have done. That link will remain after I am gone.

I took a final sip of the wine and felt it warm my blood. Then I smiled and handed the bottle back to Carle, saying, "Complete the link."

I think Carle realized that I knew the rest of the passage, and that I only wanted to give him the pleasure of reciting his favorite law. His smile deepened, and he kept our gazes bound together as he said, "'And in this respect also the Emorian people are an embodiment of the law, for, like the Great Chara, they too may be called upon at any time to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the land. This is the way, above all, that they demonstrate their love and obedience to the Chara and his law. And it is only through their willingness to make such a sacrifice that the people receive true peace from the Lawmaker.'"

For one moment more, our eyes remained linked. Then Carle turned the chain; facing Levander he said, "'And being as it is gravest of all that anyone should be disobedient to the Great Chara—'"

There was a general hooting and protest. "We will be making this chain forever if you do not pick shorter links, lieutenant," said Devin.

"All right, all right," Carle responded, laughing. "Here is an easier one. "'And being as it is more grave that a soldier should be disobedient to his official—'"

"'—the sentence for such a crime shall be mercy or reprimand or beating,'" said Levander. "'For however small an order it may be that the soldier is given, his obedience is necessary in all things, firstly so that he shall serve as a model for the people's unswerving obedience to the Chara . . .'"

I rose, unnoticed by anyone except Carle, who was still listening to Levander recite the Justification to the Law of Army Obedience and who therefore acknowledged my departure with no more than a smile and a nod. Since Carle was watching, I took out my blade and held it over the fire for a moment. Then, when no one was looking my way any more, I tossed the dagger into the bushes where I had once hid and started to walk away.

When I reached the edge of the firelight, I looked back. Levander had stumbled on some minor words, and Carle, to much laughter, was demonstrating how that tiny change could cause a disastrous imbalance of judgment in the court. I stood awhile, listening as Carle's words relinked the broken chain and the recital passed to a new man, but Carle did not look my way, so I turned finally and walked back into the darkness.

POSTSCRIPT

Forty-four years have passed since the final words of this journal were written, and during all that time, I have never had the courage to look through this manuscript, fearing what it would reveal about me. For the last images I retain of this time have been hard enough for me to endure over the years. There is the image of the two of us sitting by the mountain fire while I babbled on about my good fortune, and Adrian sat in unusual silence. There is the image of me standing several days later in Captain Radley's tent, where I had been summoned back from my new work to search for a missing spy, and where I had the cold satisfaction of seeing Radley turn pale as I told him what he had done, and paler still as I recited to him the charges I intended to place against him.

But the last image of all, the one I have tried most to erase, is the one that remains most vivid: the moment when I knelt by Adrian and closed his eyes, then lifted him into my arms for the start of his journey home. The blood from his throat had dried by then; he made no mark on me.

But of course in another sense he made a very great mark, and as he had guessed would happen, it is through me that he continues to contribute links to the chain we both revered. Looking back on his words now, I can see how, even in my small roles over the years, I have taken what he said and did, and used it to bring about great changes in high matters.

Because Adrian was who he was and because I knew him, Koretia became a dominion of Emor twenty-six years ago. Because of Adrian, Koretia regained its independence eleven years ago, retaining the Emorian courts but rejecting the Emorian view of the gods. Because of Adrian, the Jackal now sits on the Koretian throne, serving as High Judge and High Priest, and combining Emorian law with Koretian religion in a way which I will never understand but which would have pleased Adrian.

Whether or not he now dwells with his gods, I cannot help but believe that Adrian is still alive through what he has given to Emor and Koretia. Because of this, I no longer dread to visit his tomb in my family's graveyard. Though those last, terrible images will always remain, I now have another image to set beside them: that of a young Koretian-born Emorian, sharing my wine and smiling as he offered his small but golden link to the chain of the law.

Completed on the first day of September in the 987th year after the giving of the law, by Carle, High Lord of the Great Council of Emor.

o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Blood Vow ===

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flower can say – here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable descriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrection to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. . . .

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Blood Vow 1

THE GODS' LAND

CHAPTER ONE

I had searched half the mountainside before I found him where I did not expect him, sitting in the window of the gods' house. I had come to tell him, in the cheerful manner boys have, that our world was about to be destroyed. My announcement came true sooner than I would have expected, and that was the day when I lost all that was dear to me and was forced to hide within a mask I later found I could not remove. I remember that day most clearly, though, because it contained the moment at which I first placed myself under the care of a master who was already present but whom I did not yet know.

I stood for a long time, looking up from the steep slope below the gods' house, unable to believe what I saw. To a stranger from a foreign land, perhaps, the sight would have seemed quite ordinary. The window in which he sat was low and broad, like all Koretian windows, though otherwise the building was unlike those in our capital nearby. Like the modern priests' house, this ancient house of worship was made of stone, a building material that always seemed odd to my eyes, living as I did in a city of timber-and-plaster homes. The trees that covered the north side of the mountainside – and covered every bit of Koretian countryside, as far as I could tell from my mountainside perch – obscured most of the crumbling facade, but I could tell that some pious and very brave man had decided in recent centuries to restore the wooden door at the building's entrance.

I stood a while in indecision. I was brave, but I would not ordinarily have been foolhardy enough to trespass on the gods' forbidden territory. The figure in the window, though, was a challenge to me, and since I never allowed him to go unprotected into danger, I decided that if the gods were going to strike him down for his deed, they would have to confront me first.

I raced up the mountainside, waiting until the last minute to dodge each tree, simply for the thrill of the danger. Then I stopped at the entrance and cautiously opened the door.

A corridor ran left and right of me, well lit from the summer afternoon sun casting forth its glow through the corridor's windows. Whichever man had restored the entrance door had also taken the trouble to restore the doors to the priests' cells, but several of these were open. As I walked by, I peered in boldly to see what I would find. I was disappointed to discover that the windowless rooms were not much different from those in the present-day priests' house. Oh, small differences existed. A tiny hole was cut in the ceiling of each room, just above a shallow pit for the central fireplace. These cells, I had been told in the past, did not possess the modern hypocausts that Emorian engineers had installed in the priests' house the year before, which had caused half the city pilgrims to cease visiting the house during the installation, lest they be contaminated by contact with our enemy. The only other objects in this cell were a small stone ledge against the wall, which could serve as a table, and a man-sized stone slab on which one could place a pallet. This made the gods' house look luxurious in comparison with the unfurnished cells of the priests' house, lower below on the mountainside.

I had dulled my curiosity concerning the house's appearance – and incidentally sharpened my courage, since this did not seem to be so mysterious a building after all. I swaggered my way down to the left end of the corridor and paused at the open entrance to a large chamber.

This must have been the sanctuary in ancient times, but the altar had long since vanished, and all that was left were warped, wood-lined walls and the windowseat opposite the door. Though not the type of boy who was granted visions from the gods, I could nonetheless imagine vividly the room as it must have looked in the old days: priests in hooded brown robes surrounding the altar where the goat was bound, while over the sacrificial victim was poised a dagger held by the priest who spoke for the god. No – I corrected myself – for I had heard about the fearsome nature of the ancient rites. The priest was the god, taking on the god's powers for the length of the ceremony.

Then the vision vanished, and all that I could see was a boy sitting in a windowseat, staring intently at nothing I could see.

John was in his tenth year at this time, two years older than me. Our age difference had caused no breach between us – indeed, I was usually the leader of our expeditions, decreeing with the imperiousness of a king what we would do and how we would do it. John almost always meekly complied with my orders. The "almost" was a qualification I preferred not to think about, for his infrequent refusals invariably came with such composed self-assurance that I was the one who ended up feeling foolish.

He was dressed in the shapeless brown tunic that was worn by all of the orphan boys at the priests' house, which made me grateful for my own single, leaf-green tunic, lovingly woven by my mother, who managed to keep both of us alive by selling her weaves. Clipped at the left side of his belt, nearly hidden in the shadow of his body, was the leather sheath of his dagger. If I had been wearing such a dagger, I would have found it hard to keep my hands off it, but his own hands were loosely wrapped around his knee-bent legs, while his head was tilted back against the post of the window. He was looking at something, but the object of his witness was not in this room.

I felt a pang of loneliness bite into me, as I often did when John departed from me in this way. Without thinking about what I was doing, I reached my left hand toward the slingshot at my belt while my right hand dipped into my belt pouch for one of the smooth stones I stored there. For one glorious second I lined my shot toward John's head; then, at the last moment, I turned the aim of the sling and let the pebble fly.

The stone passed closer than I had intended, missing John's face by a hand's length. His body did not move, but he turned his head, startled out of his vision. Then he saw who sent the shot, and his expression relaxed.

"You'll kill somebody one of these days," he said soberly.

I laughed as I skidded my way up to where he was sitting. He gestured me onto the windowseat, as though this were his own house, and I said, landing with a bounce, "I wanted to see whether you would draw that dagger of yours."

A smile eased its way onto his face then, and he looked at me with open affection. "Not against you," he said.

His smile had a way of lighting up even his eyes, which otherwise looked solemn under his straight eyebrows. Like nearly all Koretians, he had dark hair and brown skin – light brown, since neither of us yet had the dark skin acquired after years of living under the scorching southern sun. But his eyes, rather than being brown or hazel, were completely black, like those of a mountain cat that is staring hard at its prey. Tbe color always made it difficult for me to tell what he was looking at, and they made even more irritating his tendency to withdraw from conversation and stare at visions I could not share.

"John," I said, "why do you bother to carry a free-man's weapon if you're never going to use it?"

"It is dedicated to the Unknowable God, as I am," replied John. "My parents didn't leave any note with me telling the priests which god they wished to dedicate me to, but they did leave the dagger, so that must mean something. It's up to me to discover which god I'm meant to serve. Besides," he added, more to the point, "I might need the dagger for a blood vow."

I stared at the weapon hungrily and felt my palms begin to tingle. "May I hold it?" I asked.

I knew what his answer would be, but as always, he made me wait while he silently assessed my face. Then he carefully slid the blade out of its sheath and offered it to me, hilt first.

I took it tightly into my right hand, feeling the rough leather bands press patterns against my palm. The dagger was made of a single piece of iron; John had wrapped the hilt in blackened leather so that he could hold the dagger more securely. Now he folded his arms on top of his knees and watched as I leapt back onto the floor, thrusting the dagger at an imaginary opponent. For several minutes I practiced the lunges and feints and guards that the boy in the house next to mine had taught me during the previous year. In turn, I had taught those same movements to John as fair payment for the lessons he was giving me in how to perfect the Emorian and Daxion I'd picked up from travellers, as well as learning the older version of the Emorian tongue, used only in the imperial law documents and chronicles. Thus John now knew how to defend himself as well as any city boy, and I knew the languages of the Three Lands as well as any learned priest.

John was still watching me closely, so I reluctantly returned the weapon to its owner, saying, "I wish I had a blade like that."

"Why don't you?" John asked, slipping the dagger back into its sheath. "The priests don't like to see me carrying a dagger, but that's because I'll be an unarmed priest some day. There's no reason a boy your age shouldn't own a free-man's weapon. Can't your mother afford to buy you one?"

I sat down again, curling my legs up against my chest and resting my chin on my knees. "I asked her for a dagger last year. She said she didn't want me to carry a blade because I was too much like my father, unable to control my bloodthirst. She was afraid I would end up like him."

"But that sort of thing happens all the time," said John in a matter-of-fact manner. "Some Emorian soldiers who are escorting an ambassadorial party swagger into a tavern as though they've already conquered this entire land, they boast about how the Chara's armies will defeat the Koretian army, and the next you know there's a fight. Your father isn't the first soldier to lose his life in a sword-duel with the Emorians."

"It's more than that . . . ." I hesitated, my gaze firmly fixed now on a blood-fly that was crawling up John's leg. John would always ignore such attacks, as he would rather allow a small portion of his blood to be drained than to kill a creature without need. I felt my face grow warm, but John said nothing, and I knew that if I spoke of something else, John would never raise this subject again, never probe for my secret. So I said in a low voice, "My mother told me how my father really died. He was killed by an Emorian soldier, like I'd always been told, but not because they had been duelling. The soldier was exacting vengeance. My father had already killed another Emorian, one of the army clerks. The man was unarmed."

A light breeze leapt in through the window, blowing aside the fly that had just found its drinking-spot, and providing the first and last relief that day from the heavy, muggy heat. John said softly, "I'm sure the gods forgave him for that."

"I hope so," I whispered. Unable to bear my feelings, I jumped up and whirled my way into the corner of the room, where some of the ancient wood panelling was beginning to crumble. "Speaking of the gods' forgiveness, what sort of punishment do you suppose the gods will give us for invading their house?"

John shook his head as he unhurriedly rose from the windowseat. "I asked Lovell whether I could come here, and he said that only superstition kept people from visiting. He said that of course I must show reverence here, as I do at the priests' house, but that the gods won't strike down any pious person who comes here seeking their peace."

"Is that why you came here?" I asked, dancing my way around the perimeter of the room like a bird doing a mate-dance. "Just for peace? I would think you'd have enough of that in your monotonous life at the priests' house. Look at what your day's like! Up at dawn, worship, spend the morning with Lovell studying languages and healing and priests' rites, worship again, spend half your afternoon working in the crafts shop, and then spend a few hours free here on the mountainside or, if you're very good and study hard, maybe visit me down in the city. And after all that, there's more worship and more time spent reading books before you go to bed at midnight. Is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life?"

John bowed his head and scuffed the floor with his sandal, sending sun-specked bits of dust spiralling upwards like tiny beads of flame. He said softly, "I think I'd be a good priest,"

"You'd be good at anything you did," I replied firmly. "You're skilled with your dagger – why don't you become a soldier like me, so that we can fight the Emorians together? That way, we'd never have to part."

John raised his head slightly, tilting it so that one eye peered up at me. "Actually, I'd been thinking about that today – about how we could find a way to see each other when we came of age. You'd be off travelling with the army most of the time, and I'd be busy offering sacrifices to the gods, so I thought it would be nice if we had a place all to ourselves that we could stay in whenever you visited the city."

"A house, you mean?" I said idly.

"Well, sort of a house." He leaned back against the wall and looked at me steadily with his night-black eyes.

I grasped his meaning in an instant and halted my roaming. "John! We couldn't— I mean, wouldn't the gods be angry?"

"Why should they be angry?" John replied calmly. "It's not as though the priests or other people worship here any more. If I were a god, I'd want my house put to good use rather than have it stand empty year after year. We could fix it up so that this was a chapel where I came to worship. There's a big room at the other end of the house; I think it was both a dormitory and a kitchen at one time, but it would be a perfect place for you to practice your blade-play."

"That's a strange pairing of activities," I said, laughing.

"Well, we're a strange pair. Besides, the gods are like that as well, both fierce and merciful. Look at the Jackal."

I bit my lip but could not keep a smile from creeping onto my face. "What is it?" John asked uneasily.

"Would you like to meet a god?" I replied, battling to keep myself from bursting with the news.

"Of course," he said with the serene confidence of a boy who had grown up amidst the terrifying rites of the priests. "Actually— It's silly, really." He began kicking his foot against the floor again.

"No, tell me," I urged.

He turned his head so that his face was shielded from the burning midsummer sky-blaze. His shadowed face turned nearly as dark as his eyes. "Actually, that's why I came here today. I suppose I'm as superstitious as the city folk, but I thought that if the gods ever visited this land, they'd come here, to their house. I thought maybe my god would be waiting for me here."

I was bouncing up and down on my toes now, unable to contain my secret any longer. "I know where to meet a god. I saw one today."

John stared at me, his eyes wide, but without the slightest mote of disbelief on his face. After a moment, he said, "The Jackal?"

I nodded, pleased that he had understood so quickly. "It must have been him – he was wearing the god's face, just like the stories say. He was dressed all in black and moved as quietly as a mountain cat. I was scared into stone," I confessed unabashedly.

"Did he speak to you?" John asked with a hushed voice.

I shook my head. "It happened in the entrance to the cave. I was just about to travel through our passage, because I thought you might be waiting for me there, but I heard somebody coming, so I hid in the passage and looked out, and there he was, slipping out of the main tunnel. He didn't look my way, but I suppose he must have known I was there. I mean, he's a god."

John tilted his head back against the wall and stared reflectively at the smoke-hole in the ceiling, located above where the altar had once stood. "Maybe not," he said hesitantly. "I asked Lovell once why the Jackal hasn't been able to drive the Emorians from Koretia. The Jackal has been in this land for twenty years, after all, and he has the god's powers. Lovell said he supposed that the Jackal must be limited in the ways he can use his godly powers, just as the gods limit the ways in which they interfere in men's lives. So perhaps the Jackal acts like an ordinary man most of the time. If that's the case, he may not have known that you were there."

"Then I'm sure he didn't know I was there," I said confidently. "I've taught myself to be quiet and stealthy – you need to know how to act that way when you're a soldier, so that you can creep up on the enemy. But don't you see? The Jackal has made his lair in the cave! If we went there, we could ask the Jackal to make us his thieves, and we could begin fighting the Emorians now, before we became men."

"But the Jackal has been up north, harassing the Emorians who have settled in the conquered portions of Koretia," John said, a frown creasing his forehead. "Why would he be here?"

"Perhaps the Emorians are going to attack the capital next," I said in a matter-of-fact manner.

John stood very still, his empty dagger-hand hanging next to his free-man's blade. Seeing his face, I said hastily, "Don't worry – if that happened, I'd protect you. I wouldn't let the Emorians kill you."

"They'd kill other people," said John in a strained voice. "They'd kill lots of people, and if the city was captured, the Emorians would win the war. People are saying that our army can't hold out any longer in central Koretia – that the only reason our subcommander is still fighting is to keep the Emorians from reaching the capital."

"Well, they won't," I said, hastily grasping for words that would reassure John and prevent him from worrying about the merciless Emorian soldiers. "I heard a trader talking last night who had just come back from the north. He said that our army is continuing to hold the Emorians back and that the Chara is furious, because he has been fighting this war for twelve years now, and his army still can't reach the capital. The Chara thought he had won the war when he killed our King last autumn, but even with no one on the throne, the King's Council has been able to keep the war going. So there's no way that the Emorians will be able to attack the city any time soon."

John's expression eased somewhat, but he said, "The Emorians could cut across the border from Daxis. There are gaps in the mountain range not far from here."

"Daxis won't allow Emor to do that," I said patiently, drawing closer to John to place a reassuring hand on his. John had been standing in the sun all this while, and his skin was moist with the sweat that clothed all of us in the south from spring to autumn. I closed my palm hard over his loose hand, as though I were wrapping my hand around a dagger hilt, and said, "Koretia has an alliance with Daxis that forbids the Daxions from allowing passage to the Emorian army. And anyway, we have border guards at the mountain gaps who would raise the alarm if the Emorians came near. So the Emorians can't attack through Daxis from the south or the west, and unless the Chara has suddenly acquired a navy, his soldiers can't attack from the eastern sea-coast. And our army is holding the Emorians back in the north. So you see, we're quite safe from being conquered by that godless ruler."

John still had misery scribed upon his face, so I added, "I heard a new joke about the Chara."

John smiled tentatively. "Tell me."

"The joke asks: Which god does the Chara worship? The answer is: Only himself."

John laughed then, a laugh I heard so rarely that I had come to welcome it like a cool breeze on a heat-snared day. He said, "I learned something about the Chara today too, during my lessons. I learned all of his titles."

"What kind of lesson is that?" I asked, moving to where I could stare through the window to the city below. From this vantage point I could see the haphazard cluster of timber houses jammed into the tight noose of the block-and-mortar city wall. Toward the south end of the city, nearest to me, was the glowing face of the Council Hall, with its cavestone-paved courtyard shining like a gold piece under the sky's fire. Tiny figures moved back and forth over it like dust specks: lords or free-servants or slave-servants, going about their appointed tasks.

"It was a lesson in memorization. Listen to this . . ." John drew a deep breath and said, "Nicholas, the Great Chara of Emor and Its Dominions, Judge of the People, Commander of the Armies, Lord of the Marcadian Mountains, Ruler of the Arpeshian Nation, Master of the Koretian Land."

"Master of the Koretian Land!" This infuriated me so much that I jerked out my slingshot and flung a missile wildly through the window at nothing in particular. A bird squawked in protest, but I could see, as it flew past the window, that it had only lost a few of its tail-feathers, so I was not disturbed.

"Master of the Koretian Land." I snorted. "The Chara will never be master to me or any other loyal Koretian, not even if he wins this war. Now that the King is dead, our land belongs only to the gods. I can't see why Lovell made you memorize such a ridiculous set of titles."

"I was asking him about the Chara," John said, staring so pointedly at my slingshot that I thrust it back under my belt. "Lovell says that the Emorian council gave the Chara that last title this spring in anticipation of the end of this war. Lovell thinks Koretia should become a dominion of the Emorian Empire – I wanted to know why."

"May the Jackal eat his dead!" I said, losing hold of my temper entirely. "How could Lovell say such a thing?"

John's breath whistled in. "You shouldn't swear such words," he said softly. "It's not wise to call down the god's vengeance without reason."

"I'm sorry," I said, instantly chastened, as I always was when John scolded me. Then, wishing to make reparation, I said, "Well, tell me – what did Lovell say?"

"He said that the Emorians would end the blood feuds – that in the conquered areas of Koretia, the Emorians have forbidden men from making blood vows to murder, and because of this, whole families aren't wiped out while fighting each other in feuds."

I creased my brow in puzzlement. "But what about when somebody breaks the gods' law and refuses to submit himself to his god's judgment? How can people avenge crimes without taking blood vows to kill the law-breaker?"

John leaned against the window jamb, folding his arms and cocking his head to one side. The long hair of his boyhood brushed against his shoulder. Already he was talking of having it cut and going through the coming-of-age ceremony several years early. Somehow I had not been surprised to learn that John was eager to become a man.

"That's what I don't understand entirely," he said. "It has to do with one of the Chara's titles: 'Judge of the People.' Apparently, in Emor, the Chara and a few other men working under him are given the right to decide whether men have broken the law and what punishment they should undergo."

"But that's awful!" I exploded. "The Chara isn't a priest – the gods don't tell him whether their laws are broken. When we take a blood vow to murder, we know that the gods will punish us if we break our vows or fulfill our vows against the wrong people, but what's to prevent the Chara from punishing the innocent or giving law-breakers harsh punishments just because he doesn't like them?"

"That's what puzzled me," John replied. "Lovell said it had to do with the law – not the gods' law, but Emorian law. But he couldn't explain to me how the Emorians have laws when they have no gods. Some day I'd like to learn more about the Emorians. Maybe they're not as evil as everyone says. Maybe our lands don't have to be fighting each other."

"That's—!" I stopped. A look of quiet stubbornness had entered into John's eyes that I recognized well. Knowing that I would not win any battle I now waged, I graciously admitted defeat. "I suppose there must be something good about the Chara and his people, or they wouldn't have conquered most of the Great Peninsula. But Daxis is still free, and so is Koretia, and we'll never let the Chara be our ruler. We don't need his law. We have our gods, and they watch over us. Like the Jackal," I added, impatiently prodding the conversation back to where it belonged.

"The Jackal," John murmured. I could see the glint of interest in his eyes.

"He'd make us his thieves, I'm sure he would," I said. "Wouldn't that be a treasuresome experience, speaking to the god and pledging ourselves to his service?"

"I wouldn't want to kill anyone," John demurred. "I'm not sure it's right to kill a man."

"I don't suppose all of his thieves kill Emorians," I said. "Armies have men who don't fight, and I imagine that the Jackal does as well. Maybe he needs doctors to tend his thieves' wounds – you're good at that, thanks to your training."

I could see enthusiasm fighting across John's face in an attempt to defeat uncertainty, so I said, "We could just ask him. If he didn't want us, we'd go away, but at least we would have the chance to talk to a god."

"Well . . ."

In that single word I read a slip into assent. I leapt toward the door, shouting, "I'll race you to the cave!" Without looking back, I darted from the sanctuary, charged out of the gods' house, and began running down the northern slope of Capital Mountain, toward the cave entrance.

o—o—o

The impact of my leather sandals striking the forest floor was the softest noise on the mountainside. That sound was cowed into submissive silence by the force of the cicadas' song, the ravens' hoarse cries, and the harrowing call of a jackal who had started his night-prowl early.

I passed a patrol on the way. The dozen soldiers were sitting on logs, chatting with each other as they ate a mid-afternoon meal. They greeted me in a friendly manner with fingers against heart and forehead, and then continued their talk.

They did not look eager to return to patrolling. I could not blame them. Because it had been centuries since the Daxion army had last invaded us, and since most Daxions who tried to breach the border did so at the gaps on either side of this mountain, the patrol guards' main duty on this mountain was to track the Jackal, who was periodically rumored to make his lair near the city. They might as well track a shadow on a moonless night.

Many minutes later, as I neared the clearing that led to the mouth of the cave, I glanced over my shoulder to see whether John was following. He was close behind, making no effort to overtake me. My brief look nearly caused me to tumble over a log, but with a crow of laughter I jumped over the obstacle, spreading my arms like wings as I soared through the air. Then, in a very few steps, I could see the cave entrance.

Like the rest of Capital Mountain, it was composed of a pale sandstone too soft to be used as building material. The main cavern, I knew, was made of a stone that glowed a soft gold – not through any power of its own, but because of the algae that grew upon it. "Jackal's fire" the algae was commonly called. Yet beneath the algae, the stone was golden as well, and reflected brightly when brought into sunlight. This golden stone had been used to construct the walls and courtyard pavement of the Koretian Council Hall, though it was so hard to remove from the cave walls that most of the glowing stone had been left in the cave where it formed.

I flung myself behind the ridge of rock that partly obscured the entrance on both sides, and then stood on tiptoe and peered over the ridge to watch John run the remaining ground with easy grace. As he reached me, I turned toward the main tunnel. After an eternity of winding, the tunnel would eventually reach the main cavern. But John caught hold of my sleeve and said, "Wait."

"Why?" I asked, trying to pull myself free. Then I saw his face and ceased to struggle.

He said quietly, "I thought about it more while we were running. The stories always say that the Jackal summons his thieves into service. I've never heard of a case where anyone came to him and begged to be taken into his service. The Jackal knows who we are and what we have to offer. If he wants us as his thieves, he'll let us know."

"But you said before that his godly powers might not tell him everything, so—" I stopped. John had made no protest at my words, nor even moved, but the look in his eyes made me feel uneasy. I said quickly, "You know best about such matters. But couldn't we just watch him?"

"Spy on the god?" John gave a relaxed smile. "You're braver than I am. I wouldn't want to face the hunting god with explanations if he caught me in such an act. Come on, let's go to the sanctuary."

I shrugged to hide my disappointment and followed John as he slipped through the boy-sized hole that was hidden in a shadow of the hollowed-out entrance area. The light-truant passage that lay beyond the hole was a shortcut to the main cavern, but we rarely used it as such. It was not safe to do so.

The land of Daxis lay to the west and southwest of Koretia, with the Daxions' capital city on the south side of the mountain. The cave – actually a series of caverns that had been carved through the mountain by men long ago – ran north-south from Koretia to Daxis.

Both lands could see the strategic importance of the cave. Both wanted the cave. Various skirmishes had taken place over the centuries to determine who claimed this territory. At present, at least in theory, the cave was divided between the two southern lands of the Great Peninsula, with guards posted in the middle to prevent crossings over the border.

It made no difference. Though the Daxion guards were skilled at keeping back genuine border-breachers, they had a tendency to turn a blind eye to men who wished to slip temporarily over the border from Daxis in order to cause trouble within the cave. As a result, Daxion troublemakers were wont to drill arrows into Koretians that they found in any part of the cave.

The Koretian border guards in this cave, frustrated at their inability to prevent a conspiracy between the Daxion border guards and the troublemakers, were rumored to have called for a larger force of guards at this border. But the attention of the King's Council had for some time been focussed on the far more important border between Koretia and Emor, which was slipping south day by day.

In the meantime, the arrow-drilling continued. So John and I would usually stop halfway down the passage in an area that John had christened the sanctuary: a small, round nook, like a bead on the string of the passage. It was located directly under a breach between the mountainside and the passage, and it therefore received a bit of the sun's light.

It was here I had first met John two years before, on a day when I discovered the passage entrance, too small for a man and therefore of interest to no one except myself. Or so I had thought, until I reached the sanctuary. Furious at finding my new hideout claimed, I had offered to fight John for possession of the site, but had been discouraged to find that he both refused to fight and refused to leave. I had therefore taken out my frustration by asserting one of my radical new beliefs – that men, like women, should marry upon coming of age, rather than waiting several years, as was customary.

My efforts to voice-duel with John were stymied, however, when I discovered he held the same view. I was further subdued when I learned he believed this, not because he wished to marry early like me, but because, as a future celibate priest, he was concerned with the welfare of the couples to whom he would minister.

Puzzled by this self-possessed boy, I had accepted his invitation to visit the priests' house. There I found that, while John was well liked by the other orphan boys, he was isolated from them by his priestly ambitions and therefore had no close friends. With the impulsiveness I inherited from both my hot-tempered father and my affectionate mother, I promptly placed John under my care, resolving to protect him against any troubles that might come his way. I explained this resolution to him immediately, not out of pride but so that he would know he had nothing further to fear. He had accepted my proclamation of mastership with quiet submission, but there had been a faint smile on his face I could not interpret.

Now, as we reached the bright, humid area of the sanctuary, John paused at the threshold with the same smile on his lips, and he whispered the words that priests speak to the gods when asking permission to enter holy ground. I waited impatiently behind him; I honored the gods, but I was not one to waste my time on customary demonstrations of respect. As the prayer reached its end, I jostled my way past him in order to kneel beside a pool of water that had collected from the morning's rain. Reaching down to dip my hands into the cool relief of the water, I paused to stare at my reflection, which I rarely saw. At the moment that I caught sight of myself, I had been chuckling inwardly at John's determination to worship the gods wherever he went, so the lines of my face were struggling to contain the laughter that poured out of my eyes and trembled upon my lips. I smashed the reflection in a gleeful assertion of my power; then I turned to look at John.

He was kneeling beside a small heap of twigs he had taken from a pile he maintained in this place. His tinderbox had been taken from his belt pouch, and he had just succeeded in sparking the flint. The kindle-light fell upon the twigs and started them smoking.

I waited until the tiny blaze was well under way and John had whispered the ritual words above his play sacrificial fire before I said, "That fire is the reason the Emorians haven't been able to conquer our land. The Jackal and the other gods aren't on the Chara's side; they would never allow the Emorians to win over us."

John, sitting cross-legged beside the fire, cupped his left hand briefly over the flame before snatching it back from the heat. "The ways of the gods are mysterious, but certainly the gods must watch over those who seek their protection. The Chara claims he can shield the Koretians against our enemies if we surrender, but the gods can protect us better than any man. Perhaps the Chara should spend less time fighting and more time building fires to the gods."

"Or building fires of any sort," I said with a laugh as I drew myself over to his side. "The reason the Chara hasn't won this war is that he doesn't know how to fight properly. What's the use of holding a battle over a town if the Chara leaves the town standing afterwards? Only a weakling would leave a town unburnt after he conquered it. No Koretian could fear an army commander who showed such mercy."

"I don't think they fight with fire in Emor," murmured John. He carefully extinguished with dust the last of the sacrificial flames, and then rose to his feet and stared with bowed head at where the fire had burnt.

I rose too and placed an arm around his waist, saying firmly, "Stop worrying. It won't happen."

John did not look my way. He said softly, "Will you promise me something? If the Emorians attack, and you're not in immediate danger, will you stay at your house? I don't want to have to search the entire city for you."

I gave him a reassuring squeeze before releasing him in order to twirl over to the opposite side of the small sanctuary. "I promise you, I'll stay where I am," I said. "If you get frightened at the priests' house, just come to me, and I'll take care of you."

John raised his head then. "It's not that. It's that people become separated in war. It could take us years to find each other again . . . and if one of us died, we'd be separated by death. We might not even recognize each other when we met again."

"That's silly," I said, speaking brusquely to cover my nervousness. "I'd know you even if we met in the Land Beyond."

"Maybe not." John pushed back a forelock of hair that sweat had plastered against his brow. "People change, you know. Maybe one day, years from now, you'll be working in the city as a soldier, and I'll have become a priest who ministers to the Emorians—"

"You wouldn't," I interrupted. "The Emorians don't worship the gods."

"Maybe they will by then. Perhaps I'll turn up at your door and speak to you with an Emorian accent because I've spent so long with the Emorians, and you won't recognize me as a result. So you'll say, 'I beg that you impart to me your name,' and I'll tell you who I am, but you won't believe me because I've changed so much, and since I work with the Emorians, you'll shut the door and refuse to welcome me into your house."

This dreadful little tale caused me to sag into such misery that I had no energy left with which to fight John's vision of the future. Watching my face, John said with the same quiet conviction, "I'll tell you what we should do. We should become blood brothers. That way, we'll always have the marks of our vows to remind us of one another, even if we never see each other again."

I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. "You didn't want to do that when I suggested it last year."

"I didn't think the time was right. I believe that you should wait for a sign from the gods before pledging your blood. You saw the Jackal today, so perhaps that's our sign. Do you remember the words?" He slid the dagger out of his sheath as he spoke.

I nodded eagerly. "Can we swear vows of service to the gods also? That would make it even better."

John was silent a moment, touching the tip of the dagger lightly with his finger. Then he said, "If we do that, I think we should offer a sacrifice. The gods have to help us keep our vows, and I don't think it would be right to ask their help with two vows unless we were willing to offer them a gift in return."

I smiled, hopping from foot to foot at the thought of making three blood vows at once. John stared beyond me for a moment, his eyes focussed at the darkness of the passage beyond. Then he placed the dagger tip against his right wrist, selected the spot that all Koretians are taught from the moment they are cradle-high, and bit the blade into his arm, digging deep enough to make a scar that would remain. As he did so, he said, "I, John, do swear unto the Unknowable God and my blood brother's god that I will show true faith of friendship toward Andrew son of Gideon, protecting him against all harm and helping him to keep his vows. I bind myself with this vow until death and beyond. I further swear that I will do all that lies within my power to bring peace to this land. In token of my willingness to obey the will of the gods . . ."

For the first time John hesitated. Then he said firmly, "I sacrifice unto the gods my desire to become a priest. If it be their will that I take up some other duty, I will do as they wish."

I stood in hushed silence, watching a flicker of pain pass through John's eyes as he offered his sacrifice. Then he smiled at me and handed me the blood-stained blade. Cutting into my left wrist with a stoic determination not to flinch, since even John had kept from doing so, I said, "I, Andrew son of Gideon, do swear unto the Jackal God and the Unknowable God that I will show true faith of friendship toward John . . ." I hesitated and looked over at John, but he gave a quick shake of the head. Unlike the other orphan boys, he had not randomly selected a patronymic, any more than he had randomly selected a god to serve. I continued, "Toward John, protecting him against all harm and helping him to keep his vows. I bind myself with this vow until death and beyond. I further swear that I will do all that lies within my power . . ." I paused. An idea had formed in my mind; rather than give myself time to doubt its wisdom, I finished quickly, ". . . to bring freedom to Koretia and to kill the Chara." I grabbed John's arm and pressed his wrist against mine so that our blood mingled and our vows were joined.

It was not until after John had gently pulled his arm away that I looked up at his face and realized what I had done. I offered him the dagger, hilt-first, and said, "You don't have to help me with that last part. That's just my own vow."

John looked at the blade without moving. "We'll have to kill the Chara To Be also."

"Who?" I asked, inwardly relieved that I would have help in fulfilling my difficult murder vow.

"The Chara's son, Lord Peter. The Emorians regard him as also being the Chara, since he's the heir."

"So we'll kill him too," I said testily, nonplussed at being burdened with a second murder. "It won't be that hard if we find them together."

"I suppose not," said John softly. "The Chara's son is only a boy."

Faintly above us, I could hear once more the eerie howl of the jackal as it closed in on its spoils. Angry at myself now for my impetuosity, I thrust the dagger forward once more and said, "Here. Clean it before the blood dries on the blade."

John searched my face with his eyes before saying, "You didn't finish the vow. You have to offer your sacrifice."

"Oh, that," I said carelessly. "I don't know what sort of sacrifice the god would like me to make, so I'll let the god choose whatever he wants. I'll give him anything I have."

John said quietly, "You ought not to make that sort of offer unless you mean it."

"I'm not afraid," I said with a laugh. I barely heard what I was saying; I was simply trying to hide my continued annoyance with myself at forcing my peacemaking friend to swear a murder vow. "I know that the god won't take anything from me that I truly need, and you may be sure I'll make good use of whatever he leaves me." I tossed the dagger into John's hands and then, since there was little room to move in the small passage, I twirled in one place like a bird caught within the vortex of a death wind.

When I finally stopped, clutching the wall to steady my dizzy body, I saw that John was smiling as he wiped the blade clean on his tunic. He said, "Let's go see the Jackal now."

"You mean it?" I bounced toward him in delight.

John nodded. "Not to offer him our service – just to tell him about our vows and how we made them because you saw him. He'll be pleased to hear that."

I did not wait for John to have doubts again but began to race down the dark passage toward the cave. I knew the passage so well that I could do this without fear of running into any obstacles. I had nearly reached the boy-sized opening that led to the final, shadowy stretch of the passage when John grabbed hold of me from behind and whispered, "Quietly! You can't burst into the god's presence like that. Pretend that you're a bottom-ranked soldier meeting your commander."

This image sobered me, so I followed John's lead as he wriggled through the hole and began walking quietly toward the golden light. Already I could hear the sound of men's voices. Before we had stepped out of the masking darkness, I stopped to stare at what lay ahead.

The glowing stone always filled the main cavern with dim light, but now the cavern was daylight-bright because a large bonfire had been built in the center of the area before us. The smoke, tickling our noses with the scent of pine needles, rose into the high ceiling, leaving the cave floor free of the dark mist.

There would hardly have been room for the smoke in any case, so close-jammed were the men. Dozens of them stood near us, all dressed in soldiers' armor and all going about their business with an efficient intensity. Their hurried yet steady movements reminded me of the visits I had made as a small child to where my father worked. There at the Koretian army headquarters I had watched soldiers burnishing their shields, whetting their blades, and securing their spearheads. Here too I could see all these activities, but with one difference. As I felt John draw close to me, I realized that he too had noted the difference: these men had skin the color of sandstone.

We had found the Emorian army.

CHAPTER TWO

It was not the entire army, of course. Most of the Emorian soldiers must still be fighting in the north, fooling our subcommander into thinking that the Koretian capital remained safe from attack. What we were seeing, at a guess, was the Chara's vanguard, the section of the army that attacks first and swiftest. Only the vanguard could make its way down Daxis quickly enough to arrive at the Daxion side of the mountain without forewarning.

Even then, if the troops attempted to circle Capital Mountain by going around its sides, the Koretian divisions left guarding the city would receive advance notice, and the Emorians would lose their element of surprise. Instead, the Emorians – having persuaded the Daxions to break their alliance with Koretia, having prepared to sneak through the back door of Koretia – had added to their cleverness by plotting to pour down the mountain by way of the cave. The head of the vanguard was already stationed here, awaiting the right moment.

All of this came to me later. At the time, I underwent only shock at the Emorians' knavish scheme and – it cannot be denied – keen pleasure at having found out their secret. I looked around at the soldiers. The rank insignia they used was familiar to me, for the colors of the cloaks and tunic borders were a universal sign within the armies of the Three Lands of the Great Peninsula. But instead of the Jackal-black uniforms that Koretian soldiers wore, these soldiers were dressed in brown, as though they were peasants or priests. It seemed an odd color for the rich land north of us to choose for its army.

I thought I glimpsed a couple of men uniformed in grey, chatting with ease with one of the Emorian lieutenants. I stared hard at the Daxion border guards, wondering what had happened to the Koretian border guards. Had the Daxion guards let arrow-armed men through to kill the Koretian border guards? Or had the Emorian army taken care of this task? Or perhaps the Daxion guards, pretending to meet with the Koretians over some routine border matter, had turned with treachery upon the other guards and had slaughtered them in a moment meant for peace.

All of these images sent a chill of thrill through me. I looked over at John, eager to exchange a grin with him, or, if this were too much to ask, at least a reassuring look. But John's eyes were still on the men before us. I followed the direction of his gaze to a single, tall soldier.

Amidst the brown tunics and black leather armor of the soldiers, this man would have stood out, if only for his peacock-proud display of colors. He wore a flame-red tunic beneath his armor, and the sword by his side glinted silver and gold. Most of the soldiers around us had reddened faces, wet with sweat – I supposed that these northerners were too frail to stand a Koretian midsummer. Despite this, the tall man was wearing a thick cloak that fell from his shoulders like a smooth fall of water and was woven in the highly impractical color of gold. There did not appear to be a single spot of dirt on the cloak, and I concluded from this, with not a little contempt, that the man's finery was not usually put to the test on the field. Like the other soldiers, however, he was wearing a thick helmet, pushed up slightly. The cheek-guards hiding the sides of his amber beard caused his eyes to stand out like bright blue sapphires upon his pale face. Above those eyes, attached to the helmet and glimmering gold, were the ruby-studded points of a diadem.

I only became aware that my breath had travelled swiftly inward when I noticed John looking my way. His eyes were sober, but he still made no gesture indicating that he wished to retreat. It was unlikely, in any case, that anyone would look our way, for the Emorians were busy with other matters: the lieutenants of each unit were issuing orders to their men, the subcaptains were checking that each unit was ready, and the captains were gathered in a cluster around their commander. He scarcely moved from where he stood, but at each sweeping movement of his arm, one of the captains would turn without a word and leave the gathering. Moments later the captain would give word to his subcaptains, the subcaptains would spread the word to their lieutenants, and within a short time, several dozen men would move – all of this the result of one man's single movement. Watching the commander, I could not help but feel that the energy of the entire vanguard was contained in each carefully controlled gesture.

"We ought to go," John whispered in my ear. "They may see us at any moment."

I frowned at him and shook my head. To my relief he did not press the issue, perhaps because he feared that the soldiers would hear him speaking. I waited until John's gaze was firmly fixed on the scene before us again, and then I let my thoughts wander to the commander. One man, directing all the destructive force around us. One man, deciding the fate of Koretia. If that one man were gone . . .

I am not sure that I thought through what I was doing. I certainly did not think as far as realizing what danger I was placing John in by my actions. I simply pulled out my slingshot, armed it with a stone, and stepped out of John's line of vision so that he would not see what I was doing. Then I lined up my shot.

It was hard to get a clear line; I did not want to chance having my shot land on the head of one of the captains. There, right on the forehead, was where I wanted the stone to land – right below the commander's royal helm. . . .

The crowd around the commander shifted slightly. There was a clear space now between him and me. I pulled the sling back . . . and at that moment the crowd shifted again, and I saw the boy.

He was facing in our direction, his head turning this way and that as he stared at the soldiers around him. He was about a year older than John, and he was wearing a shapeless brown tunic similar to John's. He wore no armor, which made him look defenseless in this setting. His hair, lit by the nearby fire, was as golden as the sun, and his eyes, which I could just see, were grey like brook-pebbles. He stared around with distinct eagerness; then he turned toward the commander and tugged at his cloak.

The commander was in mid-sentence of issuing an order. He looked down instantly as the boy said something. The boy's words did not carry as far as my ears, but he was pointing toward the Koretian entrance to the cave, and it was obvious that he was asking permission to explore further. The commander answered with a decisive shake of his head, and then turned back to his captains. The boy let go of the commander's cloak, his expression falling into disappointment, but he made no effort to argue the matter. Instead, he began walking around to each unit, ignored by the men who were feverishly preparing for battle. He stared up at the soldiers with hungry eyes, and once, when no one was looking his way, he went over and touched the commander's sword sheath lightly with his hand, as though placing his palm on a sacred object.

The hand holding my slingshot had fallen to my side; I had forgotten everything now except the yearning boy. I jumped as I felt a touch on my arm. John whispered, "Let's go now while nobody's looking this way."

I nodded without removing my gaze from the commander's boy. "You go first," I whispered back, and then was barely aware of the sound of John retreating back through the passage. The boy was coming closer. At any moment he would turn, and I would be able to see him more clearly. . . .

He turned, and our eyes met.

I felt a roaring in my ears, as though a great wind had suddenly rushed into the cave, obscuring the sounds of the army before me. I could no longer see the soldiers. All that I could see were the grey eyes, staring at me with astonishment and something more that I could not identify.

Part of me knew that I should run, but some other voice seemed to whisper in my ear, "Stay." So I stood where I was, motionless and mute, and the boy stared back at me, his eyes wide, his lips parted slightly. Then he opened his mouth.

I never learned what he was going to say. At that moment I heard a shout, and my thoughts were jerked back into awareness of the scene around me. I looked beyond the boy and saw that the commander had evidently been alerted by his son's gaze. He had seen me and was shouting orders to his captains. The boy swung his head around in response to the shouting, and as he did so, I turned, squeezed my way through the hole, and fled up the passage.

I was less afraid than I might have expected to be. I knew that the soldiers could not enter the passage, and I was sure that I would be able to escape from the cave before they arrived at the entrance. My mind was focussed on the sound of my footsteps pounding soft against the rock floor and the echo of their sound beating against the walls.

I reached the passage entrance, scrambled through the other hole, and stood listening. Faintly I could hear the sound of men shouting through the main tunnel, but more clearly than that I could still hear, in the narrow passage from which I had just emerged, the sound that I had taken to be an echo: the soft rhythmic pounding of a boy running. I waited.

A hand pulling at my arm jerked me out of my silent contemplation of the sound. "They're coming!" said John in soft desperation, and at his anxious look I remembered whom I was supposed to be protecting. Grabbing his hand, I fled a short distance. Then, envisioning the easy target that John and I would make for the soldiers' spears if we tried to flee now, I thrust us under the prickly-leaved cover of a wild-berry bush and pulled us both to the ground.

Silence followed. John had buried his head in his arms, but I lifted mine and peered through the thin shielding of needle-pointed leaves to look at the cave entrance. There, standing within the sheltering arms of the entrance rocks, was the boy. I could barely see his head, swivelling back and forth to take in his surroundings. He took a hesitant step forward, then stopped and looked back. The shouting had stopped, but the sound of thundering footsteps was clear amidst the drowsy hum of the late-afternoon cicadas. The boy turned abruptly, took another long, anxious look at the unknown surroundings before him, and stepped out of the shelter of the rocks.

At that moment, three things happened simultaneously. I half-rose from my hiding place; the commander suddenly emerged from the main tunnel and snatched the boy back; and a dagger, soaring swift and clean as a swallow, travelled over John's buried head and shot up to the cave entrance, landing where the boy had been the moment before.

I caught a glimpse of John as he suddenly raised his face, his eyes staring blindly at something other than the scene before us. Then I fell once more to the ground and tried to flatten myself like a blood-worm against the piercing leaves that were our bed. All about us I could hear the thunder of men's feet and the sound of softened commands; evidently the commander did not want to alert any more Koretians to his army's presence, even at this moment. Then, after a while, there was silence again.

I looked up and saw that the cave mouth was once more empty. Beside me, John was beginning to sidle out from cover.

"Wait!" I hissed, grabbing his wrist. "We don't know whether they've gone uphill or down."

"What do we do, then?" John whispered back. "We can't stay here."

I pulled the front half of my body up like a baby trying to rise to its feet, frantically listened for the sound of returning soldiers, then grabbed hold of John and said, "This way!"

John, ever trusting, followed me as I ran straight back toward the cave. A second's glance showed me that the entrance was empty. I dived my way through the rocks and began running toward what now seemed appropriately named our sanctuary.

I placed my arm around John when we reached there, squeezing him tight to reassure him, but quickly let my arm fall as he winced. "You're all covered in scratches," I said accusingly.

John put his hand up to his mouth to smother a half-sob, half-laugh. "Well, look at you."

I stared down at my green tunic, which was now torn and covered with purple wild-berry juice. One thin red gash made its way down my arm from elbow to wrist, just missing the line of my blood vow. I began to shiver, and to cover this fact, I said, "We'll be safe here. They'll never guess that we've returned to where we fled from – and they can't get in here anyway."

I left unvoiced my thought that one Emorian could come here. I doubted that the commander would let the boy out of his sight again after what had happened at the cave entrance.

John had his arms folded tight against his chest, but he said nothing. He was staring at the dark passage we had just left behind, and I realized that his thoughts were not on the Emorians. I asked in a hushed voice, "Was it the Jackal?"

I had no doubt that John would know the answer. He stared for a moment longer, and then said in a low voice, "I think so. I felt something even before I saw the dagger. He was— I can't describe it. But I'm sure it was him."

"But he missed!" I said. "Gods don't miss when they try to kill, do they? Or perhaps it's like Lovell said, that the Jackal can't always use his godly powers."

"Maybe," said John slowly. "Or maybe he wasn't really trying to kill the Chara's son. Maybe he was just trying to frighten him."

"But why would he—?"

I closed my mouth. Faintly through the passage, toward the cave entrance, we could hear the sound of men once more. John stiffened and raised his jaw, but he did not move. His left hand was still hanging loosely by his side, not touching the dagger.

I whispered, "You had better let me take the dagger. That way, the soldiers won't kill you, because you'll be unarmed."

"Death isn't what I fear."

John had a way of speaking, softly and simply, words that were most chilling. I stared at him, and then looked back down the passage toward where the sounds were continuing. I said finally, "Would we have to wear masks, do you think?"

John shook his head. "Lovell told me that slaves in Emor don't wear masks – no one performs the death rite on them, and they're treated just like any living person. They can speak to other people, and people can speak to them. I suppose," he added in a tone oddly reflective for such a tense moment, "that if I had to be a slave, I'd rather live in Emor than in Koretia."

"I wouldn't," I said flatly. "Imagine being away from your homeland, living amongst those godless men! I'd rather be one of the Living Dead than serve our enemy."

"But you could still find a way to serve the gods even if you were living in—" John stopped. He had heard, as I did, the growing silence at the cave entrance. Impetuously, I began to tiptoe forward, not looking to see whether John was following. I reached the hole and peered through it to the shadow-mottled entrance.

A unit of soldiers was just passing into the main tunnel. The only men who still stood in the entrance were the Chara Nicholas and a subcaptain. The latter was pointing with his finger toward the mountain slope and shaking his head. It was clear that he was reporting he had failed in his mission. The Chara had an expression on his face that appeared to be carved out of the stones around us; it made me more nervous than I had been all that day. He whirled suddenly, his cloak billowing forth like a sun-gilded cloud.

As he did so, I saw that standing behind him was the boy, his bowed face even whiter than before. The Chara placed his hand firmly on the boy's shoulder. Without looking up, the Chara's son allowed himself to be driven back into the cave.

I hesitated, looking over my shoulder at the passage that would take us back to the cave, but I could feel John standing warm against me. So I whispered, "Now!" and began to scramble out of the hole.

John caught hold of me, pulling me back. "Uphill or down?" he asked.

Uphill meant that we would head for the priests' house. "Down," I said firmly. "We have to let our army know about the Emorians."

"But they won't believe us," said John, his voice low. "They'll think we're just telling boys' tales."

I leaned against the passage stone, which was beginning to turn cool with the arrival of evening. "They'll believe my mother – the soldiers know her. We'll tell her first, and she can come with us to the headquarters."

John was silent a while, and I began to wonder whether he was afraid of coming near soldiers again, even those on our own side. Finally he said softly, "I have to go tell the priests about the Jackal. They'll want to know that he's here."

I swallowed my disappointment and said, "We each have our separate duties – it often happens that way in the army. I tell you what I'll do: I'll go down and warn the soldiers, and then I'll come back here and fetch you before the fighting begins. Then we can watch the fighting together." I grinned at the knowledge that I would finally have the chance to witness a battle.

John did not reply with a smile. Instead he placed his palm upon my forehead and whispered briefly. My body tingled as I realized that he was placing me under the protection of the gods, in the same manner that priests bless soldiers before battle. Then, as though anything he could have said after that was superfluous, he slid past me and wriggled through the hole, leaving me to make my way down to the city alone.

o—o—o

It was fire weather. The air was flat and motionless, and there was little chance that any city fire would spread to the countryside. Even so, I took a moment when I arrived at the city wall to stare at the shallow moat surrounding it. It was tinged brown with silt and was lower than usual, as there had been little rain since early spring, but it was still wide enough to form a reassuring barrier. I stepped into the water and waded through to the wall. Ordinarily, I would have stripped myself first, but my clothes were in such a ragged state now that mud could not hurt them. When I reached the wall, I crawled into my secret tunnel.

John and I had discovered this tunnel under the wall during the previous winter. It had not been there in past years when I explored the dry ditch that hugged the inside of the city wall. When I consulted him, John suggested that it might have been dug by the Jackal. I thought it was more likely a smuggler's route, aimed at avoiding the taxes on importation of goods from Daxis to the capital city. But we never met whoever had dug it, and as far as we could tell, no other boys had discovered it, for it was well hidden by a tree within the dry ditch.

Most likely the tunnel was of no interest to any boys other than ourselves. The main roads from the city departed from the east and west gates, and this tunnel only led south to the trackless mountainside. But it served as a great boon to me, for it saved me from having to walk down the winding road from the priests' house to the main road, and then travel from there to the west gate.

Now I scrambled out of the inner ditch, checking first, in proper soldier fashion, that no one would notice my unorthodox entrance into the city. As I emerged, I saw that further impediments lay on my journey. It was twilight, and the stall-keepers were beginning to close the market that spread from the open square before me to the northern side of Council Hill. Wooden boxes were being loaded onto carts, streams of men and women were entering a new tavern just opened on the square, and soldiers released from their day duties poured out of the army headquarters nearby. If I tried to take the straight route home, this crowd might delay me for ages.

Instead, I chose a road I almost never followed, partly because my father had long ago forbidden me from doing so. The other reason was because, on one of the few occasions on which I had disobeyed his order, I had run straight into a group of council lords. They had laughed and let me go my way, but I had learned my lesson.

It was a road that skirted the army headquarters, ran up the side of Council Hill, and passed straight through the hilltop courtyard between the magnificent Council Hall and the shabby wooden slave-quarters opposite. From there, the road led down almost directly to my own house, which was at the foot of the wooded hill-slope.

Judging that my father would have understood the necessity of haste on this day, I ran up the tree-arched road, my mind less on the news of danger I was carrying than on the grey-eyed boy whom I had seen. I wondered whether his father would allow him to witness the battle or whether, having disobeyed his father's order to stay in the cave, he would be punished by being left behind. To my mind, there was no greater punishment that any boy could endure than to miss seeing a battle.

My thoughts were so far from the present that I barely noticed when I ran under the low, unguarded arch leading to the council courtyard. I only became aware of where I was when I ran into a man.

Speaking swiftly in order to get my apology out before the nobleman before me grew angry, I said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" Then I stopped. I had tilted my head back and could now see what I was speaking to.

He was holding me back from him – an automatic reaction, I imagine, since I had run straight into him. Now his grey-gloved hands fell to his sides, and he looked mutely down at me. He was dressed from toe to neck in funeral ash-grey, and this color was matched by that of the iron death-mask that he wore, like all corpses. I caught a glimpse of his eyes, staring at me with surprise, before I realized what I was doing and looked quickly away.

My heart beat hard. No one, I was sure, would report a young boy for talking to a slave, even if I had been overheard in this empty courtyard. But would the gods curse me for what I had done? I wondered how they would judge me for talking to a man who was god-cursed – a man who, though his body had mercifully been spared death, was now treated as though he were a living corpse, exiled from all human contact.

I could no longer see the slave's eyes, but as I moved past him – it, I corrected myself – I saw its shoulders slump and its spine bow forward. I had a sudden, terrible vision of what it must be like to live one's life under the complete mercy of others.

Since I could not know how the gods would judge my actions, I thought instead of John, for I was sure he knew what the gods wanted better than any of the priests. And I instantly knew that John would never silently pass by anyone who was suffering, god-cursed or not.

I turned back and said in a low voice, "I'm sorry."

The slave had been on the point of entering its quarters; now it looked back at me. Its expression was hidden under the mask, of course, and I could not tell what it was thinking. Unwilling to look at its eyes directly, and unable to voice the thoughts that were truly in my mind, I said softly, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to knock into you like that."

For a moment, the slave was still. Then its back straightened as though it had just been given a healing drink. With slow dignity, the slave bowed its head in acknowledgment of my forbidden words.

I waited for nothing more. Already warm with embarrassment and fear at what I had done, I turned and fled the courtyard. I did not stop running until I reached my house.

I paused at the open threshold, both to recover my breath and to steady my thoughts. My mother could not afford to light fires in the warm summer evenings, and so the room was dim with dusk-light. But I could hear the clatter of the loom, and between the rhythmic passing of the shuttle I could see my mother sitting, using the last fragments of daylight to finish her work.

She had already reached her twenty-fifth year. This was due to the fact that she had married late, provoking good-hearted jokes from my father about how he preferred mature women to youthful ones. I could detect a trace of silver in her earth-brown hair that made me wonder what it was like to grow old. For a moment I was glad that my coming of age would not take place for another eight years. Then my mother looked up and saw me, and her smile was so full of beauty and affection that I forgot all about pitying her.

The smile did not last long. In the next moment she had leapt up from her stool and was hurrying over to look at me.

"By the gods of day and night!" she exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself? Just look at those scratches, all covered with mud! Come over here and wash yourself— No, wait, drink this first."

I automatically took and drank from the small skin of wine that she pulled out of a chest and thrust into my hands. I was thinking that any other parent would have immediately scolded me for ruining my only tunic, but my mother, as usual, thought first of my welfare.

"God of Mercy, Andrew," she said with a laugh that indicated she had already forgiven me. "How do you expect to live long enough to become a soldier if you keep tumbling down the mountainside? You ought to let John plan your expeditions. He has sense enough to keep the two of you from trouble if you'd only let him have his way now and then."

I submitted to her vigorous scrubbing with a wet cloth only because I did not wish to fall into an argument about irrelevancies. "Mother, I saw the Chara! He's here with his army!"

My mother, who had been trying without much success to remove dirt from my long hair, stilled her cloth. "What do you mean? The Emorians are up north."

I explained, at first quickly; then, once I saw that I had a rapt audience, with as much detail as I could muster. Only two facts did I omit. One was the Jackal's strange assassination attempt, if that was what it had been. The other – for reasons I did not try to analyze – was my sighting of the Chara's son.

Not far into the story, my mother went over to the door and shut it, and then shuttered the windows so that we stood in near darkness. By the end of my narrative, I felt dizzy from the telling and went to sit on my floor-mattress, which was tucked into the corner of the single-chambered house. The pallet was big enough for two, and I had often wished that I had a brother or sister with whom to share it. Now it served as a place for my mother to join me as I finished my tale.

She interrupted me as I began to tell her about talking to the slave – I had long since forgotten about omitting irrelevancies, and in any case, I was hoping for her reassurance that I had done the right thing. My mother, though, had her mind on other matters.

Fingering the slingshot she had taken from my belt, she said, "This tunnel through the wall – it's marked by a tree, you say?"

I stared at her. Then, feeling my head grow more fuzzy, I lay back against the pallet. "Does that matter?" I asked.

"If the Chara is trying to surprise our soldiers, he may want to steal into the city," my mother said slowly. "He may know about this tunnel from his spies' reports – or perhaps from the tales of a Daxion smuggler – and may use it as a way to sneak in some of his men."

After a moment, I thought to close my gaping mouth. "You ought to be a soldier," I said with open admiration.

"Your father taught me a lot," she murmured. She rose suddenly, put aside the slingshot, and brushed from her gown some of the dirt that had clung to her from me. "I'll be back as quickly as I can. If anything happens before I return, run next door and follow wherever Raoul and his family go."

"But I want to go with you!" I tried to raise myself onto my elbow, but some dark heaviness seemed to weigh me down.

"You can't," my mother said with a sad smile. "I'm sorry, but that was drugged wine I gave you. I thought you would need help sleeping tonight, what with all those scratches. I never would have given it to you if I'd known what you were going to tell me."

"You're as sneaky as the Emorians," I mumbled. I was too tired even to protest that I was missing my chance to be savior to the Koretian army. My eyelids began to plunge down; then I opened them again as I felt my mother touch me on the arm. She was still smiling.

"Thank you for coming to me with this, rather than rushing off on your own," she said. "I appreciate how you have trusted me."

"Well, you're a soldier's widow," I said sleepily. "You're more sensible than most women. When I come of age, I'll find myself someone who is as wise as you are. Soldiers need smart wives."

She laughed, kissed my forehead, and left me dreaming of the woman I would one day marry.

o—o—o

I awoke to fire.

Part of the roof crashing onto the loom undoubtedly saved my life, for I jerked awake from its sound to find myself choking on black smoke, as though someone were pouring earth down my throat. For a moment I thought I was trapped in a nightmare. Then I realized what was happening and scrambled to my feet.

I arose too quickly, though. My drugged head spun, the smoke pinned my lungs to the wall of my chest, and I fell to my knees, coughing and holding my arm against my face to protect it from the fire that was eating at the fallen timber around me.

The house contained a strange mixture of shadings: as dark as a night-black storm in the center and as bright as a noonday sun on the edges. Sweat oozed like a cool rock-spring onto my skin, released from my body by the heat of the fire. An ember, as red as a demon's eye, fell upon my bare leg, and I opened my mouth to scream, but was smothered by the blanket of smoke that forced itself into my throat, pushing back all attempts at breath. I flung my hands forward, trying to crawl blindly toward one of the fiery walls, then felt my legs shake and collapse.

For a moment, all was still. I heard nothing but the harsh tongue of the fire and saw nothing except the smoky darkness that had swallowed the house. Then something pulled at my shoulders, and I felt myself being dragged over the floor, pushed past flames that towered over me in an arch, and flung to the ground once more.

Fresh air, painful in its suddenness, poured into my mouth, and I began to cough again. I could do nothing for some time except crouch over the ground, first coughing, and then throwing forth the contents of my stomach. Finally, moist with sweat and spittle and sickness, I lifted my head and saw John.

He was kneeling beside me in the street, his tunic torn in spots, his body black with soot, and his hair singed short by the fire. He leaned over and shouted into my ear over the growing roar of the fire, "Your mother!"

I felt a jolt inside my rib cage before I remembered. "She went to the army headquarters!" I cried back.

"She'll be safest there," John replied. Tugging at my hand, he pulled me to my feet and began to half-lead me, half-drag me through the fire-flanked street.

The thundering shout of the fire was too deep for me to hear any cries, and the night-covered streets were oddly deserted, all living inhabitants having already fled. Only the dead lay strewn about the streets like pieces of rubbish brought out to be burned. The fire had already swallowed some of them. Since I had seen many a funeral pyre, it did not disturb me to see the Jackal eating his dead, as the Koretians put it. But John and I both halted abruptly when we rounded a corner and found, crawling on the ground before us, a glowing, screaming figure of a man, trapped in the flames that cocooned him like a well-fitted tunic.

His spirit was gone before either of us could react. We saw his body collapse and his untouched eyes grow dim. John recovered before I did, towing me past the body with a grip as tight as an eagle's talons. The fire around us grew brighter and louder as we ran.

Then he stopped again. I had to clutch the side of a building to keep from tripping over him. Peering cautiously over his shoulder, I saw that we had reached the market square that was our last stretch of ground before we reached the tunnel.

The brightly colored market stalls, made of thin wood and cloth, had already disintegrated into sullenly glowing cinders. All of the houses around the square were ablaze, and the fire was crawling its steady and deadly way over the fallen timbers in the square. Only a small patch of open ground remained between us and the tunnel – and in that area was an Emorian soldier.

He was lying front-down on the ground as we arrived. Then he rose to his knees, his back to us, and brought his sword down hard on some object hidden from our view. After that, he remained where he was, kneeling and looking at the object.

John shouted in my ear; it was as good as a whisper in the fire-storm around us. "We'll have to wait!"

"We can't!" I said. "Look at the fire!"

As I spoke, a house not far from us collapsed into the street, crumbling like a flame-deadened log. John looked over his shoulder at it, and then at the soldier, who had risen to his feet but was still lingering over the object before him. Finally John said, "I'll go first. If he doesn't see me, he won't see you, and if he sees me, it will give you time to get past him."

He had the look on his face that would accept no argument. Feeling bewildered that my plans to rescue him had gone awry, I let my gaze fall to the sheathed blade at John's side.

As I raised my gaze upward once more, my eyes met John's, and we stared at each other uncertainly. Then I used the one argument I knew John would accept: "It's dedicated to the Unknowable God, as you are. You keep it, and the god will tell you what to do."

After a moment, John nodded; then he turned without a word and began running as close as he dared to the facade of fire along the row of houses. He did not look the soldier's way, so I was the only one who saw the soldier raise his head as John darted by. I jammed my fists against my mouth, but before I had time to formulate a plan, the soldier turned his head away, clearly uninterested.

To me, the scene was like a note of victory on war trumpets. I pushed myself away from the house and began running the path John had taken, seeking to escape as quickly as I could from both the soldier and the agony of the fire's touch. I tried to keep my eyes on John, who had nearly reached the ditch, but I did not have his steadiness of purpose, and as I passed the soldier, I looked the Emorian's way and saw what it was that he had been loitering over.

I caught only a quick glimpse of the woman, clothed in blood, before I cried, "No!" I did not think of what I was doing as I swerved my path; I was not sure whether I was headed toward the soldier or his victim. But as I came close to them both, the soldier reached out with his arms and pulled me captive against his chest.

I struggled, of course, but it was like a struggle I had once seen and had had nightmares about for weeks afterwards: a slave had defied the gods by using his voice and had been burned on a funeral pyre as punishment. Since he was one of the Living Dead, no effort had been made to kill his body before it was placed on the pyre, and so he had struggled in his funeral bindings as the flames approached him.

The soldier was growling words as I tried to break free of him. Under other circumstances, I would have considered this a fine lesson in Emorian curses. I tried to loosen the grip of his right hand – it had an old war-scar on it from thumb to index finger, and the hand was therefore awkwardly wrapped around his sword hilt. I managed only to swing our bodies in the direction I had been running, and in that moment, the soldier stopped swearing and I stopped struggling, for we had both seen what was running towards us.

Of course it was John, but he had a look on his face I had never seen before. His teeth were bared like that of a wild animal's, and his mouth turned up at the corners like the edges of a crescent moon. A high, wailing battle cry emerged from his throat, rising above the sound of the fire, and his fingers were tight on the dagger he held upraised. But the oddest and most terrifying sight of all was his eyes: amidst the violence of the rest of his face, they were very, very calm.

I think that the eyes must have frightened even the soldier. I heard him mutter something which sounded like "God of Mercy" but which must have been some Emorian prayer of preservation. Then he thrust me aside, raised his sword, and brought it down upon John's upraised face.

I saw the blade land a short distance away from John's composed eyes. Then I closed my eyelids, and when I lifted them a moment later, John was lying on the ground, his mouth open and still, and his blood-soaked eyes staring as they had so often before, at nothing in this world.

The soldier was chalk-white as he stared down at John, though whether from remorse at what he had done or surprise that his assailant was so young I could not be sure. I did not give myself time to think about it. I hurtled myself at John's dagger, fallen from his motionless hand, and then jumped up and whirled around, facing the unnerved soldier.

"I'm going to kill you," I said in Emorian, speaking in a voice that was not as steady as I would have liked. "I'm going to kill you and the Chara and all the Emorians. May the Jackal eat his dead—" And as my curse ended in a sob, I lunged forward.

The scene, like a tapestry upon a wall, was filled with images that froze in my mind: my mother, lying half-naked on the ground, still moist with blood and with the soldier's fluids; John, resting only a few paces from the fire, which was advancing to eat its spoils; and the soldier, raising his sword above me in a motion that would reach me before I had time to use my dagger. I witnessed all this with a dark acceptance that was almost peaceful. Then, at the last moment, I saw the sword turn in the soldier's hand so that the hilt was now pointed downward to strike my head. And as I realized with horror that the Emorian would deprive me even of this, the honor of dying with my blood brother, I opened my mouth and screamed—

o—o—o

The dream ended then, as it always did, in the scream that travelled from the mouth of an eight-year-old boy to my own mouth, so that I woke from the sound of my cry. I was sitting upright in bed, trembling, and the sweat on my body was already beginning to chill in the cool Emorian morning.

I dropped my face into my hands, and as the moments passed, I felt the passionate lines of my face transform, without any effort on my part, into something different. When I raised my head again, I was wearing the mask of composure and detachment that no one in this land had ever seen me without, save one man.

Rising from my bed, my movements smooth and unhurried now, I walked over to a basin sitting on my mantelshelf and washed the sweat and tearstains from my face. The water ran over my hands and wrists, moistening, as it went, the white line of an old scar. I stepped back and caught a brief sight of myself in the small looking glass: my face was set in harshly rigid lines of dispassion, and my eyes were colder than dark ice. I was dark-haired, as any Koretian would be, but a Koretian man of twenty-three years would have had browner skin and would have been wearing a man's beard. Nor would he have donned the Emorian tunic I reached for a few minutes later. The wool, finely woven though it was, would have been too heavy for a Koretian summer. A Koretian tunic, if decorated, would have had lines that branched together and sprang apart in random patterns, as though the lines were twigs intertwining in a tree. My own tunic had a simple symmetric pattern of straight lines. I had chosen the design myself.

Finished with my dressing, I opened the doors into the next chamber.

He was not there, but the evidence of his presence was. The room was in uncharacteristic disarray: cushions tossed from the reclining couch, law books pulled from their shelves, and items pushed around on his writing table. This was his sitting chamber, used as a place to relax in the evenings, and it was surrounded on all sides by doors. His sleeping chamber was to the left of where I stood, with the door to the corridor on my right. The door I had just stepped through had been cut only the previous summer, when I moved out of the small sleeping chamber opposite, which was reserved for his free-servant. Officially, he had a new free-servant, but in reality, I made sure he had no need of one.

I stepped forward and picked up the cushions, returned the books to their shelves, and stacked the papers neatly on the table. Then I reached up and pulled from his mantelshelf the scroll of paper from where I had seen him place it the night before.

I went back to the table, where I had noticed but not yet read the sheet of paper awaiting me. He had phrased it in formal language. I had never seen him write an informal letter, for such a message might be read by the wrong people and become a weapon against him, turning like a blade to cut his own hand. Though formal, the letter was written in a hurried fashion, without salutation or signature:

Andrew son of Gideon, palace guest of the Chara, is summoned to appear in the presence of the Chara in the Map Room.

Beneath the message was a circular seal of red wax, imprinted with the royal emblem of the Chara.

I held the Chara's letter in my hand for a moment more, and then left the chamber in order to meet with my master.

Blood Vow 2

LAND OF THE CHARA

CHAPTER THREE

As I stepped into the corridor that ran between the Map Room and the Court of Judgment, the Chara's guards took no notice of me, frozen as they were on each side of the doorway I walked through. I turned right and began to make my way down the dimly lit passage, its only illumination being the high clerestory windows. On each side of the corridor were rooms belonging to council lords, court officials, and palace guests. I knew that those rooms looked much the same as the Chara's quarters, which would have been inconspicuous but for the guards.

I passed lords as I walked, some of them nodding to me in greeting, others with their gazes on documents that they read as they walked. I met the Chara's court clerk, a young free-man struggling to keep a pile of papers in his arms. He nearly lost them all when he saw me and touched his heart and forehead with his fingers. I returned the gesture; it was one of the few Emorian customs that had come naturally to me, as it was of Koretian origin. Or so I had suggested one day to Lord Dean, High Lord of the Great Council of Emor, but he had maintained that the gesture derived from the Emorians' custom of placing their weapon-blades to their foreheads when they swore their oath of loyalty to the Chara. Whether in Emor or Koretia, the free-man's greeting was meant to be exchanged, not between a master and his servant, but between equals.

I passed by more open doors leading to rooms – the quarters of the Chara's historian, the slave-quarters – and then I came to the quarters that belonged to the senior council lords. These rooms were generally silent at this time of the day, since the lords were busy elsewhere in the palace, working out the day-to-day details of running Emor, for which they were responsible. The quarters were silent now – all except one.

The girl's cry was so piercing that, without thinking, I pushed my way through the door. The door opened only to a passageway that led to further rooms, so I did not expect to see anyone. But I found myself facing Lord Carle, who was in the midst of disciplining his Koretian slave-girl.

The girl had fallen to her knees weeping. I could see the red mark on her cheek where Lord Carle had hit her. He was bent over her as I entered, and as he looked at me, I saw a fire spark in his eyes.

He barely managed to contain the fire in his voice. "What do you want?" he asked abruptly.

Having no good reason to be in his quarters, I said, "I apologize for disturbing you, Lord Carle. I was searching for the Chara; I thought he might be with you."

He stiffened up and assessed me for a moment, leaving the girl sobbing at his feet. Finally he said, "You ought to know where your master is. Why are you absent from him?"

Something about the crouching girl, whose presence the council lord was ignoring, caused me to say coolly, "Because, Lord Carle, I am not the Chara's servant and so am not required to know his every movement."

Lord Carle stepped forward. As he did so, the girl stopped crying and began looking between her master and myself, as though she expected to witness a duel. Lord Carle stopped a few feet from me. Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, he said with malevolent softness, "If you are a loyal Emorian, Andrew, then you are his servant, as I am his servant and all Emorians are. If you do not believe this, then disobey the Chara's commands again and see what follows."

I made no reply, and found a moment later that my gaze had drifted away from Lord Carle's eyes. He turned away then, as though in disgust that he had wasted such a deep dagger-thrust on so unworthy an opponent. I took the opportunity to slip back to the corridor.

I stood there for a moment with my eyelids closed and my head tilted back, as though I had just emerged from red-hot fire. Then I walked the remaining distance to the Map Room.

This was at the direct end of the corridor. Its silver doors reached to the ceiling; standing on each side were two guards with their spears crossed in front of the doorway, in order to indicate that the Chara might not be disturbed on penalty of the high doom. As I came forward, they uncrossed the spears. Being less strictly trained than the Chara's personal guards, they nodded me a greeting as I opened the doors and walked through.

The Map Room was not as large as the Court of Judgment, but it had a ceiling just as high, reaching up, it seemed, halfway to the clouds. The Chara used the scantily furnished room as a place to study military information and as a chamber in which to receive guests with formality but without full ceremony. On rare occasions, it was also used as a small Court of Judgment for cases that he tried in private. Like all Emorian rooms, it was dimly lit; the main illumination came from the hearth centered on the far wall. The hearth was now ablaze with fire in order to stave off the coolness of the Emorian summer morning.

The Chara was standing a few spear-lengths from me, looking out one of the southern windows. He was dressed formally with his silver tunic and his Sword of Vengeance; his cloak was tossed onto a chair nearby. He was only twenty-six, but his face had the look of an older man: severe responsibility had gouged deep rivers of age into his skin. As the door closed behind me, the Chara turned his head and said, "I was just wishing that I could wander over the black border mountains right now. It seems a shame to stay inside on a warm day like this." I made no reply, and he added, "I see that you brought the map. I couldn't remember this morning where I had put it."

"So I surmised from the state of your sitting chamber, Chara," I said, coming forward and placing the map in his hand. "You ought to have woken me."

He turned and put the scroll down on the table nearby, which was already cluttered with a dozen maps. Without looking up, he said, "I thought that you might need the extra rest."

There was a pause as he unrolled the map and began examining it. I said, "I did not mean to disturb you, Chara. Perhaps I ought to sleep in other quarters."

"Don't be foolish." He leaned over, traced a line on the map with his finger, then sighed and allowed the map to roll up once more as his gaze drifted back to the view at the window.

I followed his gaze toward the tiny slice of scenery. I could see a portion of the capital city surrounding the palace, a sliver of the river-threaded fields beyond, and a patch of Emorian sky – which, for a change, was blue and cloudless. Towering above them all were the black border mountains that separate Emor and Koretia.

The Chara said, "I seem not to be able to keep my mind off the mountains. Perhaps I have acquired some of your Koretian blood."

I said rigidly, "Chara, I am Emorian."

A smile crept onto his face then, erasing the lines of worry and making him appear even younger than he was. "That fact," he said, "had not escaped my notice. I was joking. Now stop being so stiff and formal and come sit with me."

He waved his hand toward two chairs sitting under a small patch of sunlight falling through one of the northern windows. I felt the seldom-used muscles of my mouth turn up, and I bowed in obedience, before seating myself where he had indicated.

He sat down beside me and pushed over a bowl that lay on the table between the two chairs. I fished out a couple of dried berries and, without looking to see what type they were, placed them in my mouth.

It took only two chews before I jerked my head around toward the Chara. "Peter! Where in the name of the dead Charas did you get these?"

The Chara Peter chuckled. "I wondered whether you would recognize them. The Koretian governor sent them to me. He said that Koretian food was not to most Emorians' taste – I take that to mean that he thinks it inedible. He added, though, that he knew of my interest in curious native customs, and he thought I might like to try these wild-berries. I did, and I think they're inedible, and I would hand my dominions over to you if you would do me the favor of finishing them off."

"That won't be a hard duty for me to undertake," I said. "As for Lord Alan, it sounds as though he has a gift for flattery."

"Yes, he reveals that most clearly in his letter." Peter reached over and picked up a sheaf of papers that was sitting next to the fruit bowl. "'To the Great Chara, Judge of the People, Commander of the . . .' Well, he goes on with the usual half dozen, and even managed to scrape up a couple of titles that I had thought only my clerk knew. 'Your servant Alan' – note the humility of leaving off his title – 'was most interested by your recent kind letter and does assure the Chara that my greatest wish is to answer any questions you might have on the Koretian people, and that the high doom itself would not prevent me from giving you the full story of all that is happening in this land. As you know, when I was appointed governor fifteen years ago by your father, the Chara Nicholas, I had little experience in high matters, and I continue to feel myself unworthy of such a task . . .' He continues on like this for six pages, and by the end of them he has still failed to answer any of my questions. He signs the letter with all his titles, though he tactfully keeps them one short of the number he ascribed to me. So, since Lord Alan gives me no information, since nearly every spy I send to Koretia is either bribed by the governor or kept from gaining information, and since I am on this side of the black border mountains, I can find nothing that will help me to bring peace to that land."

Outside the windows, the palace trumpeters sounded the hour. I could hear the soft shuffle of soldiers' feet as the guard was changed in front of the Map Room door. I said, "Peter, if you wish me to tell you what I know of Koretia, you've only to ask."

He gave me a sober-eyed smile. "I didn't wish to burden you in that way, but I fear that I must do so. The latest report from my spy – the only one who has managed to obtain useful information – is alarming. Could you help me sort out what these maps mean?"

I followed him over to the map-strewn table, where he unrolled again the map that I had brought him. "My father had this made during the Border Wars, a few months before the Koretian capital was captured," he said. "Can you tell me what everything is on it?"

I looked down at the black lines with occasional red splotches superimposed. "I imagine that you know as much about Koretia as I do. I was only eight years old when I left, and I hadn't even visited the towns and villages until that time."

"Tell me what you know, even if I already know it. I'd like to learn how matters appear from a Koretian's point of view." Before I could speak, he added, "You will not deny, I hope, that you once were Koretian."

I smiled and said, "No." Touching the yellowing paper with my finger, I said, "This is the capital city, built at the northern foot of the mountain that marks the southernmost border with Daxis. The mountain itself is uninhabited except for a priests' house, though it has a few ruins – and a cave."

I sensed rather than saw him smile. "I'm not likely to forget the cave. Where is the priests' house?"

"Here, about a mile up from the foot of the hill, and below the old house of worship, which the Koretians call the gods' house. Nobody goes to the gods' house, but city dwellers sometimes visit the priests' house in order to see the rites. I doubt that I can tell you anything important about the city itself; it is all plainly labelled here on the map."

"Where did you live?" asked Peter.

I pointed. "Close to the market and not far from the old Koretian Council Hall, though I suppose the hall must have been destroyed by fire, as so much was."

Peter leaned over and placed his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his folded knuckles. "No, in fact it was the only large building to survive. The governor incorporated it into his palace. I think he liked the idea of living where royalty used to live – am I right in remembering that the Koretian King made the hall his home?"

"I told you that you know as much about Koretia as I do."

"I don't know enough about its governor—"

"Neither do I," I cut in. "He was appointed the summer that I left Koretia."

"I know. But many Koretians were sent to my palace during those first few years after the wars. Did you ever hear them talking about Lord Alan?"

"Well," I said, "I wasn't much interested during those years in listening to talk about Emor's rule in Koretia. All that I remember hearing was that the governor was a tyrant and stole from his people – just like the Chara, the Koretians said."

Peter laughed. I pointed to the red patches and asked, "What are those?"

"Those," said Peter, leaning back, "are Emorian soldiers. The bigger the red area, the more units we had in that region. My father had about forty-two garrisons in the Koretian territory he cared for when this map was made. At the time of my enthronement, the number had gone down to eighteen. Here is a map I ordered drawn up recently." He pushed aside the old map in order to show the one under it. "What do you notice?"

I stared down at the red and white paper before me. "More garrisons."

"Three times more soldiers than there were at the time I became Chara. Anything else?"

"I don't observe much that would be helpful to you. I see that the city has been rebuilt, and that a good portion of it is taken up by the governor's palace."

"Yes, and that's a matter of concern to me – how Lord Alan could afford to build a palace that size. Nor am I sure how he could afford to bribe as many of my spies as I believe have been bribed. So the governor's manner of living bothers me. The extra soldiers I've had to send may be a result of the unrest he has caused."

"If that is so," I replied, "couldn't you remove him from office?"

Peter replied only with a smile.

I said, "I forgot. You're bound by the law."

"Like a prisoner," Peter said cheerfully. "It's up to the council to take action, and I couldn't bring such a proposal to them unless I had solid proof of the governor's misconduct."

"You could charge Lord Alan with a crime." I said this quietly, standing, as usual, with the stiff motionlessness of a soldier on sentry duty.

Peter turned toward the table to place weights on the restless edges of the map. "I could. That is to say, the court summoners could charge him with a crime, and only if I provided them with more convincing proof than I presently possess. Besides, it's more complicated than you'd think. This problem is one of the reasons why my father locked me in my chamber for ten years and fed me law book after law book. The law is a demanding master to serve, and I sometimes feel like its much-abused slave after one of my battles with the council."

"I probably won't understand a word of what you say," I told him, "but explain it to me anyway, if you will."

"Actually, it's based on the one law phrase you understand well: the council takes care of its own. The council judges those under its care, and the High Lord has the final say on whether a lord is removed from office, in the same way that the High Lord and I jointly decide whether to appoint a man to be council lord."

"And Lord Dean wouldn't remove the governor from office," I said with sudden understanding.

"Remove Lord Alan from office after spending all these years cultivating a fine connection with the governor? I think that Lord Dean is as unlikely to do that as he is to smile upon anyone with true friendship."

"But if the governor were found guilty of his crime—"

"The law is odd that way. A lord's appointment is for life, and it makes no difference if he is enslaved or imprisoned at the time. In such cases, the High Lord simply appoints someone to discharge the lord's duties, a task that would make Lord Dean very happy – having sole charge over deciding who ran one of my dominions. No, the only thing that will free me of Lord Alan is his death, either his natural death or his death by the sword."

I said in the cool, hard voice for which I was noted, "I don't suppose that the council judge would sentence Lord Alan to death if he knew that it would take power away from the council."

Peter stared intently at the map, his finger resting upon the mark signifying the governor's palace. "It's a moot issue at present, because Lord Alan's death would solve only half my problems. The governor isn't completely to blame for what is happening in Koretia. Someone else is causing unrest in the dominion."

The name came to my lips, but I said nothing. Peter's finger travelled from the governor's palace to the small mark showing the priests' house. "If there's one thing that the governor has not tried to hide from me, it's his information on the Koretian religion, for the simple reason that he knows next to nothing on the topic. I understand that the Jackal is connected in some way to the priests. What is this man's connection with them?"

"To start with," I said, "the Jackal is not a man but a god."

Peter looked at me, and I smoothly switched my gaze over to the map. I had a moment, in the pause that followed, to wonder how much of what the Chara was asking me about he already knew. It was unlikely that, after ten years as Master of the Koretian Land, Peter had never thought to enquire as to the nature of the Jackal. Already he had raised several topics that I had overheard him expound upon to his council lords, with great erudition.

A cynic might have thought he was testing my loyalty by gauging the truthfulness of my answers. Having witnessed Peter practice this device with his other subjects, I had once asked him its purpose. He had replied with pure simplicity, "When I hear others speak on a topic I think I know about, I learn of my ignorance."

Now he said, "Do you believe that?"

"I'm telling you what the Koretian people believe. The Jackal is one of the seven gods and goddesses whom they have worshipped over the centuries. He is the thief god who prowls in the night, and the hunting god who snatches his spoils. Thirty-five years ago, a man appeared who claimed to be the human form of the Jackal God—"

"Wait. Thirty-five years ago? Before the Emorians arrived?"

"He appeared at the start of Koretia's civil war, the one that eventually led Koretia to attack Emor and start the Border Wars. The man who called himself the Jackal claimed that he had come to destroy the enemies of the people and bring peace to the land."

"Which enemies, if the Emorians hadn't yet arrived?"

"The Jackal didn't say. All I can say is that he made the King and his council nervous enough that they were forever trying to capture him in order to question him. He slipped out of their traps time and time again."

Peter curled his fist under his beardless chin. Unlike his father, who had followed the military fashion for beards, Peter preferred the more common Emorian custom of being clean-shaven. "If the Jackal is a god," he said, "I suppose that he knew that the Emorians would be arriving. Perhaps he arranged Koretia's attack on the borderland villages to ensure that the Emorians would come. Whatever his intentions might have been toward the late King, now Emor is his enemy?"

"It would appear so. Since the time your father first crossed the border with his army, the Jackal's thieves – the Koretians who secretly serve him – haven't made life easy for the Emorians or their sympathizers."

"The thieves murder them," Peter said bluntly.

"I don't know how it is these days, but murders were rare in my childhood, though of course they were the acts that attracted the most attention. More often the Jackal's followers practiced thievery: small thefts, tricks that left the victims frustrated, and quite a few practical jokes. Once a garrison captain locked a town council out of its meeting hall and afterwards found himself locked out of his own house for three days. The thieves are quiet as cats, are rarely caught, and almost never talk when they are caught. The Jackal himself has never been caught, nor is his human identity known to any but his closest companions."

Peter walked over to the window and stared out at the mountains again. "Are there any stories about what he is like?"

"Nobody seems to be sure of his age – I suppose that by this time he must be in his older years. As to his appearance, it is said that he has the body of a man and the face of a jackal."

Peter turned to look at me. I lifted my eyes from the map and stared back at him silently. He said, "A mask?"

I nodded. "Many centuries ago, the priests wore masks when they made sacrifices to the gods, so as to show in which god's name they were killing the victim. The masks, though no longer worn, are still used as an aid to worship. The man called the Jackal is said to wear such a god-mask."

"God-masks, slave-masks – Koretia seems to be a land full of masks. . . . But I'm less interested in the Jackal's appearance than in what sort of man he is."

"If I ever speak with him, I'll be able to tell you. But I can at least tell you what the god is like." I paused, my eyes searching the neck-flap of his tunic. "You're not wearing your emblem brooch."

"No, I'm dressed for the court today."

"I realize that. What I meant was, I could have used your royal emblem to explain about the Jackal."

"Use this, then." Peter strode forward and pulled from his finger the Chara's seal-ring, used to seal official documents and letters, such as the one Peter had left me. Except for certain high-ranked court officials, anyone who touched the ring could be placed under the high doom.

I took the Chara's ring from his hand and turned it to show the emblem of the Charas: a balance holding in one scale a blade and in the other scale a bird wounded in the heart.

"This is one of many things which have convinced me that Emor and Koretia were once connected in some way," I said. "Here is the Chara's emblem: the Balance of Judgment holding the Sword of Vengeance and the Heart of Mercy. And those are the three attributes of the Jackal as well: the God of Judgment, the God of Vengeance, and the God of Mercy. The Jackal God hides in the shadows during his night-prowls, judging the Koretian people. To his enemies he brings vengeance, and to his loyal servants he brings the mercy of peace. There are even stories of the god allowing himself to be wounded and to suffer for those who serve him. That is why he is so loved by the Koretian people."

Peter took back the ring, slid it onto his finger, and asked quietly, "Was he loved by you when you were a child? Did you wish to become a thief for the Jackal?"

I looked down again at the map before answering. "The blood vow I once told you of was made to the Jackal."

The guards, who had been shuffling in their places outside the Map Room, fell silent at this moment, and the loudest sound I could hear was the crackle of the fire behind me. Peter said, "Then I will have to hope that, when I visit Koretia, the Jackal doesn't place me under his high doom for helping you to break your vow."

I touched the map very lightly before I looked up to where Peter stood, watching me. "You are going to Koretia?" I said in a dispassionate voice.

"I think that's the only action I can take to prevent war from breaking out again." He waited, and then said, "What is on your mind?"

"I was thinking that summer isn't the best time to visit Koretia."

Peter smiled. "You're supposed to say, 'The Chara never leaves his palace.' That's what the council lords will say when I tell them of my decision."

"You haven't told them yet?"

"I didn't decide to go before this conversation. I expect that the council and I will have a lengthy quarrel on the topic, but the law allows me to go, and my duty as Chara tells me to go. Besides, I'd like to see Koretia. I was only there for that one brief visit."

"Because your father wouldn't risk putting you in danger's way again. How will the Chara avoid becoming the Jackal's next victim?"

"The Chara hopes," said Peter with a smile, "that his subject Andrew will not be leading him into any more ambushes. But in any case, I won't be travelling as the Chara. It appears that the Jackal doesn't murder Emorian lords at random, so I should be safe if I don't call attention to myself, but instead journey to the governor's palace in the company of one or two other lords." He paused, searching my face. "I may take a few lesser free-men along as well."

I did not move my gaze from his, but my expression remained masked. "Are you asking me to come with you, Peter?"

His voice, when he replied, was gentle. "I wish that it were Peter who was asking. I would like to say that the only reason I am asking you is because I, Peter, would like my friend to be able to visit his childhood home. But the fact is that the Chara is requesting his servant to accompany him so that, with your special background, you can find me information that I may wish to use against the Koretian rebels and their Jackal. I need you to be a spy in your own land."

I still did not move, but now that the words were said, I felt my heart ease somewhat. "Thank you for putting that so clearly, Chara," I said softly, "but I have only one land, which is Emor, and only one master, which is you. When I gave my oath of loyalty to the Chara, I did not say that I would serve you only on condition that you not give me any hard tasks to do. If you need my help, then I will gladly come with you to Koretia."

He bowed his head to me, as though he were the servant and I the master. "Thank you. I would miss you if I had to make this long trip to Koretia alone. Besides" – he gave a crooked smile – "I'm depending on you to tell me which Koretian foods are inedible to Emorians."

I was saved from having to reply by the call of the trumpets outside, sounding three long notes. "May the high doom fall upon me," said the Chara. "I am due in the court now. Could you hand me my cloak?"

I brought it over to him; he was placing the Pendant of Judgment around his neck. I shook my head as he tried to take the cloak from me, and instead went round his back to place it on him myself.

"You must stop acting as though you were still my free-servant," he scolded me mildly. "You have your own duties as a palace guest."

"Old customs are hard to abandon," I said.

o—o—o

The Chara's palace was nearly as big as the city I had grown up in, and I doubt that even Peter, who had spent all his life there, had visited every part of it. In theory, the great building was divided into three areas – the court, the army, and the council – but in practice, all of the important rooms were clustered in the vicinity of the Court of Judgment.

I passed the doorway to the court after leaving the Map Room and caught a glimpse of the Chara sitting on his throne. I did not linger. A year had passed since I had last visited the court, and I had no desire ever to see the Chara in judgment again.

Instead, I continued on to the north end of the palace, where two great copper doors stood open. They led to the vast chamber belonging to the council lords, who were given the task by law of running the daily affairs of Emor and its imperial dominions. The chamber was surrounded on three sides by the other rooms of the council quarters, and at the entrance to the chamber were side doors leading to the corridors adjoining these rooms. Through them, I could glimpse a bustle of activity.

The Council Chamber's doors – as high and wide as those of the Map Room – were open, though they showed only a small portion of the chamber, since the council quarters, like the Map Room, jutted out toward the east, beyond the facade of the rest of the east wing of the palace. The entrance to the chamber was empty except for the council guards and the council porter. The latter was on a ladder at the entrance, attempting to raise the royal emblem of the Chara, which was placed above the chamber doorway on days when the council met in closed session. I paused to lend him my aid until we had together succeeded in placing the seal directly in the path of sunlight from the high corridor windows. The painted colors shone brightly from the grey stone background: the silver sword, the golden balance, and the red heart's blood on the black bird.

"You're stronger than I would have thought," said the porter. Then, taking my silence for the reply that it was, he added hastily, "I mean . . . having lived all your life in the palace. . . . It's not as though you were trained for heavy work."

"I had a few years of normal life before I came here," I replied. "Do you need help with passing word to the council officials?"

Still standing above me on the ladder, the porter shook his head mutely, and I continued on my journey without looking back at him. Turning right once I passed through the entrance, I walked through the empty Council Chamber, as ancient as the Court of Judgment, and made my way into a chamber at the back.

The council library was a small room, but was one of the few in the palace that was filled with many windows. The sunlight fell unimpeded onto the short row of double-sided desks, each mounted in the middle with a small bookcase. I went from desk to desk until I found the volume I was looking for. Grasping its leather binding, which had grown warm under the sun's rays, I pulled the book gently from the shelf, brushing off the desk, as I did so, bits of paper that flaked off the book and fluttered down. As I seated myself, I pushed to one side the iron chain that bound the book to the desk, and then opened the collection of the Chara Nicholas's proclamations during the final years of the Border Wars.

It took me some time to find the document I was seeking.

I, Nicholas, the Great Chara of Emor and Its Dominions . . . do on this day declare that Alan son of Gershom, formerly Head Councilman of the Town of Busedge, shall become a non-voting member of the Great Council of Emor, and shall also be made Lord of the Koretian Land, acting as its governor until his death. I do declare also that Lord Alan shall be servant only to the Great Council, which in turn is servant only to the Law, except as it shall turn any of its members over to the Chara for judgment. And so that it shall be understood by Lord Alan and the people of this land, I make clear in this declaration that his duties are as follows: to obey the commands of the Chara, to care for the Koretian people with discipline and mercy . . .

A shadow fell over the book, and a voice behind me said, "Reading about your homeland?"

I shut the book, rose, and gave a short bow. "High Lord."

"Good day to you, Andrew," Lord Dean replied, as easily as though he were addressing one of his council lords. "I didn't mean to interrupt you at your studies."

"It is of no importance," I said. "The Chara asked me to gather information on the dominions' governors."

"And especially on the Koretian governor? That is hardly surprising. No one in the palace talks of anything but Koretia these days. Tell me, have you never thought of returning to your native land?"

I scrutinized him, trying to assess from his expression whether he had spoken to the Chara. "It has not occurred to me for many years."

"Not now, of course, not with Koretia on the verge of war. But once we have brought peace again to that land, you might do well to consider such an action. I understand that the Chara is in desperate need of an aide to stay in the governor's palace and ensure that Lord Alan is not – well, handing down his own judgment of what the Chara's commands mean. I doubt that the Chara has raised the topic with you himself, but I'm sure that you've occurred to him as someone who could provide a loyal Emorian presence in a troubled land. You would be doing the Chara a great service if you were to propose to him such an arrangement."

"I am the Chara's servant. He has only to ask."

"But you are his subject, not his free-servant; you could propose the matter yourself. Andrew, my legs are not as young as they used to be. Shall we make ourselves more comfortable?"

I followed Lord Dean over to the chairs by the north window, and then waited until he had seated himself before I followed suit. We were opposite the library tapestry, which hung on the wall in aged and faded splendor. It was so old that not even Peter knew its origin, and it was obviously symbolic in some way, but no one had ever been able to identify the symbols: a flower rising out of a flame, a man struggling to tame a wild stallion, a silver moon that was curved into a crescent blade, two golden suns staring down at the land like eyes . . .

Lord Dean leaned back in his chair. "Ah, that is better. I envy you your youth, Andrew, not only because your body is still fresh and full of vigor but also because you have so much time ahead of you. You've already accomplished much in your life. Tell me, how long have you been with the Chara?"

I said, with precision, "I was assigned to the Chara's household almost twelve years ago. I became his free-servant ten years ago . . ." I hesitated.

"And for the past year you have held no other title than friend of the Chara," concluded Lord Dean. "An honorable position, and one that I like to think I share with you. It is as the Chara's friend that I wish to speak to you, Andrew. It is on a matter that I cannot approach the Chara about officially except insofar as I have already done so. I know that you are probably the only person in this palace who cares as much about the Chara's best interests as I do. So I would like your help, free-man to free-man, in opening the Chara's eyes to a danger that faces Emor."

"If I can help the Chara," I said, carefully rephrasing Lord Dean's request, "I certainly will try to do so. What is the nature of this danger?"

Lord Dean smiled, his long fingers idly twirling the short locks of his white hair. "Do you remember the visit of the Arpeshian princess many years ago? She is, of course, a princess only in name, but the Arpeshians hold her in great respect, and it is through the influence of her late mother that the Chara Nicholas was able to subdue a threatened rebellion in Arpesh fourteen years ago. The princess would have been about five years old at that time."

"I was not yet part of the Chara's household at that time, Lord Dean."

"No, that is right, and I suppose that you did not venture much from your quarters. Well, when the princess visited, the Chara Peter was a boy of twelve, still a few years from manhood, yet he spent a surprisingly large amount of his time entertaining his palace guest. I believe, too, that he saw Lady Delia again several years later, when he visited Arpesh on the eve of his enthronement. And so the council suggested to the Chara some weeks ago that he invite the princess to stay at the palace."

"Is there trouble in Arpesh? I had not heard." My mind was less on what the High Lord was saying than on unravelling the puzzle of the tapestry. What was the meaning of the young woman leading a goat into a building? Or of the quill pen that appeared to be writing in blood? Or, most mysterious of all, the upper right-hand corner of the tapestry, which was carefully woven black, with no symbols whatever?

"There is as yet no trouble in Arpesh," said Lord Dean, "and there would be no trouble in the future if the Chara chose to unite himself with the last descendent of the Arpeshian royal line."

There was a silence of less than a heartbeat before I replied, my eyes still fixed on the tapestry, "Has the princess shown any interest in marrying the Chara?"

"The princess is too well trained to voice her thoughts publicly, but the council has learned from various sources that she would be agreeable to such a union, both for the good of her land and also from a personal point of view. She has not forgotten the Chara's kindness to her on her last visit."

"And the Chara?"

"Agreed to invite the princess here. She is scheduled to arrive here in three months' time."

I tore my gaze away from the tapestry and looked over at Lord Dean. I could not read his face, but neither, I was sure, could he read mine. I said coolly, "Then I fail to see where the problem lies, Lord Dean. If the Chara has taken the trouble to invite the princess here, I imagine that he will agree to the marriage. I do not see how I can help him."

"The Chara—" Lord Dean's voice rose in an unaccustomed manner before he mastered himself and said in his usual restrained tone, "I met the Chara in the corridor earlier today. He asked me to send a message to Arpesh immediately, cancelling the princess's visit. He said that he would have to meet with the princess at some other time."

"Well," I said, treading carefully around the edges of my conversation with Peter, "it may be that he is worried about the crisis in Koretia and feels that he needs to devote his time to that matter. After he has done that, no doubt he will be able to meet with the princess."

"I am sure that the Chara will have some good explanation for cancelling the visit," Lord Dean said dryly. "I doubt, however, that he will ever meet with the princess. This is the third marital alliance that the council has proposed to him, the third time that he has agreed to meet with the noblewoman in question, and the third time that he has cancelled the visit at the last minute. It is clear that, in the Chara's mind, there is no good time for him to arrange a marriage."

Outside the windows, the silver trumpets of the Chara announced the end of the court's day. Lord Dean took no notice. He was at most times the least perturbed lord on a council of composed lords, but now he was drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

Keeping my voice neutral, I said, "I suppose that the Chara must believe there is plenty of time for marriage in the future, since he is still young."

"He is not too young to die," said Lord Dean bluntly. "His father was hardly the first Chara to die at a relatively young age from sheer overwork – it is a curse that seems to come with the title. And leaving that possibility aside, there is always the danger brought by war in the dominions. Even with the Chara supervising the fighting from a safe distance, there is always the danger of assassins. If the Chara should lead a force into Koretia some months from now and be cut down, you know what will happen to Emor."

I was silent before saying, "It is not clear who the Chara's heir is, as I understand it."

"He has no heir, according to the law; the council found the Chara's nearest kinsman to be unsuitable for the throne. The Chara has no other relatives close enough within the royal line to qualify for inheritance. So if the Chara dies, this land will erupt into a war as terrible as those in Koretia, a war to determine who should take the Chara's place."

"If a peaceful solution should be found . . ."

The High Lord shook his head. "I doubt that even a successor selected by peaceful means would prove an adequate substitute. The duties of the Chara are handed down father to son; it is a role that the Chara Peter spent his life preparing for, and it is not a role that even I could walk into unprepared. With no Chara, there would be no High Judge, and with no high judgment, Emor would be destroyed."

Lord Dean's words contained an unusual passion, but my own voice, when it spoke, was stripped of all emotion. "I am sure that the Chara has thought of all that you have said. If he has decided that his current duties prevent him from producing an immediate heir, it is not my place to dispute the matter with him."

"Now, Andrew," said Lord Dean mildly, "that is a disingenuous statement. You know quite well that, as the Chara's friend, you have disputed with him on far more controversial topics. Some of these topics you have raised with him on my suggestion – though only, I know, when my opinion on the subjects happened to coincide with your own. So let us have less talk of how you are the Chara's humble servant and more talk about what you and I can do to aid him in this difficult matter."

His eyes shifted to mine suddenly, in the manner of a soldier who is trying to judge how to slice his blade through his enemy's guard. I did not move, but I let my eyes drift once more toward the tapestry. "I am not sure how it is that I can help, Lord Dean. Friend or not, I surely do not have the right to lead the Chara to his marriage-bed. He knows that I will help him in any way I can when the time comes."

"Ah, but will you?" The tone of Lord Dean's question was like cold metal on my skin, but a moment later he said amiably, "I know, of course, that you are always ready with help – you may be the most loyal subject the Chara has in this land. It is natural that, whenever the Chara is in need of advice or companionship, he should turn to you. But perhaps that is a danger in itself. It may be that the Chara finds it difficult to consult with one companion about a union with another companion."

I said nothing, but let my eyes drift blindly over the colors of the tapestry: red and gold, silver and black, green and blue and brown. Lord Dean's voice grew even more gentle as he said, "I remember how, when I was young, it was hard to watch my friends part and take wives. It was like a betrayal of our friendships. I think that the only thing that made it bearable was knowing that some day I too would find a mate. But of course I'm sure that, like any other man, you understand the desire to raise a family."

My roving eye settled for a moment on the man roping the stallion. "Yes."

"Well, then." Having found his way past my guard and delivered his blow, Lord Dean settled back into a more comfortable position. His voice grew matter-of-fact again. "I'm therefore sure you appreciate the conflict of loyalties that the Chara must be feeling at this moment. That is why I suggested earlier that you might want to spend some time apart in Koretia: in order to give the Chara a chance to work out on his own what is best for himself and for Emor. So you see, I'm not asking you to mediate on my behalf as I have in the past, though I'm sure that you will discuss this matter with the Chara. Instead – I speak without formality here, since we share the Chara's friendship – Peter may have less need this time of your advice than of your actions. I think that you ought to put much thought to this."

I rose slowly, my limbs feeling as heavy as though Lord Dean had transferred his aging body to mine. I bowed to the High Lord and said, "I appreciate your bringing this matter to my attention. I assure you that I will indeed give thought to the matter."

Lord Dean rose also, and as we walked toward the library door, he smiled at me. "I know that I can count on your loyalty to the Chara to help you in making the right decision. There is no one else in the palace who knows the Chara as well as you do, or has the ability to demonstrate to him more clearly the importance of fathering an heir."

He left me standing beside a window that, like the window in the Map Room, looked out upon the southern view. Twelve years had passed since I had been in the city surrounding the Chara's palace, and fifteen years since I had been there in daylight, yet still I could find in a moment's glance the market beside the river, with its stalls and tents and the high, windy platform where the slaves were sold.

CHAPTER FOUR

Fifteen years before, I had stood hand-bound on that platform, my back to the black border mountains, and my gaze fixed firmly on the Chara's palace.

Summer still held sway in Koretia, but the autumn winds had begun to bite at us even before the slave-seller's pack-train passed through the mountains. I was dressed in a bare-backed Emorian slave's tunic, trying not to shiver as the wind scurried up my spine, and trying even harder not to waver my gaze and chance meeting the eyes of a free-man. The slave-seller called me stubborn and senseless, but I had at least learned that lesson in my struggle to survive during the past ten weeks.

The subdued noises of the Emorian marketplace sounded strange to my ear: the fish-sellers did not shout out their wares, nor did the man running the fruit-cart burst into curses when a small girl tried to make off with an apple. Rather than handle the matter himself, as a Koretian would have done, he summoned the soldiers patrolling the market – though, to my relief, the soldiers seemed more amused than angered by the child's actions. All of the sounds in the market were orderly and exact, like the neat stone walls and tidy fields surrounding the city.

I could not see the fields from where I stood. Towering over me was the palace of the Chara, its hard, white-marble face appearing cold to me in contrast with the warm glow of Koretia's Council Hall. The hilltop palace was encircled by a double layer of walls, as high as the city wall we had passed beyond that morning. On the towers of the inner palace wall, soldiers drilled in uniform motion.

"There he is!"

The voice caught my attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the slave-seller's assistant was standing nearby, pointing to me. The genial slave-seller who had bought me from the previous seller had given his young assistant the day off after our hard, winding journey. From the looks of it, the assistant was spending his time with his girl.

"That's the one who tried to kill me," he was telling her now. "Nearly choked me with his bare hands when I was adjusting his hand-bindings."

"But he's just a boy!" cried the girl. She was dressed in a gown which, except for its heavy material, might have been Koretian, but her hair was a color that seemed to me startling in its lightness.

"That's what I thought, and it was nearly the death of me. My master said that I should have known better. We bought this slave off of Ogier, who was selling him cheap because Ogier was nearly knocked over the head one night after he bought the boy from a soldier. Ogier said he wasn't the sort of slave that it would be easy to find a buyer for; he was quite honest about it. My master, though, said that he knew a lord who would pay good money for him. I'm not sure it was worth it, myself, what with us having to watch him every moment to make sure he wouldn't escape or try to kill the lot of us."

"It must take great bravery to work with these Koretian barbarians," said the girl, drawing herself closer to the assistant.

She was very pretty, and I nearly made the mistake of staring at her with open admiration. Then I heard a sound to the right of me and froze. It was the slave-seller, puffing his way up the platform steps as he led a customer toward me.

"Here he is, Lord Carle," said the seller, laying his hands on his broad belly as he caught his breath. "I tell you frankly, if it were some lords, I would keep my mouth shut about this slave until they had bought him and found out for themselves what he is like. And to other lords I might feel an obligation to give a friendly warning. But when I saw this boy, I knew that he was just the slave for you."

"Hmm." The Emorian lord stood slightly to the side. I could just see his moss-green eyes examining me. He had a ruddy face, and his reddish-brown beard was sprinkled with silver. The forehead over his thick eyebrows was knotted with concentration. "He came from their capital, you say?"

"What is left of the Koretian capital, at any rate. Now that the wars are over, the new governor has been wondering whether the city is worth the bother to rebuild. But you would know more about that than I do."

Lord Carle said nothing, but circled round me until he reached my other side. I kept my eyes fixed at a point beyond him as he passed.

"He looks stubborn enough," said Lord Carle finally. "What is his name?"

The slave-seller appeared confused. "I'm not sure," he said. "I don't know the Koretian tongue myself. Hugh!" He shouted this down to his assistant, who was watching the proceedings with interest. "You know their language. Does he have a name?"

"Can't say as I've ever wanted to get well enough acquainted with him to find out, sir," the assistant cried out boldly, perhaps for the benefit of the giggling girl.

The slave-seller frowned at his assistant behind Lord Carle's back, and then asked the nobleman, "Shall I bring my boy up to interpret, Lord Carle?"

"Don't bother. I was forced by our unremitting troubles with Koretia to learn that primitive tongue myself. —What is your name?" he asked me in flawless Koretian.

He had moved again so that he was facing me straight on. I had my chin up high enough that I could have seen his face, but I took care to keep my gaze fixed on his chest. I said nothing.

Lord Carle moved back slightly so that my gaze now fell on his neck. I did not move my body or eyes. He said reflectively, "I hope that you are not trying to sell me a deaf-mute, Robert."

"The laws forbid that I should, Lord Carle!" the slave-seller protested. "He is simply a mulish rascal – you see how difficult he is to train." He paused, judging his customer, and then added, "Would you like to take on the challenge yourself?"

"That depends, as always, on the price. The last time I was here, you tried to sell me a half-dead Daxion for twice my inheritance."

The slave-seller chuckled. "Then I will see whether I can make up for it this time. To be perfectly honest, Lord Carle, if you fail to buy the boy, I don't know what I will do with him. Not many free-men in this city have the courage to try to tame a savage Koretian like this. I will let you have him for forty gold pieces."

Lord Carle moved again, this time so that his eyes would meet mine. I waited until the moment he blinked, and then shifted my gaze ever so slightly away from him.

"A fair price for once," said Lord Carle, still looking at me rather than the slave-seller. "Which makes me suspicious. What sort of wounds does he have hidden under that tunic?"

"Do you think I would try to sell a defective slave to a council lord? I've no wish to be summoned to the city court on the charge of selling bad goods. I assure you, he is entirely whole in body. You may inspect him yourself, if you wish."

"It is the council's court that you would find yourself in if you committed a crime against a council lord," said Lord Carle, "and I have no intention of sullying my hands on his greasy body." He looked at me with distaste, his gaze travelling down over my chest. Then, in an instant, his eyes rose to catch me looking at him. I froze my gaze once more, and a smile entered his eyes. Then he turned away in apparent disinterest.

"I have some tamer slaves to sell, if you prefer," said the disappointed slave-seller.

"Taming is an art," said Lord Carle, his voice smooth with passion. "I bought a stallion off of Warren the horse-seller last year. He told me that it could never be tamed, that I was better off buying another horse that had already been broken. Three months later he visited the palace stables and saw my horse, broken in both body and spirit, and obedient to my slightest command. He has not tried to sell me any tame horses since then."

The slave-seller beamed with pleasure. Lord Carle turned slowly back to the place in which he had stood before, where his gaze met my gaze, and this time I did not dare try to shift my eyes. He said, "This Koretian dog speaks with a barbaric tongue and comes from a barbaric land, one which has no order or laws. Yet if I were to take him, in three months you would find him thinking and acting like a civilized Emorian. If you know how to discipline a slave, as I do, such transformations are accomplished with ease."

He stepped forward slightly, his eyebrows drawn down low as he gazed narrowly at me. I lifted my eyes slowly until they met his once more, and I said in Emorian, "I am Koretian. I will never be Emorian, for I have taken a blood vow to kill the Chara and bring freedom to my land."

Lord Carle began to smile again, a slow, crooked smile. So fascinating was that dark smile that I did not see his fist until it had nearly reached my cheek.

I dodged then, and the blow landed at a glance so that I was thrown to my knees rather than being flattened to the ground. I felt the platform vibrate with a thump as the slave-seller's assistant jumped up next to me to ensure that I would not cause trouble. Shaking my bowed head in an attempt to stop the buzzing in my ears, I rose, and then lifted my eyes firmly to meet Lord Carle's.

He was still smiling. Now something more entered his expression, like the look of admiration that a soldier might show for his enemy. He said with soft viciousness, "You have just learned the first lesson of being an Emorian, which is to show respect for your masters. If you wish to remain Koretian inside, I will not interfere with your loyalties. By the Chara's high doom, though, you will learn how to behave like an Emorian, and you will begin by apologizing to me."

The wind was running up and down my spine now like a dagger blade, and I could feel myself begin to shiver. But I did not speak, and I did not move my eyes.

After a moment, Lord Carle turned away. "Geld him."

"Lord Carle?" said the slave-seller uncertainly.

"Have him delivered to the palace dungeon's torturers; tell them to send him to my quarters after they have gelded him. If he dies under the knife, I will pay for his loss. But if he lives—" He turned his dark gaze my way. "If he lives, he will know who his master is, and that his master is to be obeyed."

Then he walked away, and I was left staring at the marble prison in front of me.

o—o—o

"What do you think you're looking at?"

Philippa, Lord Carle's kitchen slave, was always a beauty to look at: she had honey-colored skin, nut-brown lips, and amber eyelashes. She was not Koretian, as I had once thought; rather, she had Koretian coloring and a soft Koretian accent because she had been born in the borderland, the strip of land stretching on both sides of the black border mountains. Here Koretians married Emorians, producing light-skinned Koretians and dark-skinned Emorians. Philippa was Emorian, but I allowed this fact to be dulled in my mind whenever I caught sight of her.

She was a beauty even now that she stood frowning at me because she had noticed me watching out of the corner of my eye as she cuddled with Lord Diggory's slave-servant Patrick. We were in the pantry, one of the few rooms in Lord Carle's section of the slave-quarters with a reasonable amount of privacy, and a favorite location for palace slaves who wished to carry on a romance.

I had not come to the room with the deliberate intention of spying on them. I had been sent there that evening by Lord Carle's free-servant Henry to clean the silver wine cups.

"Oh, leave him alone, Lippa," said Patrick, pausing from the act of nibbling her ear. "Have mercy on the poor wretch. It's the most fun he'll ever have."

My face remained expressionless as I wiped the cups mechanically with a cloth, but something about my hunched posture prompted Patrick to add with exasperation, "Oh, come on – I'm just joking."

"Look at him – look at him," said Philippa, twisting away from Patrick's grasp so that she could rest her fists on her hips. "He's cleaning the bottom of the wine pitcher as well. I know that Henry wouldn't have told him to do that. It's just another way he has found to act as though he's better than any other slave. He's a cold, uppity creature, and he spends half his time trying to make the rest of us look lazy."

"It won't be hard for him to do that, will it?" said Patrick, smoothing down the front of his tunic. "You're supposed to be washing up right now, aren't you? You'd better go finish cleaning the dishes before Henry suspects that I have been waylaying you from your duties. Henry's a stickler for duty, he is. And I don't want to come by here again and find that Henry has given orders for the guards to keep me out."

Philippa gave a half-smile, half-frown, coaxing Patrick's mouth down to her own. Once he had begun to take interest, she pushed him away and left the pantry, not looking back. Patrick sighed and turned to me. "Here, I'll help you with that. You'll never get those cups done in time if you take that much trouble over them."

He sat down beside me on the stone bench next to the table and began wiping the cups with a skill lesser than my own. After a few minutes he said, "Why do you take so much trouble? I'm just curious. I've heard plenty of stories about the encounters you've had with Lord Carle, so love of your master can't be what drives you."

I wiped the lip of the cup I was holding, held it up to the light, and wiped it again before replying, "I do it for the Jackal."

"The Jackal? . . . Oh, one of your Koretian gods. What does the Jackal have to do with it?"

I tossed aside the cloth I was holding and pulled over a clean one, pushing a lock of hair out of my eyes as I did so. I did not have to worry about much hair getting in my face as I worked; Lord Carle had ordered my hair cut soon after I first arrived at his quarters, while I still lay half-conscious on my sickbed. He wanted me to have short hair like any decent Emorian boy. I had not protested. It had seemed to me at that time that all my dreams of coming of age had already been destroyed forever.

"If I had to do my work for the sake of Lord Carle, I would never do it," I replied. "If I didn't do my work, Lord Carle would kill me. So, since the Jackal is my real master, I pretend that I'm doing the work for him. When you work for a god, you want to work well."

Patrick stared at me. He was an Emorian, sold on his village court's orders to pay a debt that his father had incurred, and he had spent most of his seventeen years at the palace. I knew little about him, since he worked in Lord Diggory's section of the slave-quarters, farther along in the basement. But I knew that most of the other slaves disliked him. This was reason enough for me to like him, since I shared his problem.

"You're an odd one, aren't you?" he said. "I'd heard that you had your own way of thinking. You would have to have a different sort of mind to get into so many arguments with Lord Carle. I hate being in the same room as that lord, even on his good days. I thought you were going to say that you did a lot of work in hope that he would free you some day."

"No," I said, taking a cup from his hand because he had been wiping the same spot for several minutes. "Lord Carle will never free me."

"You're right about that, and it's not just Lord Carle. I haven't known any palace slaves to be freed the whole time I've been here. I think the Chara is afraid that the dominion-born ones will take secrets back to their lands and cause trouble. And, of course, what the Chara wants, every council lord wants as well. The only way I know for a palace slave to be freed is for him to be transferred to his master's country home – that's the route I'm planning to take. After a few years, they forget that you lived in the palace, and you have just as good a chance as any other slave in this land of getting your manumission paper."

I pushed the finished wine cups to one side and began wiping the water cups once more. "There are benefits to living in the palace. Some day I may meet the Chara."

"What will you do if that happens?" replied Patrick with a laugh. "Ask to touch his pendant? Tell him what he should do in Koretia? Or you could just kill him and solve all the problems of your land."

Again I said nothing, and again something about my posture caused Patrick to exclaim, "You're not serious! Don't be a fool, boy; it has been tried before. It never works – the palace guards always catch the assassin beforehand, and you know what would happen to you then."

I put down the water cup I was holding, staring at the reflections on it. The mirrored colors were as dull as my surroundings: grey from the windowless walls of the slave-quarters, brown from the tunics that Patrick and I wore, and black from the shelves around us. I said, "To die for the sake of the god would be better than spending the rest of my life serving Lord Carle."

"Well, if your god has ordered you to do this, tell him that he should reconsider the matter. Do you have any idea what they do to a slave who has been placed under the high doom? He doesn't get his head cut off with a sword as though he were a free-man. If I ever have to die, you may be sure that I'll arrange for it to be in a quick and painless manner."

I stood up and went over to the shelf, where I pulled out a gold tray. As I began placing the cups and wine and water in careful order on the tray, Patrick lowered his voice. "Listen, you take my advice and don't tell anyone else about this. You can't trust slaves – they'd give word to their master what you were up to, just to get on his good side. You don't want to have to fight off all the palace guards before you even get to meet the Chara. It will be hard enough killing one person."

"Two people," I said. "The Chara and the Chara To Be. They are both the Chara."

"Have you been sneaking a look at Lord Carle's law books? For sure, you'd have to kill the Chara's son too, but you'd have even less chance of doing that. The Chara keeps Lord Peter locked away in his room, reading book after book, and only brings him out for the occasional ceremony or court case."

I did not reply. Patrick opened his mouth to say more, and then rose quickly as Henry opened the door to the room.

"What are you doing here, Patrick?" he asked, looking hard at the slave-servant.

"Message for Lord Carle, sir," said Patrick smoothly. "Lord Diggory said that I was to deliver it personally, but I understand that Lord Carle is at dinner."

Henry held out his hand, and Patrick placed the wax-sealed letter there. The white-haired free-servant glanced at the seal briefly, then handed the envelope back and said, "You will have to wait until later this evening. Not here, where you will be in the way of the other slaves. There is food left from the dinner in the kitchen – you can wait there."

Patrick bowed his head in acknowledgment and thanks of the order, waited until Henry had stepped past him, and then winked at me before leaving the room.

Henry's composed gaze took in me and the cleaned cups. "Well done. Is that the best tunic you have?"

"It is the only tunic I have, sir."

"We will have to find you a better one soon. That one will do for now. Lord Carle has dinner guests, and while it was my understanding that the chief guest would bring his own free-servant to help pour the wine, he has not done so. Lord Carle told me to send for you, since he knows you to be circumspect in your manner and not the type to gossip about what you overhear while serving."

Lord Carle, I was sure, had phrased his command in a far less complimentary manner, but Henry had served the council lord for many years and had a special talent for covering up his master's brusqueness. I asked, "Do I come right away?"

"Yes, bring the tray now; they have finished their dinner. I will serve the wine, and you will serve the water. You do know which is the water cup, do you not?"

"The larger one, sir."

"Mind that you remember." Henry strode out of the room, his head held high with the dignity of a favored free-servant. I followed, cradling the heavy tray in my arms.

We walked through the slave-quarters, up the stairs, through the basement door that Henry opened with a key (since the slaves were now locked in for the night), past the guards stationed outside, down the short stretch of corridor that was the only part of the palace I had seen during my time there, through the door to Lord Carle's quarters, up a passage to the door of the dining chamber, and stopped there. Henry gave me a sharp look and opened the door. For a moment, his body blocked my view of the chamber. Then he stepped inside, and I looked straight into the eyes of the Chara's son.

He had changed much in the three-and-a-half years since I had seen him last, tugging at the cloak of his father. He had the lankiness of a boy on the edge of manhood – he was now nearly fifteen, just over a year from his coming of age. The open eagerness I had once seen on his face had altered to a more caged look, as though something had either frightened him or matured him. Only his eyes remained as I remembered them: grey as the Emorian sky on a winter's day, filled with curiosity and depth.

This much I saw before I dropped my gaze hastily. I followed Henry into the chamber. Its southern window was shuttered for the night, and the serving ledge where Henry placed the gold tray was shadow-dark in the candle-lit room. I took the water pitcher that Henry handed me, and then went over to stand at my place, on the side of the table to the right of Lord Carle. Only then did I see who the council lord's other two guests were: an elderly, hawk-eyed man whose glance darted around the table, and the Chara Nicholas.

The table was empty but for its candles, its fine embroidered covering, and a bowl of nuts that the elderly lord passed toward Lord Carle as he asked, "How are the negotiations going with the Daxion Ambassador, Nicholas?"

The Chara Nicholas waited a moment while Henry placed wine cups and water cups on the table. Unlike his son, he had not changed since I saw him last: he still had the carefully controlled movements of a man who is restraining abundant energy. Now he smiled and said in an easy manner, "Dean, whenever you ask me a question like that, I'm certain that you're trying to dig up information to use at your next council meeting."

"The laws forbid that I should!" exclaimed Lord Dean. "Believe me, I trust that you'll send us the appropriate reports in due time. I merely thought that you looked a bit tired."

"Some time within the next five years I hope to have a full night's rest," responded the Chara Nicholas. "But yes, the Ambassador has proved difficult to work with. He appears to know little about Emor and seems to think that our courts work in the same manner as those in his land, so that I've found myself having to describe to him the entire law-structure in the space of two days. I wish dearly that King Leofwin would have thought to send an ambassador who could deal with the subtleties of our negotiations rather than bog down in elementary facts." As he paused again to allow Henry to fill his cup with wine, I caught the quick nod of Henry's head toward me and stepped forward to fill Lord Dean's water cup.

"At least he was not caught stealing candlesticks from the Council Chamber, like that Koretian Ambassador in the time of the Chara Duncan." I saw Lord Carle's eyes rest on me briefly as I came clockwise round the table to fill his cup; then he took no more notice of me.

"Heart of Mercy," said Lord Dean. "I hope that the man was sentenced severely."

"That ambassador was not brought to trial at all," said the Chara Nicholas, moving his water cup to the right so that I could fill it without coming near to him. "Carle can undoubtedly tell you the details. I often think that he knows the law books better than I do and that he is studying to be my successor."

"I would not want to usurp the title from your son, Chara, since I hear that he is making fine progress with his studies," said Lord Carle. His eye was on the Chara's son, who was murmuring his thanks to me as I poured water into his cup. "In fact, I would be interested in discovering what he has learned on the subject of ambassadors."

"Peter?" The Chara's son, Peter, jerked his head around at his father's word, as though his thoughts had been elsewhere. The Chara Nicholas said, "What can you tell Lord Carle about ambassadors?"

I moved back from the table and stood where I had before, a body's length behind the Chara's son. Peter looked toward Lord Carle and said, in a manner in no way stilted, but rather as though he was speaking on a subject he knew well, "Ambassadors mediate negotiations between the rulers of two sovereign lands, usually in a time of grave crisis, either in wartime or peacetime."

"And some examples?" prompted his father.

"The Daxion Ambassador has been sent here for a peacetime crisis: the floods that are affecting both northern Daxis and the southwestern edge of Emor. A wartime example is that of Koretia. Fifteen years ago, that land sent an Ambassador to Emor in response to the Chara's distress over the fact that Koretia's civil war was beginning to spill over into the Emorian borderland villages—"

"We all know how the Border Wars began, I hope," said Lord Dean.

"My son was not born till the following year, Dean; this is ancient history to him," said the Chara Nicholas. "Go on, Peter."

"Koretia sent the Ambassador under a peace oath requiring that both our lands keep soldiers out of the black border mountains. But while the Ambassador was negotiating, Koretia took advantage of our laxness and destroyed our borderland villages. It appeared that the Ambassador had not been informed of his King's treacherous plans, so he was allowed by the Chara to return home."

"And was unfortunately executed by his own people for the failed negotiations, so my mercy was to no purpose," said the Chara Nicholas. "What else does the law say about ambassadors, Peter?"

"During his visits, the Ambassador is made a palace guest and is placed under the care of the Chara." Peter seemed quite composed in voice, but from where I stood, I could see that he was fingering his coarsely-woven tunic with nervous energy. "He negotiates only with the Chara, though the Chara consults with the council in matters that are under its province. If he commits a crime—"

"Ah!" said Lord Dean, draining his water. "I was wondering when my question would be answered – or indeed if it would be answered at all."

I stepped forward with the water pitcher and therefore caught the tail end of Peter's gaze as it swept over to Lord Dean. "I am sorry, Lord Dean. It is hard for me to remember the laws out of the order I learned them. If the Ambassador commits a crime, he is normally immune to the law and cannot be summoned to the court – that was the case with the Koretian Ambassador in my great-grandfather's time. If, however, the Ambassador's own people ask Emor to make judgment on the matter, he is tried in the Chara's court. The Ambassador can be tried for any crime except . . ." He hesitated.

"Disobedience to the Chara," said his father, peering at him over the rim of his wine cup.

"Disobedience to the Chara," repeated Peter. "This is because his loyalty is to his own ruler, and it cannot be considered a crime under the law for a man in a different land to have different loyalties." He stopped fingering the brown tunic, and as he reached out from under the table to grasp his water, his hand was as steady as ice.

"Reciting a passage from a book is not the same as being the Chara, of course," said Lord Dean, "but I, for one, am impressed."

I saw Peter suddenly grip the cup stem tightly, but he merely said in a low voice, "Thank you, Lord Dean."

"In actual fact," Lord Carle said dryly, "that was five passages from five different law books, so I am even more impressed. You forgot the law, though, concerning ceremonial dress."

Peter's hand disappeared under the table, and I saw him grip the tunic once more. He said calmly, "I apologize. Ambassadors are expected to dress formally for ceremonies, but according to the customs of their own land. In particular, they are not required to wear a free-man's weapon. —May I ask a question, Chara?"

"Call me Father; we are amongst friends. What is it that you wish to know?"

"The Enkloo Ambassador who came here several years ago wore a sword, but swords are not the weapon of warfare in that land. Why did he dress according to Emorian custom, then?"

"Because he was a good ambassador," said the Chara Nicholas. He put his wine cup to one side, and Henry came forward to fill it. "It's always wise for a mediator to adopt the customs of the land he is visiting, whether he abides by them at home or not. But it isn't wise for Emor to insist that ambassadors do so. Every land has its own customs and even its own laws. That's why I haven't imposed on the dominions more Emorian customs than are necessary. We cannot, for example, make a Koretian into an Emorian."

I was standing behind the Chara's son, about to refill his water cup. I saw Lord Carle look my way before saying, "I might dispute the Chara for saying that Koretia has its own laws. But it is true that it is exceedingly difficult to make the dominions behave in a civilized fashion. Take these recent problems in Arpesh."

"Ah," said Lord Dean. "I was hoping that this subject would arise. The council has been most disturbed by its lack of information on the matter, Nicholas. Since the dominion is under the council's care, w'd like to know why we have received no reports on the army divisions you have recently sent to that land."

The Chara Nicholas held Lord Dean's eyes for a moment before saying in a tranquil voice, "You have received no reports yet, High Lord, because it is my privilege to decide the appropriate time for you to receive such reports. The army is under the Chara's care – as you know. It appears, however, that your clerk doesn't realize this, as he has been sending out orders in contradiction to my own. I would appreciate it . . ." His voice lingered on this phrase for a moment. ". . . if you would inform him of his proper duties in this matter."

"Certainly, Chara," said Lord Dean, making a hasty retreat from his attack. "I've spoken to the man before, but you know how hard it is to discipline clerks. They seem to feel that they alone issue the commands."

"Discipline is always a difficult task," said the Chara Nicholas, his voice sounding darker, "but it must be undertaken. And please do not send your clerk to me for his punishment as you did in the last case of this kind. The council should take care of its own."

Lord Dean reached for the nut bowl but did not take anything from it, as though he were merely trying to occupy his hands. "No, of course not," he said. "I wouldn't wish to bother you more than I already have in the past." He gave a short laugh and added, "Perhaps I should send the clerk to your son the next time he tries on your pendant, in order to give him practice for the future."

There was a long silence, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that Peter had turned his head toward Lord Dean. The boy's face was bloodless. Then, as though compelled unwillingly by an invisible hand, the Chara's son turned to look at his father.

The Chara Nicholas had changed expression as well: the lines of his face had solidified, as though his soft flesh had hardened into granite. But if his face was stone, his eyes by contrast were a wounded crack in that stone. He said in a quiet, detached voice, "Did you wear my pendant, Peter?"

The ball in Peter's throat bobbed. He whispered, "Yes, Father."

Lord Dean said hastily, "It was many years ago, I believe, when he was playing as a little lad."

The Chara Nicholas said slowly, "Peter has known since he was a babe in arms that not even the Chara To Be may touch the Pendant of Judgment."

Peter continued to stare at his father, as though his eyes were trapped. Lord Dean was now taking a great interest in the design of the nut bowl, while Lord Carle stared down at his half-full wine cup as he cradled it in his hand. Even Henry stood rigid, his gaze straight ahead. The Chara's voice, when it came again, was low and heavy. "Lord Peter, let me be clear. If you touch the Pendant of Judgment again while I am alive, I will have you summoned to my court on the charge of disobeying the Chara. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Chara." Peter's voice was still faint, but there was a firmness to his reply that matched his father's words.

"Good. Then we will say no more on the matter." The Chara Nicholas's face relaxed and he looked away, pushing his cup to the side. Henry walked forward to fill it.

"It was thoughtless of me to have raised the subject," said Lord Dean, smiling at Peter. The Chara's son was fiddling with the stem of his water cup and did not look up.

"'Thoughtless' is perhaps not the word I would have used," said Lord Carle, staring hard at his fellow council lord. "We seem to have strayed successfully from the embarrassing topic of the council clerk."

"Did you wish to add something on that subject, Carle?" asked the Chara Nicholas.

"Not on that subject, no, Chara. But on the subject of discipline in general I may say that one of the things that has impressed me over the years about your court cases is the way in which you take the prisoner's entire nature into account when handing down judgment. You have often shown discernment in judging your prisoner, not simply by his crime, which may have been done as a result of youth or lack of experience, but by the whole of his character."

Peter's eyes rose slowly toward Lord Carle, and for a moment the council lord looked back at him with a discreetly neutral expression. Then Lord Carle broke the eye-link, leaning forward to take the nut bowl.

"Thank you for those words of wisdom, Carle," said the Chara Nicholas quietly. "Discipline is indeed a subject on which you have much knowledge to impart."

He glanced over toward his son, but Peter had seemingly already guessed his father's wishes, for he was asking, "May I visit you some time, Lord Carle, and ask you questions on that matter?"

Lord Carle bowed his head. "I would be honored. Is there any matter in particular that interests you?"

"Perhaps the subject of the Chara's relationship with his servants would be a good topic," suggested the Chara Nicholas, with a slight quirk to his mouth.

Peter apparently did not notice his father's expression, for he said somberly to Lord Carle, "My father means that he discovered me playing tag with some of the slave-boys who were cleaning the Court of Judgment."

Lord Dean quickly put his hand over his mouth. Even Lord Carle seemed to have trouble controlling his expression. But his voice was serious as he said to Peter, "You lead a hard life, I am sure, studying to become Chara. But good customs learned now will make your work easier for you when you grow older."

"Some things," said the Chara Nicholas, "are never easy to do."

At his soft words, the others turned to look at him, as though awaiting a proclamation. The Chara Nicholas paused a moment, as though trying to formulate the exact phrases required by law, and then said, "One of the terrible burdens I must pass on to my son is the knowledge that the Chara has no equals. The gap between the Chara and his free-servant and slave-servants is too great to be bridged; even the gap between the Chara and his council lords is too wide most of the time. I have been lucky to have had the friendship of you two, but many other lords have sought my friendship over the years and have failed, not through any lack of effort on my part, but because they could not realize that, when I become a friend, I do not cease to be master. I cannot show favor to any man, nor can I cease to be the Chara to any of my subjects. But few men can face the knowledge that their friend has the ability, and may have the duty, to condemn them in the Court of Judgment. I do not blame the lords who found it hard to live with this fact. Of all the sacrifices I have had to make for the sake of my throne, this one is the hardest."

The Chara Nicholas had his eyes dipped ever so slightly so that he was looking at the table. His listeners were silent: Henry, at the other side of the room pouring more wine into his pitcher; Lord Carle, his hand touching his empty water cup; Lord Dean, looking as though he were memorizing the words; and Peter, leaning forward to see better the face of his father. Then Peter reached out and offered the nut bowl to his father. The eyes of the Chara met briefly the eyes of the Chara To Be, and the tension was broken.

Lord Carle said, "What you say is true not only of the Chara, but of masters in general. Among the higher ranks, of course, friendship may flourish, but I think that it is a mistake for a master to become too intimate with his servants. That sort of situation leads only to ill conduct on the part of the servants."

"Nobody could accuse you of having poorly trained servants, Carle," said Lord Dean.

"Thank you, High Lord. I do my best, and I think that the results are satisfying, not only to myself, but also to my free-servant and slaves. Servants do not really wish to be pampered and allowed to do bad work – they thrive on discipline and labor. The results are manifold: cheerful servants, well-run quarters, and the knowledge that my life is as orderly and systematic as the Chara's own—" He stopped suddenly, alerted by the expression of Peter, who was biting his lip in an attempt to contain laughter.

I stepped back from Lord Carle with the water pitcher in hand. Lord Carle stared at the table for a moment. Then, without looking my way, he beckoned to his free-servant and said quietly, "Henry, you have done an excellent job in serving us tonight; I am grateful. Nevertheless, I do not think that I need any water in my small cup, especially as it was already half-filled with wine."

"I will get you another cup, Lord Carle," murmured Henry, reaching forward.

I did not need to see Henry's quick look of instruction to know I must leave. As I neared the door, Lord Carle's voice, very soft, drifted back toward me: "Oh, and I would like to see you in my study chamber later this evening, Andrew."

I hesitated and looked back. Lord Carle had not bothered to turn his head to address me, but beyond him were the eyes of the Chara's son, watching me with sympathy.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Well?" said Lord Carle.

He was standing with me in his study chamber, his arms folded and his brows drawn low. The furiously burning fire beside him had turned his face even redder than usual, and I could see sweat on his forehead.

I kept my gaze carefully pointed at the wall behind him. "I am sorry for the mistake I made this evening, Lord Carle."

"Mistake." Lord Carle spat out the word as though it were the bitter portion of a fruit. He put a hand out to lean on the table nearby and said in a caustic voice, "If that had been a true apology, I would have considered it a miracle greater than the Emorian victory at Mountain Heights, since you have never once apologized to me for any of your defiances for the past three years. But even the Chara's son, who does not know your Koretian talent for deception, could see that your actions tonight were no mistake. On the contrary, you were quite successful in your goal of shaming me in front of my guests."

He reached over suddenly and took a dry log from the wood pile, then thrust it into the fire, so that the flames blazed up in fury. Turning back to me, he said in that quiet voice I had grown to fear, "Lord Diggory's slave Patrick came by my quarters after dinner tonight to deliver a message from his master. He stayed to deliver his own message, which was that you were planning to kill the Chara."

The red-golden flames reached upward, tearing at the air in a futile attempt to escape the chamber. The room was hotter than before, but I felt as though I had just been ducked under ice-cold water. I did not move.

"I think he hoped that I would pass on a good word to his master about him," Lord Carle continued. "I was obliged to explain to him that I had no good words to say about anyone who would betray a confidence. He was also disappointed to learn that I was fully informed of your ambition, since you had revealed it to me yourself. I must say I was gratified to learn that I have a servant who is so single-minded in his designs. But perhaps it will give you greater incentive to put your thoughts to your service duties if I tell you that you will not be in any condition to try your assassination attempt if you do not learn to behave. As you know, in most cases I do not find that it is necessary to resort to physical discipline, but you have sorely tried my patience."

He turned then, as though he had finished speaking to me, and strode over to the leather-bound books that lined the whole of one wall. He stared at them for a moment, as though reaching into them for inspiration. When he turned and spoke to me again, it was in a voice so soft that I could not tell whether he was being very gentle or very vicious.

"Henry tells me that you are the hardest-working and most meticulous slave he has ever supervised in his years with me," said Lord Carle. "This matches my own impression of your work. I also know that you are discreet and keep your observations to yourself, a quality that is hard to find in slaves. For this reason, I have discussed with Henry the possibility of sending you to work in my country home, which is lightly manned, as I have no family and rarely visit the house. Since few servants work there, you would be given greater independence in carrying out your duties."

He paused. He was just out of reach of my gaze, and so my eyes wandered toward him in an effort to see his face. Then I caught myself and stared intently at the wall once more.

"Tonight's episode," said Lord Carle, his voice rising, "confirms the conclusion I had already reached, which is that you are ill-suited for independent duties. To be allowed independence, a servant must have respect for his master, and you have no respect for your superiors at all. Indeed, so deep is your insolence that I am beginning to wonder whether you even respected your Koretian superiors before coming here. So, much as I would like to banish your troublesome presence and rid myself of the Koretian blood-fly I was foolish enough to take into my care, it is my duty to keep you here at the palace. It is my obligation, as your master, to teach you your own duty, which is to behave in a civilized Emorian manner. I have told you before: If you want to plot in your mind the murder of the Chara or the watering of my wine, I will not interfere with that. But while you are under my care, you will keep those schemes deep inside you and never allow them to be witnessed by me or anyone else. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Lord Carle." My reply did not come out with cutting defiance as it usually did, but dully, as though the blade of my voice had been blunted by a heavy stone.

"If you understand, then by all the laws of the Chara, you will—"

He stopped abruptly at the sound of a knock. The door opened a crack, and I saw the Chara's son peering in.

"Welcome, Lord Peter," said Lord Carle, his voice instantly mild. "May I help you with something?"

I was still gazing rigidly at the wall, but I could see Peter looking between me and the council lord. "I did not mean to disturb you, Lord Carle. I can come at another time."

"I am your father's servant and will one day be yours; I always have time to speak with the Chara's son." Lord Carle glanced at me. "We will finish this conversation later, Andrew. Return to your quarters now."

I gave him the bow my duty required, and then turned to leave the room. My eyes were lowered, so I could not see the Chara's son, but I felt him brush by me as we passed in the doorway.

As the door closed, I stopped and let my gaze rise again. As a senior council lord, Lord Carle had several chambers in his quarters, all connected by the passageway in which I stood. To the right of me, the dark passage led north and then east to the palace corridor door, but I my gaze strayed toward the other end of the passage, to a window hidden in half-shadows from the passage lamplight. I walked forward until I was standing in front of the window; then I pulled back the shutters.

A frosty breeze swirled in. This night was midwinter's eve, though the weather had been so mild this year that the first snowfall had not yet arrived. The moon lay below the edge of the world, and the city beneath was as dark as though the night sky had fallen atop it like a blanket. Its stars were the torches that still burned through the night, most of them coming from the soldiers who were patrolling the streets. A subtle scent wafted in on the breeze: the smell of the grape vines clutching the palace walls for warmth. These were the same grapes that were harvested to make the Emorian wine I had watered that night.

I leaned against the stone passage wall, hugging my arms to my chest in order to protect myself against the cold. My eyes were not on the city below, nor on the countryside beyond, but on the border mountains, black against the black sky, still free of the snow that would block its passes in a short time. Somewhere over those mountains was the Jackal . . . but despite my words to Patrick, it had been many months since I had ended my futile prayers to the god.

I do not know whether minutes passed or hours. But presently, standing with my shoulder against the chilly stones, I felt a presence, as though a warm breeze had made its way over the mountains from Koretia. I turned my head and saw the Chara's son.

He was watching me. As I sighted him he took a step backwards, as though he had wandered into the midst of a secret and sacred ceremony. Then, when I did not speak, he said, "I didn't mean to disturb you. I was wondering what you were looking at, and couldn't see without coming near you, because the window is so small."

His voice was as quiet as moonlight, and his look was so respectful that I forgot to whom I was speaking and said, "All of the windows here are small."

He came forward then and stood beside me, looking out at the mountains. I moved as far as possible to the right to make way for him.

He asked, "Are the windows larger in Koretia?"

"They are much larger," I said, still caught in the spell of his quietness. "Koretians sit in their windows and look at the view outside. I suppose that the windows have to be larger because of the heat."

His eyes still fixed on the mountains, Peter stepped forward and leaned his elbows on the windowsill, and then placed his chin atop his clasped hands. "I've only been to Koretia once. My father thinks it's too dangerous for me to visit there again. Some of the council lords have taken me with them on visits to Marcadia and Arpesh. But one day, when I become Chara, I'll have to stay in the palace all of the time unless war occurs. I'll never be able to leave here, and that makes this place seem like a prison to me sometimes."

Something about the pain in his voice drew me closer, until I found I was standing next to him at the window, my arm brushing his. "But you'll be the Chara, and even if you can't leave here, you'll be able to do whatever you like."

"Will I? My father can't do as he likes. He says that he wishes to spend time with me, but most days he's in the Court of Judgment or the Map Room or the Council Chamber. From dawn until bed he is kept busy upholding the laws of Emor, and he can't do anything that would interfere with his duties."

I was silent for a moment, struggling to hold back the disrespectful words that were welling up in me, but I lost the battle. "I was watching you this evening, and you reminded me of a Koretian slave."

The Chara's son looked over at me. His face displayed only curiosity. "I thought you didn't have slaves in Koretia."

"We did in the days before the Chara took control. An old Koretian story says that the masters could see when their slaves were angry and hurt, and this enraged the masters, who punished the slaves repeatedly as a result. Finally the slaves begged to be allowed to wear masks so that their true thoughts would remain hidden from their masters. I don't know whether this story is true, but the slaves in Koretia certainly wore masks – and that's why you reminded me of them, because it seemed to me as though you were wearing a mask tonight, showing everyone only what you wanted them to see."

I was breathless by the end of my bold speech, dizzy from lack of air or lack of fear. Peter put his chin back down on his knuckles and said, "That's what it felt like just now, listening to Lord Carle explain to me the proper way in which to manage servants. I've no doubt that he told me much that will be useful to me when I come to power. But something about the way he spoke of his slaves angered me so much that all I could think was that I mustn't let him know what I was truly thinking. And so I kept nodding as though I agreed, and I think he was pleased with our talk."

"That's the best way to deal with Lord Carle," I said, as though the Chara's son were a fellow slave who needed my advice.

"I'll remember that." He was silent for a long while, and I had begun to wonder whether he wanted me to leave when he asked suddenly, "Have we met before? I felt sure that we had when I saw you earlier. I suppose I must have seen you around the palace, but . . ." His voice trailed off.

"It was in the cave."

Even as I spoke, I knew that he would not be able to remember an encounter that had meant so much to me but so little to him. And indeed, for a moment he neither spoke nor moved, so that I began to prepare a longer explanation. Then, with a motion as quick as though his life depended on it, he took hold of my arm and swung me round to face him. This time I took care to lower my eyes, though I could sense him scanning my face.

At last he emitted a slow sigh and released my arm. "Yes, your eyes are what I remembered," he said. "You were the one who ran away."

Something made me say, "It wasn't me who threw the dagger after that. My friend John and I had come across your hiding place by accident."

"Was there another boy there? I didn't see him." He was silent again, and I kept my gaze fastened on a rose-gold brooch pinning closed the neck-flap of his tunic. I had not noticed it before, but I knew that his father must have given it to him, for it portrayed the royal emblem, which can only be worn by the Chara and his heir. When the Chara's son spoke again, his voice was more hesitant than before, as though he was saying something he did not expect me to understand. "I told everybody that I ran after you that day because I didn't want you to reveal our hiding place. But really, the reason was that, when I saw you, I had a strong feeling that the two of us should talk."

My eyes rose then, compelled not by my own will nor even by the words of the Chara's son, but by the same voice deep inside me that had commanded me to stay and look at the boy in the cave. For a long moment we stared at each other.

It was Peter who broke away his gaze and turned back to look out the window, saying, "This is a beautiful view. But why are you standing here in Lord Carle's quarters, where he might find you? And isn't it a late hour to be watching?"

"There are no windows in the slave-quarters," I replied, "and I'm not eager to go to my bed." I paused, and then added, "I have bad dreams on many nights, and I cry out. That wakes the other slaves, and they complain to Lord Carle's free-servant, who tells Lord Carle, and then I'm punished."

The Chara's son murmured, "He ought to give you your own room." He caught the look in my eye, and a smile curled up slowly from one side of his face. "Yes, I can just see how he'd react if I told him that. 'Lord Carle, you punish your slave because he has nightmares. Would it not be better to give him his own chamber?' Should I go ask him that now?"

"I would be happy to answer any questions the Chara's son has."

The voice was not mine. For a moment we froze, and I saw the three of us clearly. Lord Carle, standing so close to us that I would have sighted him long before, but for the fact that my eyes were fixed on those of the Chara's son. Peter, his smile on the edge of fading as a barrier slammed down upon his face. And myself, not as quick as Peter to react, discovering what I had not realized while he was speaking: for the first time since I came to Emor, I was smiling.

The Chara's son turned, as smoothly as though he had practiced this move on many occasions, and said in a composed and formal voice, "I am sorry to have disturbed you, Lord Carle. I fear I have also been disturbing your slave, whom I waylaid to learn whether he could give me information on Koretia, as my father wishes me to learn more about that land. I suppose that I ought to have listened closely to what you were telling me just now about not striking up idle conversations with slaves."

Lord Carle's eyes lingered on me, and it seemed to me, for some odd reason, that he appeared more disappointed than angry. Then his gaze slid over to Peter, and I saw that he was looking at the emblem brooch, as though he were contemplating the Chara's duties. He bowed his head toward Peter. "I am sure that the Chara's son has done nothing wrong tonight. I look forward to continuing our conversation again some other time."

The Chara's son acknowledged Lord Carle's bow. Then, without looking my way, he walked away.

Lord Carle waited until he was gone before striking me to the ground.

My head, which had felt dizzy before, grew even lighter from the pain. I stayed where I was, my hand touching the warm blood on my cheek, unwilling to rise only to be struck down once more.

"You never learn," Lord Carle said with dangerous quietness. "I tell you to respect your masters, and the next time we meet, you are chatting with the Chara's son. It is obvious that you have the brains of a Koretian sand-beetle and that I am wasting my breath in using words on you. From now on you will stay in the slave-quarters and do work there. You will not come out of that basement until you have learned how to be obedient to your superiors. That will keep you out of trouble and will prevent you from spending half your time daydreaming in front of windows. Now get out of my sight before I lose my temper with you."

I left his quarters. Then I left the palace.

o—o—o

I had not even reached the city gates by the time the soldiers found me. What I remember clearest after that is standing in front of Lord Carle and telling him, in a voice so numb as to be matter-of-fact, exactly what I would do to him if I were holding a free-man's weapon. He heard me out, smiling the whole time. Then, with a voice as courteous as though he were a trader making a fair bargain, he explained to me exactly what he was going to do to me, and explained further that he would continue doing it until I apologized to him and promised to behave like an Emorian. And I listened without feeling, my face in a mask and my heart in a mask, knowing only that Lord Carle had placed me under the high doom.

Memory is merciful; I have forgotten the rest.

o—o—o

"There. You see what I mean."

The boy's voice broke like an unwelcome shaft of light into my darkness. I was dimly aware that I was lying naked on the cold stone floor of a room with no windows and no lights.

The darkness suited me. I had taken my night sky of blackness, bare even of stars, and wrapped it around me as a shield from the outside world. That world was nothing to me now but pain.

I felt the voice fall upon me like a whip, and I instinctively gathered the darkness closer, seeking to bury myself in some corner of it which was so secret that I would never have to emerge again. Then something about the anger in that voice spoke to the pain I felt, and I opened my eyes.

They were standing in the open doorway, silhouetted against the torchlight beyond: a boy and a man, both cloaked against the chill of the basement. This much I saw before the darkness drifted over me again. But the cruel light of their voices continued.

"Lord Carle has a heavy hand," said the man. "But if you have learned anything from your lessons by now, it should be that the Chara does not have the power to change everything in this land to his liking. My subjects have the right to discipline their own slaves in whatever manner they wish."

"This is not discipline; it is murder. You heard Henry say that Lord Carle has ordered that the beatings continue."

"Henry also said that Lord Carle has ordered the punishment to stop the moment that the slave apologizes. The slave has not spoken since the punishment began three nights ago. If he dies, it will not be from murder but from suicide."

"Lord Carle wants him to say that he will behave like an Emorian. How can he act like an Emorian when he is Koretian? You said yourself that it would be foolish for the Chara to treat his subjects in the dominions as though they were not alien in thoughts and customs. That is what Lord Carle is trying to do – he is seeking to make his slave into what the slave cannot be."

"Lord Carle may be in error, but it is his right to choose the punishment. The slave tried to escape his master, and disobedience is the gravest crime that any slave can commit."

"But it is my fault that it happened!" The boy's voice was rising in an unaccustomed passion. "He tried to escape because Lord Carle struck him down after I had spoken to him – I saw it happen. If anyone is punished, it should be me."

"You have received your punishment here by seeing the price of your mistake. If the slave dies, it will be as much your fault as Lord Carle's."

There was a long silence, and I began to wonder, in the security of my darkness, whether I would no longer be disturbed by the harsh light of their voices. Then the man's voice came again, more quietly. "I say this, not because I enjoy seeing you hurt, but as needful discipline. If the slave dies because of what you did, it will mean the death of only one boy, but some day you will have placed under your care thousands of men and women. This incident may teach you to avoid impulsive actions toward others, and to act only in the formal manner of the Chara."

"Father," said the boy, his voice cold in its conviction, "that is not a lesson I need to be taught."

The man paused before saying, "No, you are right. You are young and you lack experience, but you have already learned much, and some day you will rule this land well. So take this incident, not as a lesson, but as a reminder that the Chara must act without favor to any man. If the law calls for it, you must use the Sword of Vengeance on those you love, and you must use the Heart of Mercy on those you hate. That is why the empire's people will be placed under your care: because you have the strength to do what hurts you most."

The boy, when he spoke again, sounded less sure of himself. "All that you say is true, Father: I must rule with fear as well as love. But I love the people, nonetheless, and it is hard for me to stand by and watch one of them abused. If you cannot interfere because this is Lord Carle's slave, could I not buy his slave from him?"

"You have no money for such luxuries," said the man. "I do not wish to have you making purchases like that until you are old enough to know how to wield money and power and a sword without committing folly in the process. This latest episode does not help to convince me that you yet have enough wisdom."

Again there was a silence, but this time I did not shrink back into my darkness, for a dim light seemed to linger there, as though something were rising over the horizon of my night sky.

The boy said, in a voice barely above a whisper, "Please, Father. I have so little, and this is the only great thing I have ever asked of you."

Some part of me that was beginning to surface out of the darkness was puzzled by this statement, but the man, when he finally replied, seemed to understand what the boy meant. "There has been little I could give you aside from the burden of my title. So, if this will make you happy, it will please me as well. If Lord Carle is willing to sell the slave, I will buy him myself, and have him assigned to work in your chamber. You will be in charge of the slave's discipline and may learn from this the challenge of disciplining an empire. It will be your job, though, to convince Lord Carle to sell the slave. I will not involve myself in that matter."

"The laws forbid that you should," said the boy, and I realized that he was not exclaiming an oath but making a simple statement.

"Come, now, I need my sleep, or I will not be able to rise from my bed in the morning. One lesson I hope you learn well is never to keep the people awaiting your word at the Court of Judgment."

Footsteps fell, and then came silence, but I found I could not drag myself back into the darkness that had been shielding me from the pain. After a minute, I opened my eyes and saw the Chara's son kneeling next to me.

I whispered, "Thank you."

He did not reply at once, and as I tried to read his shadowed face, I realized that I had spoken in Koretian. Then he said in the same tongue, "I beg that you impart to me your name."

"Andrew son of Gideon."

The last three words came instinctively to my tongue, though they had been beaten from me during my first months of slavery, when I stubbornly insisted that I still possessed a patronymic, as any free boy would.

The Chara's son showed no surprise at hearing me speak as though I were not a slave; he simply leaned forward. "I am Peter, Lord of the Chara's Palace and Chara To Be." He placed his hand on my arm as though welcoming me into his home, and then let it rest there for a while before saying in a low voice, "Don't worry. I'll return for you soon." He removed his hand, but only in order to pull off his cloak and place it over me.

Once he had gone, I sunk back into my night sky. But it was no longer dark, for the silver disc of a moon had risen over the horizon.

Blood Vow 3

THE LOOK OF THE CHARA

CHAPTER SIX

Two hours after Lord Dean had left me gazing at the slave market from the council library, I was looking out of the same window, but my eyes were now on the black border mountains, and a smile was on my lips. I was thinking, not of the land that lay beyond the mountains, but of the night when Peter had joined me at my window vigil.

My thoughts were cut off abruptly by outcries that flooded into the room like sunlight from a window whose shutters have just been opened. Turning my head, I saw the council porter, with mouth agape, standing at the open library door. Behind him, the thirty lords of the Emorian council were shouting amongst each other.

The porter rapidly closed the door to the scene. "Heart of Mercy!" he exclaimed. "I thought I had already checked this room. The High Lord will have me up on charges for this."

I had been sitting atop one of the desks, the only way that I could see through the chest-level window while seated. Now I rose and said, "They've started already? I wasn't paying attention to the time."

"They have, and it's a closed meeting, as planned. Lord Dean sent all of the council officials away except myself. The Empire of Emor will not be wide enough to hide me once the council finds that you are here."

He was clutching the rod of discipline that denoted his office, yet his pale face looked anything but confident. I said in an unperturbed manner, "The fault is mine. I will tell Lord Dean so when I see him next."

Perhaps he had expected me to be as frightened as any other man would be to find himself an unwitting witness to a private council meeting. My deportment, though, must have assured him. He said in a less ruffled manner, "Thank the wisdom of the Charas that it's you, anyway. I heard Lord Carle say once that the Chara might as well make you a council lord since you receive a report on every meeting from the Chara himself. I will have to escort you out now. Perhaps by the time that this meeting is finished, Lord Dean will be too weary to trouble himself with me."

The council lords were still shouting, and their voices had risen to the point that I could hear some of what they were saying. The porter, mustering his courage, waited until I had joined him and then opened the door into the Council Chamber.

The enormous chamber was dominated by an oval-shaped table, around which the council lords were placed. At the near end of the table was Lord Dean, presiding over his fellow lords; at the far end was the Chara. Since I had seen him that morning, Peter had changed into his everyday, peasant-brown tunic; pinned at his neck was the emblem brooch he usually wore. He could not wear his formal clothes to the Council Chamber, for at its meetings the council served, not the Chara, but only the law of Emor. The Chara was here as the council's guest.

He was younger than most of the lords, but his pose had an ageless dignity, which may have originated from the fact that he was sitting calmly while all of the lords were on their feet, shouting in restless fury. As I stepped into the Council Chamber, the shouts cut off suddenly, as though I had intruded on the passionate lovemaking of a newlywed couple.

Peter's eyes flicked over toward me briefly. Then he rose smoothly to his feet, leaned forward to place his palms on the table, and said to the now-silenced lords, "I am the council's servant in matters where the law requires that I defer to you. In matters where I am the master, I am always happy to receive your advice. But you seem to have forgotten in this case that I am coming to you for your advice, not your orders. I am Commander of the Armies, and it is my duty as Chara to go to the scene of battle whenever war arises, whether to bring destruction or to bring peace. None of you has denied that we are on the verge of war with the Koretians. I must remind you, then, that I am not going to Koretia for the sake of my own pleasure, but because the law demands it. Therefore, the fact that I am going is not a matter which the council may dispute."

He waited for a moment to see whether any lord would speak, but the room was silent as the porter and I neared the door to the corridor. Changing from the hard voice of a father exacting discipline to the diffident voice of a son asking his elders for help, the Chara added, "Since that matter is settled, I would appreciate your guidance on how I may best deal with the problem that troubles me most in Koretia . . ."

I did not hear the rest of his speech, for the copper doors of the chamber had boomed shut behind me. Ignoring the disconcerted looks of the guards flanking the doors, I ducked under their spears and made my way back down the corridor.

I had intended to return to the Chara's quarters to consult his law books on some questions that remained in my mind. Instead, I found myself lying some time later under the only tree in the inner garden of the Chara's palace, my eyelids closed and ruddy as I tilted my head in the direction of the sun.

I must have slept. My next awareness was of something soft brushing my arm. I opened my eyes and saw, kneeling by my side, Lord Carle's Koretian slave-girl.

I stood up with a rapidity that must have frightened the girl, for she rose hastily herself and said, "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir! I just thought that you might have a free-man's weapon that you would be willing to use for me."

The oddness of this speech gave me a genuine reason to pause and take in the girl's appearance, as best I could in the dim twilight. She was about twelve years of age, on the threshold of womanhood as the people of the Three Lands judge such matters, and her skin was much darker than my own. She had been trained as a slave, for she kept her eyes carefully lowered, but had not been trained for long, for she was standing far closer to me than she ought to have been.

My silence lingered long enough for her to add hastily, "My master's free-servant sent me to pick some of the roses on the garden trellis, but I cannot pull them off, for they are too tough. It is not for me to ask such a thing, but I do not want to come back empty-handed, and I thought that if you had a dagger, you might be so very kind as to cut one or two of the flowers."

She stood with one foot slightly behind the other, poised to flee if I treated her as she might expect to be treated after speaking so boldly to a free-man. I had spent fifteen years in the palace, watching as lords plotted against lords, as officials betrayed officials, and as everyone attempted to sway the Chara, so it did not take more than a split second for me to perceive her plan. But I found myself saying, "As you see, I bear no weapon, but I would be happy to help you with the flowers if I can. Where are they to be found?"

She pointed the way to the rose trellis, which was still gleaming white in the dusk-light. I walked down the slope of the small hill on which the tree was planted, passed through a gate in the stone wall surrounding the garden, and walked over the narrow perimeter of pavement between the garden and the courtyard walls beyond. There, climbing one of the walls, were the white roses; I reached up to pull a bud from off of the vine.

Looking up at me, the girl said, "Excuse me for asking, sir, but you are Koretian, are you not?"

"I was born in Koretia." I kept my eyes fixed on the rose, which was proving to be tougher to handle than I had expected.

"I heard from one of the other slaves that you were once Lord Carle's slave. Is that true, sir?"

"Yes." I was beginning to wish I bore a free-man's blade; it seemed that I would have no luck pulling the rose out by hand. I sensed rather than saw the girl take a step closer. With a wrench, I pulled the rose out, pricking my finger on a thorn as I did so. I turned, but it was too late; the girl had used the moment to step close to me.

"I was surprised this morning when I heard you talking to Lord Carle as you did, and that was even before I learned that you were once his slave. It must take great courage to address your former master in such a way. I was . . . stirred by your bravery."

She took another step forward, brushing past my hand, so that the rose fell to the ground. I opened my mouth to speak, but was cut off by a voice saying, "I would hate to see you waste your efforts here, Levina. If you must seduce your way into a new master's bed, I suggest that you take the trouble next time not to squander your skills on a eunuch."

Lord Carle had the sort of voice that demanded attention from his slaves, but for a moment before the slave-girl turned from me, I saw the changing expressions on her face.

First came the surprise. I knew that I could not attribute this solely to my strongly controlled pitch of voice, which had misled more than a few of the palace dwellers. Part of her surprise arose from ignorance. She had no doubt heard back home that a few of the more barbaric Emorians practiced such monstrosities on their slaves, but like most Koretians, she was unlikely to have met a gelded man before. If she had, my boyish appearance would likely have alerted her to what she was facing.

First the surprise; then came the shock, followed by the anger. And then came the expression I had seen so many times in the past fifteen years that it was forever present in my nightmares: the contempt.

Then she turned away with fright to face her master. He took little notice of her, but simply jerked his head in the direction of his quarters. When she had gone, he said to me, "Whatever else you may be, you are not a fool, Andrew, so I am unwilling to believe that you were taken in by that act."

I knelt down to pick up the rose. Without looking up, I said, "I did not want to hurt her feelings. If I had been your slave-girl, I too would have used any means I could to find a new master."

"I have no doubt that you would have." At his tone, I looked up, but I did not rise from where I knelt. Lord Carle continued, "But whatever your own views on the usefulness of changing from master to master, I would appreciate it if you would not give my slaves the opportunity to test the limits of their loyalty to me."

I looked back down at the white rose and touched it gently. As I took my fingers away, I saw that the petals were now stained red. I said, "Then you will have to punish the girl. I am sure that your discipline will work on her."

"It is a pity," said Lord Carle, "that it did not work on you. The Chara might be safer if it had."

I reached out to touch the rose again, my fingers brushing the velvet petals with restrained gentleness as I said, "The Chara, at least, has nothing to fear from me."

There was a silence so long that I was sure Lord Carle had gone, but when I looked up again, I saw that he was merely waiting for me to raise my eyes. He said softly, with emphasis, "If the Chara is safe, then I am sure that everyone else in this palace is safe. As I said before, you are not a fool."

He left then, but I continued to kneel beside the blood-stained rose for some time.

o—o—o

"I . . . am . . . dead."

Peter pronounced these words with the solemn gravity of the Chara reciting a proclamation, and then flung himself down onto the reclining couch in his sitting chamber.

I moved a vase of white roses onto the table next to him. "Here is your flower arrangement."

Peter grinned up at me. "You always know ahead of time what I need. Have you prepared my funeral oration as well?"

"You ought to have given me more advance notice. You will have to delay dying for a few weeks, so that I can have your clerk write it up for the records."

Peter turned on his side to look at me. His hair was sun-bright in the golden light of the late-night fire beyond him. He was lying near the north wall of the chamber, which contained the hearth, his writing table, and the door to the free-servant's sleeping chamber. I had returned to the window that faced south and was standing by it, pulling some berries from the bowl I had laid on the sill.

"You must have stayed to eavesdrop on the rest of the council meeting," Peter said. "That is exactly what Lord Dean told me. He seemed to think that I could arrange the timing of my own death in the same manner that I issue my commands. . . . Speaking of council lords, I met Lord Carle on the way here. He told me that he started a conversation with you this evening. He always tells me when that happens, though I have explained to him over and over that it is of no interest to me any more what goes on between the two of you, and that I am sure you and he can behave in a civilized fashion. Nonetheless, he struck me as having a particularly guilty look on his face tonight."

I withdrew my fingers from the bowl and wiped them on a cloth nearby. "Lord Carle only reported to you half the story. Our conversation was a continuation of one we started this morning, when I burst in on his quarters unannounced."

"What are you doing, training yourself to face danger in Koretia? What prompted you to do such a thing?"

I folded the cloth into quarters, then into eighths, before saying, "I heard him disciplining his new slave."

"Ah." Peter looked reflectively at me. "You mean Levina?"

I jammed the cloth under the bowl to keep it from being blown away by the night breeze. "All-knowing Chara, do you have the names memorized of every slave in this palace?"

"Probably," replied Peter cheerfully.

"Then you are as much a god-man as the Jackal. How do you keep them all straight?"

"Oh . . ." Peter let his voice trail off. He stared up at the ceiling, paused for a moment, and then recited, "'And being as it is more grave that a slave should strike a free-man, it is declared that if any slave does so, either to his master or to any other slave's master or to a free-man who does not own slaves, he shall be brought before the court under whose care he is placed, and the circumstances of the crime shall be determined by the use of at least one witness. Further, it is declared that, in order to be summoned on a charge of this crime, the slave must have done the following . . .' Skip the next part; I always used to fall asleep trying to memorize the Definition of each law, because it required me to learn the most circumlocutory clerks' language you can imagine. 'For just as it is required that the Emorian people show proper reverence toward the Chara, so also it is required that those who have been bound into slavery show proper respect toward their masters . . .'"

He caught my look and smiled. "I won't bore you with the rest of the law's Justification. It's one of Lord Carle's favorite Justifications, and I'm sure you've heard his version of it far too many times. 'This being so, the law has been used in the following Cases . . .' Switch over at this point to the Case volumes and spend an hour hunting up a dozen court cases and then memorize them. 'And so the prisoner shall be taken to his court, and witnesses shall be brought to show what happened, and it shall be the solemn duty of the judge to decide whether the striking took place with clear understanding and without provocation. . . .' Ignore the next reference; an entire law book is devoted to explaining what constitutes clear understanding and provocation for the various ranks, with subreferences explaining how acting with provocation is the opposite of acting willfully. I had those passages memorized by age seven. 'And then, if the judge has determined that the striking was done under provocation, he shall pass a sentence of mercy; and if the judge has determined that the striking was done without clear understanding, he shall pass a sentence of branding; and if the judge has determined that the striking was done willfully and with clear understanding, he shall pass a sentence of imprisonment. And being as it is more grave that a lesser free-man should strike a nobleman—'"

Peter stopped, looked over at me, and said, "Well, it goes on to the next law from there. I was required to memorize word for word the five hundred major laws, but I only had to remember the main points of the other eight thousand laws. After ten years of lessons like that, memorizing the names of a few slaves is easy by comparison."

I looked at the bowl again, then picked it up, placed it on a ledge nearby, and unfolded the cloth to place it over the top of the bowl. Peter said, "I am thinking of the right slave? The pretty Koretian one?"

"Yes."

I tried to reply in a matter-of-fact tone, but I saw Peter's eyes flick over toward me. He asked quietly, "Would I guess right if I were to assume that your conversation with Lord Carle concerned the pretty slave?"

I was silent. Peter sighed as he rose from the couch. "No wonder Lord Carle looked guilty. Here. Lie down. I'll bring you a drink – you probably need it as much as I do."

The reluctant corners of my mouth obeyed the command of his eyes, and I smiled and lay down where Peter had reclined. He came back after a minute, holding a pitcher and a single cup, and seated himself cross-legged on the floor beside me, pouring our wine.

"Does this mean that you're now the servant and I'm the Chara?" I asked as I took the cup he had sipped before handing it to me.

"I wouldn't burden even the Jackal with the sort of duties I have to undertake. Today has been the worst day I can remember in a long while. I'm actually beginning to look forward to the dangers of Koretia as a pleasant change from the dangers of this palace."

"The council was difficult?"

"The council and everyone else." Peter leaned his back against the side of the couch and stared morosely at the cup I had drunk from and then handed back to him. "I just had a four-hour discussion with my subcommander on the many nefarious campaigns he has devised to crush the Koretians. I was forced to listen carefully to all that he said, because I may need to use one of those campaigns. This morning I listened to three hours' worth of court testimony, only to finish by kissing the pendant and telling all of the people there what they already knew: that the prisoner was a council official and therefore under the care of the council, not myself, and that all I could do was to give the council judge my recommendation for the judgment and sentence."

"Will he accept the recommendation?"

"I believe so; he often does. So I suppose my morning wasn't a complete waste of time, though it felt like it. I never had a chance for a noonday meal – what was that you were eating just now?"

"Wild-berries." I laughed at Peter's expression. "There are some Daxion nuts by my bed. I'll get them."

"Stay where you are." Peter bounced up and darted into my room as though he were a light-footed goat rather than the ruler of an empire. Returning with the bowl, he seated himself where he had been before and popped a nut into his mouth.

"The council meeting was the worst, of course," he said through chews. "You heard how I had to remind the lords of my full authority before I could get them even to lower their voices."

I reached down to take a handful of nuts. "After that, I imagine there wasn't much they could say."

"You'd be surprised," said Peter dryly. "Lord Dean gave me a small lesson in logic. I felt as though I were a schoolboy again. It was offered to my attention that, firstly, the dominion governors are lords of the council. Secondly, the dominions are therefore under the care of the council. Thirdly, the Chara may therefore only interfere with the dominions when they are without governors or in wartime. And fourthly, in conclusion, as follows from the premises, propositions, and postulates, I should keep out of Koretia until war actually breaks out – at which time, of course, the law allows me to try to bring peace. In other words, my High Lord believes that I should wait until the land is half burnt before I try to extinguish the flames. I was not impressed by his logic, and said so."

"You must have succeeded in convincing him that you were right."

"Stubborn as a Chara – that's the phrase, isn't it? That characteristic comes in handy sometimes. At any rate, I managed to bend the conversation over to the subject of my travelling companions, so that the council lords ended up spending the rest of their time arguing amongst themselves over which of the lords would accompany me on the trip. To my mind, the most logical course would be for the High Lord to remain safe in Emor while I'm gone, lest anything happen to me. But Lord Dean insists on going to Koretia – I think he wants to keep his eye on me."

"I suppose that we can depend on him for pleasant conversation, at any rate."

"If pleasant conversation is what you're expecting, I must crush your hopes by telling you that the other member of our party is Lord Carle."

I reached down again to the bowl and fished among the smaller nuts. "That will be tedious for you. Didn't you have any say in the selection?"

"I could hardly refuse to bring Lord Carle. He knows more about Koretia than I do . . . and bringing him saves me the necessity of bringing a conspicuous bodyguard."

"He'll hate every minute of the trip."

"Actually, I think that he'll receive great joy from seeing all of his worst opinions about Koretia confirmed. Andrew, are you planning to touch every nut before you choose one?"

I smiled. "They are my nuts. Be grateful that I'm sharing them with you – it's not one of my duties as a palace guest."

"Mmm." Peter licked his fingers and stared straight forward, toward the window. "The question of your duties came up at the meeting, actually. Lord Dean and Lord Carle are travelling in their own identities, along with their free-servants, and I am to be plain Lord Peter once more – there are about half a dozen honorary lords of that name scattered around Emor. The council asked me what disguise I planned for you. They didn't think that 'palace guest' was enough of a title to explain your presence on the journey."

I held out the largest nut toward Peter and said easily, "If Curtis and Francis are serving Lord Carle and Lord Dean, then I'll be free-servant to you."

Peter took the nut from my hand. "Thank you. It wasn't something I could command of you, but it's in fact what I suggested to the council. Since I'm to be disguised as a mere lord, I saw no reason why you wouldn't be willing to take on a lesser rank as well. At any rate, I thought you might have a better idea than I do of what to pack for Koretia. I was going mad at noonday trying to figure out what to take."

"Are we leaving so soon?"

"We're leaving tomorrow. I can't depend on thirty council lords to keep a secret for long, and I'd prefer to reach the governor's palace before the Jackal has news of my presence in his land. I've felt obliged to send my private messenger to Lord Alan, telling him of our trip, but I'm hoping that the various threats I wrote behind the lines will inhibit him from announcing our journey."

"Then let me see what you've packed so far." I rose and walked into the Chara's sleeping chamber, leaving Peter to stay and collect the nut bowl.

He had laid a number of items out on the bed in an orderly fashion. Most of the clothes, I could see at a glance, were too heavy to wear in Koretia. I began placing to one side the items that he could not bring; in the process, I uncovered a bone-handled dagger.

I am not sure how long I stood staring at it. Presently I heard Peter say from behind my shoulder, "Lord Carle tells me that the Koretians wear their free-man's blades all of the time – not only on ceremonial occasions, but also as a form of protection. I can't bring the Sword of Vengeance, of course, so I thought that I'd take this."

I placed a breech-cloth to the side, being careful not to touch the dagger in the process. "I didn't realize you had kept it." Even to me, my voice sounded as cold as an Emorian winter.

"You said you didn't want it any more, so I kept it for myself, because it reminded me of the night I gave it to you."

I turned then. Peter was watching me with a carefully neutral expression and guarded eyes that brought back to me a shock of memory. When I was able to speak again, I said, "It isn't a night that I would want to forget either, so I'm glad that you kept the dagger."

Peter's expression eased. He reached over to the bed and said, "I suppose that I can't take the seal-ring; that would be proclaiming my title. I will take the brooch – nothing could part me from that – but I'll keep it hidden till we reach the governor's palace. Tell me, how does it feel to be returning to Koretia as an Emorian?"

"Despite my frequent assertions," I said wryly, "I don't feel very Emorian at times. If a Koretian asked me to explain the law-structure of Emor, for example, I wouldn't know what to say – and this, despite the fact that I've had the best teacher on the subject."

Peter's gaze flicked toward me and then back. Just as I never understood why he asked questions about subjects he was well versed in, so also he never asked the reasons why I made elementary enquiries. "We haven't spoken on the topic very often," he said. "The law is the last thing I want to think about when I have a free moment with you. What is it that puzzles you?"

I went over to the sleeping chamber's chest, pushed the lid open, and began pulling out his lighter tunics. "Nothing that's important. Just various things that are unclear to me about the law's division of powers between the Chara and his council. You said that the prisoner who was tried today was under the care of the council because he was a council official. But didn't you have a case recently where you yourself handed down judgment on a council official?"

"It was a more difficult case than that: I was judging one of the junior council lords who was being tried for murder. Ordinarily, the council takes care of its own, and I have no power to do anything other than offer my recommendations when the crime takes place in the palace. But if the crime is serious, then the council judge may ask me to sit in judgment on the case. If you ever want to explain Emorian law to a Koretian, you may tell him that an entire, thick law book is devoted to the three crimes punishable by the high doom, and I'm the only one who has that entire book memorized, so I'm usually the one who takes such cases. But since I and the council judge are the only ones who try prisoners for the Great Three, I don't suppose that most Koretians have even heard of the high doom."

The room was dark with night shadows. I could not see what lay at the bottom of the chest, so I stood up, took a stick from the fire that had blazed in the chamber all day, and reached over to light the oil-lamp attached to the wall. I said, without looking Peter's way, "How did you decide whether to apply the high doom in this case?"

Peter was silent for so long that I thought he would not reply. Finally he said, "In this particular case, the prisoner was placed under the high doom because he had killed an unarmed man."

The lamp had finally caught fire. I stepped back and watched to be sure that it would stay lit. Behind me, Peter said, "But perhaps that's another Emorian custom that a Koretian wouldn't understand."

"No," I said, tossing the lighted stick back into the fire. "Killing an unarmed man is considered just as serious an offense in Koretia."

I stared at the fire a moment longer. Then, feeling Peter's eyes at my back, I looked over at him silently. Peter turned away and carefully undid the sorting I had just made of his clothes. "I fear that I have led both of us into a pitch-black cave, without bothering to bring a light with me," he said. "Let us move on to another subject. How did you spend your day? Aside from listening to insults from Lord Carle, I mean."

"I spent my day doing absolutely nothing."

Peter continued to look down at the items he was aimlessly moving from one pile to another, but a smile crept up the side of his face. "That sounds glorious. Where did you do this nothing?"

I came over beside him and took a belt out of his hands. "In the council library, to begin with; hence my embarrassing appearance at your closed meeting. I must apologize to Lord Dean tonight before he takes vengeance on the porter."

"I wouldn't bother." Peter left the sorting to my hands and sat down on the bed near me, leaning back against the wall. "I was witness to the porter's own apology, which was the most eloquent piece of poetry I've heard since I had a Daxion bard up on charges of stealing a bit of butter from the palace pantry."

"You put a bard on trial for stealing butter?"

"It's hard to believe, but the law classifies that as a major crime. Any use of the Chara's goods or money for forbidden purposes is considered a crime of disobedience – though you'll be relieved to hear that I let the bard go free. As for the porter, he has nothing to worry about; Lord Dean is fully occupied with planning this trip. Where did you go after you left the meeting?"

"Out to do more nothing. I did it under a certain tree in the garden."

Peter smiled and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his interlocked hands around them as he leaned further back. "I'm glad that you found a good use for my birthday present. You've no idea the trouble I had in convincing the gardener that Emor would not crumble if he planted a Koretian tree in the palace grounds."

"Is it a Koretian tree? I didn't know."

"It turned out to be less expensive to bring a sapling over the black border mountains than to buy one of Emor's few remaining trees. I hope you won't stop using it, now that you know its barbaric origin."

I didn't bother to reply, but tossed a tunic at Peter. Laughing, he prevented it from landing in his face. "If you've spent an entire afternoon doing nothing, then you must have had a particularly terrible morning. I hope that our talk in the Map Room wasn't what drove you to seek pleasure ahead of duty."

I shook my head and knelt down to pull Peter's travel pack from beneath his bed. I knew that it was there only because I had cleaned the floor around it during my time as his slave. Over ten years had passed since it was last put to use.

As I stood up, I saw that Peter was still watching me expectantly. I said, "Lord Dean saw me in the council library before the meeting. We had a talk on marriage."

"Ah." Peter let the word drop like a heavy pebble into water. When the ripples were beginning to fade, he added, "Well, you needn't pass on to me what he said. I'm sure it's the same that was said to me at the meeting. That was what the council spent most of its time discussing: my ill-considered decision to visit a dangerous land when I have no heir. Fortunately, the lords did not insist that I beget an heir tonight, before leaving Emor."

I began to fold the tunics in the tidy manner which had never come naturally to me, but which pleased Peter. After a while, Peter said, "It seems a curious topic for Lord Dean to discuss with you. Did he say why he chose you as the messenger of his views?"

I noticed that his voice had taken on a note of quiet authority, but I ignored this and said simply, "He has asked me to mediate for him in the past."

"That isn't what I asked." He waited. When I did not reply, he said, "Andrew."

I continued to stare down at the tunics, but my hands were checked in their motions. Peter said, "Andrew, it is my duty as Chara to know what methods my council lords are using to try to influence me. Do not make me have to command you in this matter."

I stared at the items I was packing and took a moment to still my heart before saying, in the neutral voice that the Chara's clerk adopted when reporting the words of a witness, "Lord Dean said I would be able to demonstrate clearly to you the importance of fathering an heir. He also said he was sure that, like any other man, I understood the desire to raise a family."

I did not look up at Peter, but I heard him slowly let out his breath, as though he himself had taken the blow. "May he die a Slave's Death," he said. "He actually told you that?"

I did not reply. His voice dangerously low, Peter added, "High Lord or not, he can be summoned on a charge of insulting a free-man. I would request such a charge if you wished."

"No." I reached over and picked up the dagger without thought, and then placed it hastily in the pack before reaching for the tunics from the chest. Finally I said, "He probably just forgot."

"Lord Dean never forgets."

The bitterness in Peter's voice made me look up. Peter was staring into the distance as though peering at an invisible scene. "When I was four years old," he said, "Lord Dean took me to see some kinsmen of his in his hometown of Busedge. It was the first time I'd ever left the palace, and it was one of the happiest periods of my life. The High Lord let me have my way in everything; he wasn't strict with me the way my father always was. Toward the end of the visit, I confided to Lord Dean that I had once tried on the Pendant of Judgment to see what it felt like. Lord Dean promised to keep my secret – and he did, for many years. Then, one day about a year before my father died, I was talking with my father and Lord Dean – you may remember, for it was on the night when we first spoke. Suddenly, to gain a trivial point in an argument with my father, Lord Dean mentioned what I'd done. I've never forgotten the look my father gave me, and I've never trusted Lord Dean since then."

He pulled his gaze away from the past, reached to his tunic, and unclasped the emblem brooch in order to toss it to me. "You'd better pack this now. . . . It was perhaps unwise of Lord Dean to reveal his true nature so clearly to the Chara To Be. These days, if I were about to be cut down in battle and needed the help of either Lord Carle when he was being his most brutal or Lord Dean when he was being his most amiable, Lord Carle is the one I'd turn to."

"It's not a choice I'd want to make," I said, wrapping the brooch carefully in a face-cloth before packing it. "At any rate, Lord Dean does have a point in what he said to me."

"Lord Dean's points are like dagger points; they can only kill. Listen to me." Peter pulled himself forward so that he was kneeling on the bed close to me. "If I ever need advice on who to marry, it is you I will go to, not a man like Lord Dean. You know me better than anyone, better than even my father knew me, and nothing of what you are to the world changes what you are to me."

I said nothing, did not even look his way, but let my smile be my reply. After a moment, Peter pulled himself back to his place against the wall and said, "Well, you had better tell me everything that the old fox said to you this morning."

I told him, and when I was through, Peter said, "Some of what he says is true. He's wrong, of course, to think that I wouldn't marry for fear of hurting our friendship. You and I both know that it's possible to love more than one person at a time. But he's right in thinking that our friendship has affected the way I look at marriage. It is just that it goes much deeper than Lord Dean sees."

I tossed the pack to one side, drew myself up onto the bed, and sat down beside Peter, sharing the same wall as my backrest. "How deep?"

Peter thought for a moment before saying, "Masks. Do you remember that we discussed masks this morning? And I mentioned the slave-masks that you told me about when we first talked. Since that time I've had experience wearing an even more rigid mask, and it isn't the terrible bondage that I once thought it would be. It's a burden, of course, being the Chara and subsuming my own person in the role that I was born to play. But this is something I've chosen of my own free will to do, and I love to do it – sometimes. There are times, though, when I tire of being the law's embodiment and need simply to be myself. You're one of the few people with whom I can be myself, and that's one reason I'm grateful to know you. If I were married—" He stopped.

"You might find a wife with whom you could take off your mask," I said.

"Perhaps I will, but I haven't found her yet. And I couldn't bear to spend the entire day as the Chara, and then return to my quarters in the evening and be forced to continue that role. I want to remove my mask then, as I do with you. I think . . ." He paused, and then said deliberately, "I would never willfully neglect my duty, of course. But if my duty required me always to be the Chara, I think that I would become unbalanced."

I remained silent a moment, balancing in my mind what he had said and what Lord Dean had said. Knowing what I did by now of Peter's burdens, it was not a hard judgment for me to make. "Well, then, you are right not to marry yet. And you should place Lord Dean under the high doom if he tries to change your mind."

Peter smiled, the lines of pain in his face disappearing like scratches on the earth fading under rain. "I knew that you would understand. So will you promise me something, please? If you go back to Koretia and find that it's truly your home, of course you must stay – I'd be angry with you if you didn't. But will you please not stay in Koretia out of some misguided sense of duty that Lord Dean has tried to impress upon you?"

"I promise you, unless we discover some unknown law that requires me to stay in Koretia, I will remain with you as long as you need me."

"You've just given me a reason never to read the law books again," Peter said. "Lord Carle will be annoyed with you for interfering with my studies."

"I don't suppose that Lord Carle lacks reasons to be annoyed with me," I said. "But in any case, you needn't worry about Koretia. Emor is my home, and the dagger I just packed is proof of it."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Long before he arrived, I heard the cheering of the slaves lining the corridor to receive a glimpse of him as he walked back from the Court of Judgment. I had arrived at his quarters two hours before and had found that the guards were so overcome with excitement that they did not even question why a slave would be entering his master's quarters at so late an hour and on such an evening.

I stood with my head resting against the jamb of the southern window as the cheers intensified, and then the door opened and the acclamations died down as Peter entered the room and closed the door.

His cloak had become tangled in the chain holding the Pendant of Judgment. He brushed the cloth free with a heavy, stylized gesture, and his head turned with slow dignity as he began to look around the chamber. He caught sight of me before I could see his face, and by the time he had turned his head he was grinning. He looked no older than his sixteen years.

"Thank the spirits of the dead Charas that it's you," Peter said, tugging at his sword sheath with a fumbling grasp. "If it were anyone else, I would have to go on pretending that I was immortal and invulnerable, rather than ready to drop from exhaustion." He placed the sheathed sword on the writing table, pulled impatiently at the clasp holding his cloak, and hissed softly as the pin bit into his finger. Flinging his cloak onto the chair next to the fire, he stood smiling at me for a moment without moving, as though drawing upon my silence after the music and cheers of the court.

I did not bother to move to collect the cloak. "Did the ceremony go well?" I asked.

"The ceremony went very well. I, on the other hand, was terrible. Lord Dean has been drilling me for three days on where to stand, how to move, what to say – and when the time came for me to act, I simply forgot everything that he had told me. I am not at all sure what I did, and I'm certain that I've offended – or amused – all of the elder lords and officials who were at my father's installation." He threw himself onto the couch, letting one of his legs dangle off the side and pressing the back of a wrist onto his forehead. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, and then with the quirk of a smile he said, "I wish that my father had been present to show me what to do. He always used to glare at me whenever I was about to make the wrong move at ceremonies."

He added in a low voice, "But since it is not possible for one Chara to attend the enthronement of the next Chara, I did the best that I could. It was hardest of all to make my oath. I was supposed to be swearing my oath to all of my subjects, but you weren't there, and you were the subject to whom I would have most liked to have said those words."

I did not speak. Down below in the city, I knew, the celebration bonfires were blazing, set not only by the city inhabitants but also by the visitors who had flooded into the city from the Three Lands. Harp music drifted across from the southern end of the palace where the lesser free-men had gone after the ceremony. A more rowdy tune was being sung in the basement slave-quarters where I had lived for the past five years. The young Chara turned on his side, resting his head on his elbow, and for a moment his face was serious.

Then he picked up the emblem brooch from a nearby table. He held it up in the air but did not put it on, since he had not yet taken off his pendant. With mock despair, he said, "I would like to think that I have undergone the worst experience I will ever endure during my reign, but I'm beginning to understand why my father was so short-tempered. Today I spent an hour listening to Lord Carle explain how Emor will crumble if I'm not familiar with every subsection of every section of the Chara's laws. Tomorrow I preside over the Court of Judgment, which I'm dreading, though the court summoners tell me they have scheduled only easy cases for the next fortnight. And yesterday I spent most of the day with my clerk, trying to make sense of these—" He flung his hand out toward a pile of newly-penned documents stacked on a table next to the couch. His fingers caught the edge of the pile, and a few of the papers tumbled down. I walked forward, knelt by the table, and began placing the fallen papers back on the stack.

"My apologies," said Peter, watching me from an arm's length away. "As though my slaves didn't have enough to do, preparing for my enthronement. What terrible tasks has the palace slave-keeper been assigning you?"

As he spoke, I continued to stack the papers carefully together. Most of the documents were scribed in Old Emorian, the law language, but one sheet caught my eye because it was written in Modern Emorian. I glimpsed its title – "Slaves to be Assigned to the Household Service of Peter, the Great Chara" – and scanned the short list of names before quickly thrusting the sheet into the middle of the stack. Then, my heart thumping, I looked up at Peter.

He had not noticed my action; he had looked away momentarily to wipe the emblem brooch on his cloak, and now he was raising it up again to see it shine in the firelight. As he caught me observing him, he smiled at me, and at his look, I felt my chest grow less tight.

"Does not the Chara know what his own slaves are doing?" I asked, allowing my eyes to smile back at him.

"The Chara has—" He calculated rapidly in his head. "I have 936 slaves, 165 court officials, and 289 palace free-servants – minus one, Drogo, because I inherited him from my father and hated having him as my personal free-servant. Dismissing him was my one purely pleasurable deed during the past few days. Other than Drogo, I have no idea what any of the people under my care are doing. I feel like a babe who has just been given charge over an army and must issue his first proclamation."

The door to the corridor opened. Peter and I gaped up from where we were, Peter lying on the couch, and me kneeling close by to him. Then I carefully picked myself up and went over to the fireside to gather up the Chara's cloak.

Peter had risen as well, saying smoothly, "It is good to see you, Lord Carle. I did not think that you would be by here until later."

I turned around with the cloak and saw that Lord Carle was watching me. His sword was unsheathed and his expression unreadable. Then his gaze slid over to the Chara, and I saw that Lord Carle was looking at the brooch that Peter still held in his hand. I wondered whether he would scold Peter for holding an ornament that was not part of his ceremonial dress. But all that he said was, "The guards allowed me in, since you told them to expect me. I beg your pardon for not knocking. It is hard for me to remember that you are no longer a boy."

"Yes," said Peter tersely. "Andrew, please take Lord Carle's cloak—"

Lord Carle waved me off. "I was on my way back to my quarters to change, but thought that I would stop to give you my congratulations." He raised his fist to his heart and held his sword blade against his forehead, imitating the oath of loyalty he had just given in the ceremony. "I will come by later, as you had requested. I am sorry to have disturbed you."

Peter relaxed his stiff pose as the door closed. "Thank the laws that he's gone. He is always respectful and helpful, and I know that he is the most loyal free-man I have, but he makes me exceedingly nervous with his formality. I sometimes think that he privately considers me a fool who is unfit for the office of the Chara."

"Then he is the fool," I said softly. "The Emorian people are lucky to have you."

Peter started. As he met my gaze, he replied quietly, "Thank you. . . . Andrew, I have something here for you." He leaned over and fingered through the pile of documents for a moment before pulling out a sheet of paper and walking over to stand next to me.

"I was intending to show this to you later, when we had a chance to talk," he said, "but you're here tonight. Can you read Old Emorian?"

"Just a little, Chara," I said. "I learned some when I was young, and learned a bit more this spring when I was working in the court clerk's quarters."

Peter gave a quirk of a smile. Slaves are not normally to be found scribing documents in the quarters of the Chara's clerk. Normally I would have been assigned other work while Peter took one final trip to the northern dominions with Lord Carle. But at the last minute, much to the palace slave-keeper's consternation, Peter had announced his wish that I be assigned a scribe's duties. I had overheard Lord Carle roaring at him about that decision.

"Well, then, perhaps you can make some sense of this," Peter said. "I can read Daxion, Koretian, and half a dozen other languages, but I will never master clerks' language. I had my clerk scribe this today, and I've signed it and will seal it as soon as I figure out which court official has custody of my father's seal-ring. What all the language amounts to . . ." Peter held the paper out to me, his gaze fixed on my face. ". . . is that you are free. It is your manumission paper."

I stared down at the page, seeing nothing among the black-inked words except the signature of Peter, followed by his half-dozen new titles. As though pulled, my gaze drifted up to the window on the other side of the room, through which I could see the black border mountains.

Without knowing how I got there, I found myself standing by the window, peering out at the mountains as though I could look straight through them to my homeland. Behind me, Peter said, "I had planned to give you a present for your years in service at the palace. If you would like, I could give you the goods and money you will need to return to Koretia and restart your life there."

His voice pulled me back from the scene. I turned and saw that he was standing where I had left him, my paper of freedom in his hand. He was watching me with a guarded expression I was accustomed to seeing when he was with others, but which he had rarely used against me.

When I did not reply, he said, in the same, even tone as before, "On the other hand, if, for any reason, you should wish to stay in Emor for three or four years more, I am in need of a new free-servant and would be pleased if you took on the duty."

I looked back at the dark mountains, and for a long while I remained silent. My right hand was clasped around my left wrist, and my thumb was rubbing the almost imperceptible remnant of a scar. Then I said, without looking at Peter, "Chara, I do not think that it is a good plan for a Koretian to stay longer in Emor than he is required to. The bonds of blood loyalty and land loyalty can become frayed over time, and it is best for a man to spend as much time as possible in the land that he has chosen as his home."

I looked back at Peter. He had not moved; his expression remained neutral. It took me several more tries to force my words to the surface. "It would not be right for me to stay here for three or four more years and then return to Koretia. If, however, you would be willing to consider keeping me as your free-servant beyond that time, I would like to live as an Emorian and serve the Chara as long as I may."

Peter turned suddenly and walked rapidly into his sleeping chamber, beyond my sight. He was a long time returning, and I found myself wondering whether I had failed some test he had set for me. But when he came back, he was holding a bone-sheathed dagger.

He placed it in my hands and said, "I didn't think you would want this if you were returning to Koretia, because it is of Emorian design. But if you are to be a free-man in this palace, you will need a free-man's weapon to wear on ceremonial occasions. I had this made for you."

I stared down at the dagger. The last time before the enthronement that I had seen a free-man's weapon had been that afternoon. Released from my work so that I might attend the slaves' celebrations, I had instead spent an hour eavesdropping on some of the free-servants practicing their vows. While Peter had been in the ceremony, I had stayed in his quarters and whispered those vows to myself, imagining that I was watching him become Chara.

Now I pulled the dagger from its sheath, turned to face Peter, and placed the blade flat-wise immediately in front of my eyes so that it ran down the middle of my face like the nose-bridge of a mask. I did not kneel; an Emorian stands while giving his oath of land loyalty, in order to indicate that, while the servant has duties toward the master, the master also has duties toward the servant.

"I, Andrew son of Gideon, free-servant of the Chara, do swear this vow unto the Chara Peter: that I will respect and obey the laws of Emor as they were given to the first Charas and as they are proclaimed by the Chara Peter, that I will use my weapon only as the Chara would have me do, and that I will serve the Chara with loyalty until death and beyond. This is my free-man's oath, sworn on this blade."

My mind had been so much on the words that I was speaking that it was not until I was done that I saw Peter's face. It had a look on it that I had never seen before: his eyes were as I remembered them, but the lines of his face were molded into a severe and formal mask, as though he were something much more than a sixteen-year-old man. Placing his fingers upon the Pendant of Judgment that lay over his heart, he replied in a voice firm and sure.

"I, Peter, the Great Chara of Emor and Its Dominions, Judge of the People, Commander of the Armies, Lord of the Marcadian Mountains, Ruler of the Arpeshian Nation, Master of the Koretian Land, do swear this vow unto you: that I will judge without favor to any man, that I will wreak vengeance upon my people's enemies, and that I will have mercy upon those who serve me with loyalty. This is the Chara's oath, sworn to those who are placed under my care and receive my peace."

We stood a moment longer, frozen in our poses as though both of us had been taken over by something older and wiser than ourselves. Then we smiled, and I sheathed the dagger and hung it on my belt.

o—o—o

Nine years later, I stood in the same room, looking down at the same dagger.

I was standing next to Peter's writing table, which held the Chara's official documents, as well as a jewel case. I never touched the latter, but I did sometimes open the box beside it, which belonged to me and which hid my free-man's weapon. I reached out to touch the white and creamy hilt. The smooth bone was raised in rows of delicate lines criss-crossing each other, but at the very tip of the hilt, hidden to the casual eye, was the emblem that only the Chara could wear: the Balance, the Bird, and the Sword.

I heard a noise behind me, and I slipped the dagger back into the box where it had lain for most of the time during the years since Peter had freed me. With my other hand, I picked up the Chara's ceremonial cloak from the fireside chair where he had discarded it the evening before, and turned to place it on him.

Peter was wearing his silver tunic, and he was busy hooking to his belt the silver and gold Sword of Judgment. As I came forward, he said nothing, but turned to allow me to place the black cloak on his shoulders. When I had closed the cloak's clasp, he walked over to the small jewel box lying on his writing table and pulled out the drawer. He looked down upon it for a moment, then picked up the Pendant of Judgment and placed it around his neck.

He caught my eye on him. "What is on your mind?"

"You have been quiet this morning, Chara."

Peter gave a faint smile. "You are polite. You mean that I'm not turning you deaf with my usual chatter." His hand went up to his chest, and he fingered the teardrop-shaped gold pendant with its large, central ruby. His smile faded as though it had been a hard-kept illusion. "You will have heard of the case that I have been judging."

"Just a little. You mean the one involving Lord Carle's free-servant?"

"His former free-servant. After Henry retired last year, you may recall that Lord Carle astounded us all by allowing him to continue living in his quarters. I suppose that even Lord Carle is capable of appreciating thirty years of loyal service. Since Henry is now a palace guest, he has been placed under my judgment for this case."

"It was a murder, I heard."

Peter gave me that look he sometimes cast my way when I was not as successful as usual at pretending ignorance of his deeds. "If you don't know the details, I think that you must be the only man in this palace who doesn't. But I suppose that the other servants haven't wished to discuss this case with the Chara's free-servant. Opinions are strong on the matter." He turned abruptly, closed the drawer that had contained the pendant, and said, with his back still turned, "I hand down my judgment today, and I expect that every chamber in this palace will be unmanned as the free-servants flock to hear what I say."

He continued to stand with his back to me, and I waited to see what more he would tell me, but he merely said abruptly, "I must go. The people are awaiting my word." Without looking my way, he left the room.

I bent down to pick up a face-cloth that had fallen from a table, and then made my way through the room, straightening piles of papers and putting away small items. Through the half-open door, I caught occasional glimpses of people walking by, all travelling in the same direction. After a while, I stood up from where I had been cleaning the Chara's boots, alerted without thought by a sound. No, not a sound, but an absence of sound: for once, the palace was absolutely silent.

I looked into the corridor outside. The corridor was usually bustling at this hour with lords, officials, palace visitors, free-servants, and slave-servants. The only persons there now were the Chara's guards, and even they appeared restive beneath their standard stiff poses. I went to my room, changed my tunic, and then, formally dressed, I returned to the sitting chamber and took out the dagger that Peter had given me.

A few minutes later, with my free-man's weapon clipped to my belt, I arrived at the Court of Judgment. Peter's guess had been right: the court seemed filled with every free-servant of the palace, as well as many of its officials. The crowd poured beyond the ceiling-high gold doors leading to the court floor, the place where I had stood on the few occasions that I had attended cases. Turning away, I moved toward the staircase to the balcony reserved for the council lords, their free-servants, and the Chara's free-servant.

Even this proved to be crowded. As I arrived, the other free-servants, who had been talking in low voices amidst themselves, fell silent and parted without a word to allow me passage to the front of the balcony. There I found a space next to some of the council lords who were intently watching the proceedings.

I had arrived in time for the court clerk's summary, used only in cases that lasted more than one day. The clerk, a shy man who struggled to overcome a stutter, was standing atop the thirty-stepped throne dais and reading the witnesses' testimony in as low a voice as possible. I could catch no word of what he said. Behind me, the servants had resumed whispering amongst themselves; below, the rest of the crowd was murmuring its opinions.

"It is a difficult case. I would not want to be the Chara today."

I turned my head and looked over at Lord Dean, standing beside me at the balcony railing. He smiled and said, "Your name is Andrew, is it not? We have met on many occasions, of course, but I don't believe that we have ever before had a chance to chat. I was surprised that you weren't watching the case on the previous days, as every other palace servant seems to be here. The Chara nearly decided to give judgment in private, but such was the notoriety of the case that he felt it better to have the witnesses speak in public."

"I did not realize that the murder was so important, High Lord."

"The murder is very unimportant, I think – the killing of an insignificant subcaptain. But Henry is facing a second charge of disobeying the Chara, and either one of those charges, you know, is enough to place him under the high doom. Still, the Chara has been generous in such cases before, and Henry may be fortunate enough to escape with a branding or enslavement."

I could just catch sight of Henry, standing at the foot of the dais steps with his hands rope-bound behind him. His posture was as straight as it had been in the days when he had served Lord Carle, and his grey head was tilted to look upward, not toward the clerk, but toward the Great Chara, sitting in judgment above him. Peter's cloak flowed like black water over the white marble throne, his arms lay motionless on the armrests, and his face was cold and formal. I could not see his eyes.

"This case will take the rest of the week if that clerk cannot stop stuttering," said Lord Dean, and he turned to his side to face me, leaning with ease against the railing. "Would you like me to tell you what is happening? The case is complex, but not so complex as the clerk is making it sound."

I murmured to him my thanks, and then gazed back at the scene below as Lord Dean said, "The subcaptain was one of those soldiers who helped put down the Snow Hills Rebellion in Marcadia. I don't know whether you are aware that Henry was originally brought to this land as a Marcadian slave, several decades ago. He had already been free for some time when he took up service with Lord Carle. Henry's sister was also sent into slavery, though the court summoners have been unable to discover where she was sold – she was sought as a witness in this case, at the Chara's request. Henry claims that the soldier whom he murdered was the one who raped and enslaved his sister."

The clerk ceased to speak, and a group of men standing at the foot of the dais were beckoned forward to sign their names to their written witness. I watched them walk up the steps one by one: some soldiers, a few servants, and a lord.

Lord Dean followed my gaze and said, "Yes, Lord Carle chose to give evidence against his free-servant. He was the only witness besides the Chara himself to the charge of disobedience. As I'm sure you know, the Chara prefers not to give evidence in cases that he himself is judging, though he will usually do so if there is no other witness to a serious crime. In this case, however, Henry came to Lord Carle and confided to him that he had gone to see the Chara to ask him whether he might be allowed to bring a charge of rape against the soldier. The Chara told him that the court summoners had never allowed such charges to be made in the case of wartime assaults, and that he would not overrule the summoners. Then he commanded Henry to look no further into the matter."

I watched Lord Carle bend over the paper that the clerk proffered and sign it with a decisive stroke. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lord Carle's new free-servant watching his master, then turning to say something to Lord Dean's free-servant. My ear caught the word "Chara."

Lord Dean leaned over the railing and said, "Of course, what all of the palace servants are discussing is whether the Chara should have overruled the summoners, but that doesn't enter into the judgment of this case. Henry has admitted his disobedience; he is defending himself against the charge of murder without provocation. He says that he went to see this subcaptain only to learn whether the man knew where his sister had been sold. Some of the palace free-servants bear out this testimony, and certainly Henry did not bring any weapon with him. Soldiers passing the subcaptain's tent did not hear Henry speaking, but they heard the subcaptain laughing. Henry claims that the subcaptain not only refused to tell him where his sister was sold, but that he also made personal and disparaging remarks about his sister, causing Henry to grow mad with anger. He killed the subcaptain with the soldier's own sword."

Lord Dean cut himself off from his next sentence. The crowd quieted as the clerk and the last of the witnesses stepped down from the dais. Lord Dean leaned forward and joined me in watching the enthroned figure below.

Peter's voice, when it came, was strong and stilted with formality. "Henry son of Howe, palace guest of the Chara: you have been brought here to answer two charges. The first charge is that you did murder without provocation Colm, Subcaptain of the Palace Guard. The witness in this charge is Baldemar, orderly to Subcaptain Colm, and the sentence for such a crime is mercy or branding or the high doom. You have accepted the charge of murder, but deny that it was done without provocation."

The crowd was hushed as Peter reached toward the Pendant of Judgment. He raised the stone to his lips, kissed it, and then raised it to his forehead, where he kept it for a moment before allowing it to fall back to his chest. Dispassionately, he said, "The Chara's judgment is that the prisoner is guilty. The Chara's sentence is mercy."

A sigh went over the crowd, like a soft wave breaking against a shore. Some of the servants behind me began to murmur, but when I looked over at Lord Dean, his gaze was still fixed upon the Chara.

Peter continued, "The second charge brought against you is that you did willfully and with clear understanding disobey the command of the Great Chara. The witness in this charge is Carle, Lord of the Great Council, and the sentence for such a charge is mercy or enslavement or the high doom." Once more Peter's hand held the pendant next to his heart, where mercy resides; on his lips, where vengeance is spoken; and above his eyes, where judgment is made. Then he let the Pendant of Judgment fall and said, "The Chara's judgment is that the prisoner is guilty. The Chara's sentence is the high doom of death by the sword."

I did not see how Henry reacted to the sentence, and only faintly could I hear the grumble of the crowd as it began to disperse. My eyes and thoughts were on the Chara, a young man of twenty-five years, sitting as motionless as though he were as permanent a being as a land or a god.

Lord Dean said in my ear, "Many of the free-servants will be unhappy with the Chara's judgment and sentence."

I turned away then, and with a voice as dispassionate as the Chara's had been, I said to the council lord, "It is indeed a hard case to judge."

The white-haired lord smiled, the wrinkles on his face turning upward. "I have heard many fine stories of your tact and your loyalty to your master. Yet Peter tells me that you are always willing to offer your opinion on his actions, should he ask. That is a rare combination, a servant who is close-mouthed in public and candid in private. Should you ever wish to leave the Chara's service, I think that I could find some work for you that would bring good to our land. Or it may be that you will be able to find such a role while working for the Chara."

I bowed to the High Lord in acknowledgment of his words, watched him walk away to discuss the case with another lord, and then left the balcony.

o—o—o

I returned to the Chara's quarters and found Lord Carle there, holding the emblem brooch in his hand.

The door was half-open, and I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him. Lord Carle was looking down at the brooch with a smile, an easy, friendly smile which I had seen on only a few occasions during my years with him and which, it need hardly be said, he had never directed toward me. As he held the emblem up toward the light, he caught sight of me, but his smile did not disappear.

"Good day to you, Andrew," he said, carefully replacing the brooch on the table before him. "I hope that you are well today."

I stepped inside, leaving the door ajar as I had found it, and spent a minute assessing his face before I was able to convince myself that Lord Carle's words were anything more than his usual sarcasm. "Good day to you, Lord Carle," I said with detached courtesy. "May I offer you wine?"

"Thank you, but no," he said. "I am on my way back to my quarters to change. I only stopped to give the Chara my congratulations for his fine judgment in this case."

I kept my eyes fixed on his. It had been one of my keenest pleasures as a free-man to discover that I could now stare straight at Lord Carle without impunity. I said, in a voice still innocent of all emotion, "I am sure that the Chara will want to congratulate you as well for the help you gave in the case."

The smile disappeared then, like water trickling out of a cracked cup, and I saw him probe me with his look. When he spoke, his voice was without anger, but there was a firmness to it that had not been there before. "It was of course regretful that I should have had to give evidence against my former servant. But Henry disobeyed the Chara, and it is important to Emor that disloyalty not be allowed to flourish."

"Yes," I said. "I suppose the fact that Henry served you loyally for thirty years does not compensate you for discovering that you had a disobedient servant."

I had flung myself into battle while holding only a child's dagger, I knew. This was not the manner in which free-servants were supposed to address council lords. But servants were not supposed to address the Chara in such a manner either, and I had grown used to my freedom in more than one way.

Lord Carle was gazing at me now with narrowed eyes; his contented mood had vanished. "If Henry had been disobedient to me, I would have forgiven him," he said, raising his voice. "But he was disobedient to the Chara, to whom he swore, on his free-man's blade, that he would serve with loyalty. Betrayal of the Chara cannot be forgiven. The life of Emor depends on the Chara's subjects obeying his commands."

My own voice began to raise above its customary low pitch. "If you are concerned with the Chara and not with your own pride, then you might recall that the Chara also made an oath of loyalty, one to show mercy toward those placed under his care. It is an oath, I think, that all masters should be required to make." I paused, and then added recklessly, "Since you have so much loyalty toward the Chara, perhaps you would like to begin such a custom."

Lord Carle stood motionless; he was breathing heavily. He said, his words dropping like stones from a slingshot, "You are a fine one to talk to me of loyalty."

My hand, which was resting on my dagger hilt, curled into a fist. "What do you mean by—?"

"Enough," said the Chara.

He was at the doorway; one of his hands had swept back the door, while the other was resting on the hilt of his sword. He stood in that stance for a moment, his cloak widened to twice its usual size, as he looked at both of us with the expression of the Chara in judgment.

"Return here later," he told Lord Carle abruptly. Lord Carle bowed and left the room without a word. The Chara turned to close the door after the council lord, and when he turned back, his face had not changed.

"You two," he said icily, "could be heard halfway to the Court of Judgment. As I walked down the corridor just now, the only servants who were not staring at me with scorn were those who were busy amusing themselves by listening to the Chara's free-servant pick a fight with a council lord. I did not need this today."

He pulled at his cloak clasp, and then removed the cloak with one swift movement and threw it onto the fireside chair. His right hand came back to rest on the sword hilt.

"I know that Lord Carle is a difficult man," he said, "but you do not make things easy for him. You are insolent toward him, in both words and looks, and on the occasions on which he has been courteous to you, like a soldier laying down his arms, you have repaid him with words as cruel as dagger-thrusts. I am tired of having to intervene on your behalf to keep Lord Carle from going to the court summoners and charging you with the crime of insulting a free-man. I am also tired of overhearing whispered jokes about how the Chara is Master of the Koretian Land but that he is not master of his own free-servant." The immobility of his face was matched by the coldness of his eyes. "Let me be clear, Andrew son of Gideon. From this moment, you are not to begin any conversation with Lord Carle unless I am present. I say this as the Chara. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Chara," I said woodenly.

"Good. Then go change out of those clothes. And put away that dagger – you have not behaved today in a manner worthy of a free-man."

He turned his back on me and strode over to his writing table, but I did not move. When the Chara reached the table he paused, took off his pendant slowly, and held it in his hand for a moment. He said quietly, without looking back, "I saw you in the balcony. Was it Henry's case that you were fighting about with Lord Carle?"

"Yes."

The Chara let the pendant fall into the box where he kept it. He stood looking at the ornament for a moment longer, then turned and leaned back against the table. His face had lost its frigid lines, and he said in a low voice, "You should have saved your quarrel for me. I will have to defend my decision to every free-servant in this palace. I may as well try out my defense on you."

I stood as rigidly as I had before. With eyes lowered somewhat, I said, "It was a difficult case to judge."

I barely caught sight of the flicker of anger in Peter's eyes as he said, "That is the sort of statement I would expect to hear from Lord Dean, not you. I did not make you my servant so that you could tell me the polite lies that I hear from everyone else. I want your honesty."

I raised my eyes to match his. "I think that you were wrong in your judgment and wrong in your sentence and wrong in other matters as well."

"Thank you," said Peter. He pulled off his sword, laid it gently on the desk beside the pendant, and allowed his hand to rest on it for a moment. His gaze drifted over to the great blade beside him, and then returned to me.

"I would much rather have been Henry today, facing the high doom, than myself, placing him under the high doom," he said softly. "If it had been my decision, I would have let him go free. But the case was not decided by me but by the laws of Emor, which I am sworn to uphold. When I vowed not to show favor to any man, it was precisely this sort of trial that was meant. If I were to show favor to Henry because I liked him, then I would no longer be restricted by the law of this land, and it is the Chara's law that keeps Emor from dissolving into the civil war that nearly destroyed Koretia. I suppose that this is hard for you to understand, since you were not born Emorian."

"You could have found Henry guilty of disobedience but sentenced him to mercy."

"The sentencing is part of the law. I should have explained the law-structure to you long ago, for you can't understand my duties without it. I am bound as fast as a prisoner by what the law says I can do. I am as much a servant to the law as any of my subjects – if I were not, I would not be allowed to rule, and if there were no Chara to proclaim the ancient laws, then the laws would cease to exist. My main duty is to keep Emor alive through my judgments, and I cannot do this if my subjects believe that they can disobey me without penalty."

"Lord Carle said something like that just now," I murmured.

Peter picked the brooch up off of the desk and stared down at the royal emblem. "Contrary to your belief, Lord Carle does occasionally speak words that are true. One thing he has told me is that I do not discipline you enough. I would not want to imitate Lord Carle's methods of discipline, but perhaps you have so often seen me showing mercy that you forget I wear the Sword of Vengeance. Did you know that in ancient times one of the Chara's duties was to execute with his own hands those who were placed under the high doom? The Charas used this sword for that purpose. I thank the wisdom of the dead Charas that I am not required to carry out such a duty – customs do change in Emor, but the laws do not change, and one law is that those who willfully disobey the Chara's direct command must die."

He had been leaning against the table in as relaxed a pose as before, but as his eyes met mine, I saw he knew that we were in a dagger-duel as dangerous as any I had attempted with Lord Carle. Since he realized this, I did not hesitate before asking my next question: "And what of the custom that the Chara may overrule the court summoners?"

"Ah." Peter gave a somber smile as he pushed himself away from the table and went over to stand by the sitting chamber's southern window. He looked out for a moment, and the light breeze that seemed never to cease in Emor blew his hair over his eyes so that I could not see them.

"I knew that it would come to that in the end," he said. "This is harder to explain, because it has nothing to do with my duties as the Chara; rather, it has to do with my frailties as a man. In the court today, my duty was clear, and I had no choice but to take vengeance against Henry. But I had the choice of whether to take vengeance against the subcaptain for the rape he had committed, and I chose to have mercy."

He turned toward the window so that I could not see even his face. "It has been nine years now since I left the palace," he said quietly. "I would have had to leave the palace if there had been threat of a war, but no wars have occurred since I became Chara. I have never been in battle, but my father told me what it is like. He said that the worst moments come, not during the fighting itself, but in the nights before great battles, when the soldiers are forced to wait for hours, knowing that they may die the next day. My father said that many soldiers who have been brave during sword-battle desert their duties during that terrible waiting. I used to wonder whether I myself would some day betray Emor in such a way, for I have never had to face the possibility of death. That is why I find it so hard to condemn others to death, and that is why I am unwilling to punish soldiers who commit evil deeds during war."

He looked back at me, and I supposed that he expected me to make some gentle reply to this confession of fear. But I could see framed behind him the black border mountains, and there came to me an image of fear and destruction beyond that which he had given me.

I said bitterly, "And what mercy have you shown toward the girl who was raped? You said that you have never been a soldier – well, you have never been the victim of a soldier either. You have not been raped or killed or enslaved, or watched as your city was destroyed on the orders of the Chara."

Peter was still holding the emblem brooch. His fingers curled around it, not with vigor, but with tenderness, as though he were holding Emor itself in his palm. He said quietly, "I've never asked about your life in Koretia, Andrew, not even how it is that you came to be enslaved. I've heard you cry out in your sleep and guessed that that must be what you were dreaming about, but I did not believe that I had the right to question you. Since it is clear, though, that you blame the Chara for your enslavement, I think that I had better know what it is that you saw in that city when the Emorians attacked."

I said, in a voice as icy as the Chara's had been some time before, "You mention my dream. I will tell you what it is that I cannot stop dreaming about. I dream of the day that I was enslaved, and of the soldier who enslaved me. That is not why I cry out. I cry out because the same soldier who enslaved me killed my blood brother John and raped and killed my mother. I cry out because the fire consumed my city soon after, so that even if I were to return there today, I would not be able to visit his ash-tomb."

I failed to notice that the destruction in my mind had focussed itself on a single image. But when he spoke, Peter said, "I have heard of blood brothers but have never known what they are."

"They are created by a blood vow to the gods, a vow between two Koretian friends who may some day be parted. Shortly before you and I first saw each other, John and I exchanged blood and swore to be loyal to each other beyond death and to uphold each other's vows. John swore to help bring peace to our land." I paused, making sure that my eyes were firmly centered on Peter's. "I swore to kill the Chara."

When Peter spoke again, his voice was soft. "The Chara makes a vow to bring peace as well. My father believed that Emor could not have peace unless he attacked the Koretian capital. If I had had to judge the case myself, and if I had known what I know now – that the city would be destroyed, that all but a handful of its people would be enslaved or put to the sword, that your mother and blood brother would be killed and that you would be enslaved and gelded – if I had known all that, I would have given the same judgment as my father did."

There was a silence. Peter's hand had closed more tightly around the emblem, but his gaze did not falter. I turned and left the Chara's quarters without a word.

The Chara did not call me back. If he had, I would not have obeyed him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As the sun began to set that evening, I was sitting where I had been all afternoon, in the inner garden of the Chara's palace.

Peter had once said that I must be a reincarnation of the man who named this location, because I shared that man's talent for understatement. The "garden" was a courtyard the size of a village. Peter often visited there since he was not allowed to go into the Emorian countryside. The garden had been fashioned to look like the country, with pastures and meadows and the stone walls that bound every Emorian field, but with no trees, since these are rare in Emor, though its northern dominions were heavily forested. I had come here with Peter on occasion, since I now avoided looking out of windows but was still seeking scenery that would return to me the peace of heart I had left behind in Koretia.

I had never found that peace in the garden, nor anywhere else in the palace, save in the presence of Peter. Now, I knew, I would not even find it there.

I sat in the corner of the garden, hidden by bushes from the lords and officials who had been drawn to this place by the golden summer sun. My eyes were closed, and my fingers ran over the emblem at the tip of my dagger hilt. I had always thought that Peter had given the dagger to me out of love, the sort of love that sometimes grows between a master and his servant. I had raged against Lord Carle because he had not shown such love to Henry, but I had never doubted that Peter felt that way toward me. Now, though, there whispered in my mind Peter's final words to me. Had he really given me my freedom out of love for his loyal subject? Or had he simply been the Chara, fulfilling his duty by selecting a servant whom he could use as an intermediary with his slaves? I had once said that Peter wore a mask; now I feared that he wore that mask even with me.

I opened my eyes and saw that it was growing dark. The dinner hour had arrived, and as I stood up, I saw that the garden was now deserted but for two soldiers guarding a passageway running directly to the Chara's quarters.

I did not head that way. I was not sure where I would go, but I could not face Peter while I was still unsure of what sort of man he was. Instead, I stepped onto the cobbled pavement bordering the garden and walked toward a doorway for another passage that eventually ended at the corridor leading to the Map Room. I could see the soldiers watching me and exchanging whispers. They must have been among those who had overheard my fight with Lord Carle.

I was thinking this when I reached the doorway and nearly walked into Lord Carle.

He was about to step out of the doorway from the narrow passage behind, and my first impression of him was that he looked like a weary veteran from the Border Wars, retreating after some great defeat. He had changed out of his ceremonial dress, and his hand touched his belt lightly, as though he missed the sword there. He stopped the moment that he saw me, and a wariness entered his eyes. He did not speak, but neither did he move, and I did not expect him to move, for we were face to face, and he was waiting for the servant to step out of the way of the council lord.

I felt a sudden flicker of anger inside me, not only for his easy assumption of my inferiority, but also because he had been the cause of my quarrel with Peter.

We stood a moment more as I waited for him to tell me to move away. And then – it was a sight that every servant in the palace would have paid good money to see – Lord Carle stepped aside in the doorway to allow me to pass.

It was too late. The flicker of anger had grown into a cool blaze inside me, and I promptly moved to one side to block his way again. His lips tightened, but still he did not speak.

"We did not finish our conversation, Lord Carle," I said with a false tone of calmness.

Lord Carle was again silent. Then he said softly, "I do not think that you should be speaking to me."

"I beg your pardon for addressing a council lord in such a bold manner," I said, "but as you have often told me, I have little respect for my superiors. This being the case, I demand that you explain why you said that I am disloyal to the Chara."

Cold amusement entered into Lord Carle's eyes, though his mouth remained somber. "Loyalty is a subject I am now well acquainted with," he said, "since I have spent the past three hours with your master, listening to him explain what form he expects my loyalty to take. I must admit that I am surprised that you would pick these particular circumstances to defend to me your loyalty to the Chara. Nonetheless, since you have asked the question, I will answer it. I did not say that you were disloyal to the Chara – that is another question, for another day. What is beyond dispute is that you are a traitor to Koretia."

He stepped past me then, and stood on the pavement beside me. I was paralyzed at his words. Further down, I could see that the soldiers, though too far away to hear our conversation, were entertained by our confrontation.

I said, with a voice as cold as my body felt, "That should give you great joy, Lord Carle."

"On the contrary, it lessens my respect for you. When we first met, you told me that you had made a blood vow to kill the Chara – I do not think that you have forgotten that vow, as the Chara told me a short while ago that you had revealed it to him for the first time. It is not clear to me why you felt the desire to mention this matter to him, since you are now the Chara's free-servant, are wearing the Emorian tunic he gave you, are not planning even a short trip to Koretia, and do not, as far as I know, have any plans to kill the Chara. If you were in fact contemplating some secret betrayal, I might regain the respect for you that I lost on the night when I discovered you chatting with the Chara as though he were your blood brother rather than your sworn enemy."

Something rumbled inside me, like a small fire growing large, or a thundercloud in the moments before lightning strikes. I said, again calmly, "You will at least admit that, whatever my past loyalties, I am now loyal to the Chara."

"I would like to think that you are. It would give me joy to think that you plan to dedicate your life to serving the Chara. Or, if this were not the case, it would at least give me some satisfaction to find that you have been secretly plotting to kill him and that you have always remained loyal to your Koretian brothers. But what I fear is that you are dedicated to no man but yourself – that you are a creature incapable of loyalty, enjoying a pleasant childhood in Koretia, and then being tempted away by the luxuries of Emor. That is not the sort of loyalty that the Chara needs." The scorn was unshielded in Lord Carle's voice now.

I said, still keeping my voice low so that the soldiers could not hear me, "I swore an oath to be loyal to the Chara."

"As you swore a vow to kill him. You will not need to answer to any imaginary Koretian gods for breaking your blood vow, but you will have to answer to the Chara if you betray him."

I felt a crack of lightning go through my body as the cold fire inside began to rage out of control. I made one last effort to master my anger, saying through gritted teeth, "I will never betray the Chara."

"Your very words reveal your disloyalty. Only a few minutes ago, the Chara instructed me not to start any conversations with you, and I assume that he gave you the same command. You have already betrayed his trust by your disobedience here."

He walked past me toward the garden, but had not yet stepped off the pavement when he whirled around at the sound of hissing metal.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the soldiers frozen with their hands on their sword hilts, afraid to move forward lest they make matters worse. Lord Carle was frozen too, his gaze on the dagger that came slowly toward him. As I placed the dagger tip against his heart, his eyes rose to meet mine. I waited to see what his last words would be; I could read neither anger nor fear nor anything else in his look.

He said, in a voice as serene as our surroundings, "I see that I am to become acquainted with a new Koretian custom, that of killing an unarmed man."

The dagger ripped through a few threads of his tunic, then screamed and sparked as it skidded over the pavement toward the soldiers. In the moment that followed, I saw nothing except the smile beginning to form on Lord Carle's face.

Then the soldiers raced toward me. I did not run; I was looking at Lord Carle, who was lying on the ground where I had struck him down.

o—o—o

The following evening, the palace guards brought me, hand-bound, to see the Chara.

Each of my two escorts had a hand clasping one of my arms in an effort to ensure that their dangerous prisoner did not escape. Their other hands held unsheathed swords, ready at a moment's notice. We marched by the doorway guards, past the doors open to receive us, and into the Map Room, dark but for a single torch whose flame wavered in the nighttime breeze.

The Chara was leaning over the table, examining a piece of paper there; his finger-tips rested lightly on the black wood. He was facing the doors, but did not look up as we entered. The soldiers jerked to a halt, saluting their ruler with their swords, and then the senior guard announced in a loud voice, "Great Chara, we have brought the prisoner."

Still the Chara did not look up. His face and body were hidden in shadow. In an even, ordinary voice, he said, "You may leave the prisoner here and wait outside."

The guards released me, and after a moment their retreating steps were followed by the sound of the doors closing, and then silence. Finally the Chara looked up. He walked slowly around the table until he was standing at its side and his body was once more in the light. His face was cold and formal, and on his chest lay the Pendant of Judgment.

"Andrew son of Gideon, free-servant of the Chara," he intoned, "you have been brought here to answer charges made against you by Carle, Lord of the Great Council. The first charge is that you did willfully and with clear understanding disobey the command of the Great Chara."

He paused a moment, and I found that without thought I had fixed my gaze straight forward, as I did in the days when I was Lord Carle's servant. The torchlight cast dark shadows beneath the Chara's eyes so that his face appeared mask-like.

The Chara continued, "The witness in this charge is the Chara, and I have declined to give evidence. Therefore, the charge is dismissed."

I did not move, but stood as though my whole body were wrapped in chains. The Chara likewise was motionless as he spoke.

"The second charge," he said, "is that you did attempt to murder without provocation the same Lord Carle. The witness in this charge is Emmett, guard of the Chara's palace, and the sentence for such a crime is mercy or branding or the high doom." He stopped, waited three heartbeats, and said, "Lord Carle has withdrawn this charge, and instead charges you with striking a nobleman without provocation. The witness in this charge is the same, and the sentence for such a crime is mercy or branding or enslavement. Do you deny the charge?"

I had had time, shivering in the cool cells of the palace dungeon, to think what my answer would be. Carefully phrasing my words, I said, "I do not deny that I hit Lord Carle."

The Chara was still, assessing me. After a moment he said, "Do you deny that you struck him without provocation?"

I was silent. The gold and ruby pendant that hung around the Chara's neck shimmered in the light as his chest moved with his breathing. When he spoke again, the Chara's voice remained even and formal. "Did he provoke you?"

Again I was silent. The Chara moved his right hand slowly to his pendant. Then, in one swift and violent motion, he tore the pendant from his neck, turning to slam it down upon the table beside him. For a minute he leaned on the table, his palms fixed flat on the surface, and I could hear his heavy breathing. Finally he turned his head, and he said in his own voice, "Andrew, I cannot require Lord Carle to give witness against himself. Will you not tell me what he said to you?"

My tongue felt like a dead weight in my mouth; my lips could barely move. I said, "No."

Peter looked down at the table again and closed his eyes. He brought the fingertips of one hand up against his forehead and held them there. At last he spat out softly a brief and powerful curse that I had never heard on his lips.

He stood up, walked toward me, and passed me. There was silence behind me. Then my back stiffened as I heard him unsheathe the Sword of Vengeance. Cold metal touched me, and my bonds began to loosen as he cut them with the blade.

He said as he did so, "If you had used that dagger against Lord Carle, then I would have executed the high doom against you with my own hands for your being such a fool as to carry a weapon when you were angry. Most men can master their bloodthirst, but you cannot, and you ought to have realized that long ago."

I heard him sheathe the sword as he moved over to my left side. Holding the cut rope in one hand, he said softly, "But since you were wise enough to throw away the dagger, then I will admit that I believe you had every right to strike Lord Carle, if not for what he said to you, then for the shameful way he treated you during the years in which you were under his care."

He looked at me soberly, with gentle eyes. My expression did not change, but I felt something unknot within me, as though Peter had unbound not only my hands but my heart.

"Nevertheless—" Peter moved back to the table, tossed the rope on it, and leaned back against the wood planks, facing me. "I am the Chara. I have passed judgment before in cases like this – palace guards striking their officials and other such troubles. In many cases I have dispensed mercy, and therefore I would feel no guilt in doing so to you – if this were my case. But it is not."

I waited. Dimly, through the open window, I could hear the tramp of soldiers patrolling the city streets. Peter folded his hands but for the index fingers and brought these to his lips. He said, "My father was of the belief – and it was a good belief – that it is dangerous for the Chara to have too much power over his immediate servants. He believed that, if a palace free-servant committed a crime, someone other than the Chara ought to pronounce judgment on the servant. Therefore, since the council takes care of its own, my father bound over to the council the right to judge and sentence prisoners who are palace free-servants. And the High Lord has appointed as the council's judge one of his lords who has shown a great interest in matters of discipline."

This time it was Peter who waited. I said, my voice flat and dry, "Lord Carle."

Peter spread his hands in front of him in acknowledgment of my words. "You are under Lord Carle's care, and it is he who may judge you and pass sentence. I can give him my recommendation, but he has already told me in private that he believes you require once more the discipline of slavery. He has also told me who your new master would be."

My chest tightened, and I felt my fists begin to clench. Peter continued swiftly, "And so my clerk and I spent all of last night trying to find some way out of this problem. And I believe that, in the end, we found something a solution that will serve."

I did not unclench my fists, but my breathing eased somewhat. The breeze from the window made the light shudder once more, and the shifting shadows revealed to me what I had not noticed before: the dark circles below the Chara's eyes.

He said, "You are a palace free-servant; that is why you are under Lord Carle's care. But if you were under my care, I would be able to dispense the mercy I believe you deserve." He turned and pulled toward him the paper he had been reading upon my entrance.

My fists were still clenched. I forced myself to wait two heartbeats more before I said, in a carefully neutral voice, "You wish me to be your slave once more?"

Peter had been reaching for a pen. His head jerked up, and there was a moment's silence before he laughed and said, "I must admit that such a solution did not occur to me during my sleepless night. No, my idea is more devious. Prisoners who are palace free-servants are under Lord Carle's care, but prisoners who are palace guests are under my care. The Chara is reserved judgment in crimes involving men and women who visit the palace briefly, or men like that horrid bard Esmond, who stopped here one night during a rainstorm twenty years ago and whom we have not been able to get rid of since then. This document was prepared by my clerk – it is all clerks' language, but if you sign it, you will be resigning from the palace service and may remain here as my guest." He held out the paper and pen expectantly.

Still I could not find a way to unclench my fists. I stayed motionless and asked, in the same flat tone as before, "And what would my duties be as a guest?"

Peter put the paper carefully down on the table, placed the pen beside it, picked up the pen again, and stared at the quill for a second before his eyes met mine. He said simply, "To be my friend, I hope."

During the silence that followed, his gaze dropped again, this time toward the floor. After a moment he raised his head and said in a low voice, "Andrew, my father often told me when I was a boy that it was impossible for the Chara to be friends with a free-servant or a slave. I have come to see that he is right. Neither a free-servant nor a slave-servant is someone with whom one can converse candidly, as one can with a friend. But eleven years ago, I walked out of Lord Carle's room sick with anger and filled with loneliness from the fact that I could tell no one what I was thinking. And then I met you, and you listened to my troubles and told me honestly what you thought I was like and even smiled at my joke. And since that time I have considered you my friend, though I have never told you so."

He looked at me, and as I gazed at him I saw suddenly in him the boy-heir I had met long ago, courteous and quiet, afraid to speak openly, lest his words be used as weapons against him. He waited for me to reply. When I did not, he said in a voice even lower than before, "I do not speak my thoughts to many people – it is not wise for me to do so. Aside from you, I am candid with few men. As for you . . . Well, as far as I know, you volunteer your thoughts to no one. This too is probably wise. But if you would care to be candid with me tonight, I would very much like to know how you think of me."

I opened my mouth finally, spoke a word that did not reach past my lips, tried again, and said, "Chara . . ." My voice trailed off, as though the formal title had dropped somewhere in the stretch of space between us, too heavy to reach the young man before me.

When he spoke again, it was in little more than a whisper. "If you wish, you may call me Peter."

I whirled around suddenly and walked almost blindly to a small window overlooking the southern part of the city. In the dim moonlight I could see the black mountains bordering Koretia; down below, hidden in the blackness, was the marketplace where I had revealed my blood vow against the Chara.

When I looked to my side, I saw that Peter was standing next to me at the window, his eyes on me, and his fingers tenderly cradling the pen. My gaze fell, and I said in a quiet voice that matched his, "Peter, before I struck Lord Carle, he told me that I was a traitor to my people. He said I had broken my vow of loyalty to Koretia, for I had sworn when I first met him that I would never become Emorian and that my blood was dedicated to the slaying of the Chara. He pointed out that I now wore Emorian clothes, that I was free-servant to the Chara himself, and that I had no plans to return to my homeland. He said that the luxuries of my life here had led me to forswear my duty to my Koretian brothers."

My eyes were still cast down; I could see Peter's hand clenched about the pen, as though he were holding a weapon. I looked up and gazed into the Chara's eyes. "It is true, what Lord Carle said, that I have broken my vow and that I am a traitor to my people. But I did not do this for love of the riches here. I did it for love of the Chara, whom I never considered my friend, because I dared not aspire that high."

Peter's eyes remained solemn, but the corners of his mouth crooked upwards into a slight smile. He took a step forward and held out the pen toward me. "Dare."

Slowly I reached toward the pen. As I took it from him, I felt for a moment his wrist beating against mine, blood next to blood. Then his hand dropped for a moment, and when it rose again, it made a gesture I had not seen him make since his enthronement, a gesture that no Chara had ever made, because the Chara has no equals: he touched his heart and his forehead.

I returned to him the greeting, and then walked over to the table to sign the paper.

Blood Vow 4

LAND OF THE JACKAL

CHAPTER NINE

Late-afternoon light landed on the trees above us and then stole its way slyly through the translucent skin of the leaves to dapple our path, gold on brown. I raised my head to look at the cloudless sky peering at us through the leaves, and to feel upon my face the moist stroke of the sun-heated air. It was warmer than any fire I could remember sitting next to during my fifteen years in Emor.

As I lowered my head again, I saw that Lord Carle was watching me with narrowed eyes. We were riding along the Koretian forest path three abreast, with Peter in the middle; the Chara had shown his usual formal courtesy in acting as though he welcomed equally the company of both of us. By the rules of rank, I should have been riding behind with the servants, leaving the noblemen to talk together, but Peter had insisted on having me by his side during most of our fortnight-long journey, and Lord Dean, I could guess, was willing to take advantage of the time in order to glean bits of gossip from the servants that he could later use to his advantage.

Lord Carle paused from his persistent watch of me only in order to answer a question I had not heard Peter ask. The council lord said, "If I needed one word to describe the nature of this land, it would be blood. All of the oaths in this land are sworn on blood, the gods of this land can only be placated through the blood of animals – and frequently that of humans as well – and the traditional form of Koretian justice, if I may call it that, is the blood feud. It says something about Koretia that its most famous institution is ritualized murder."

I opened my mouth and closed it again, but Peter caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, and he pulled back on his horse's reins so that we were moving at a less rapid pace than before. He had driven the six of us to travel at a rate which Lord Carle had complained was faster than that of the Chara's vanguard, but now we were approaching the capital city, and Peter's anxious look was beginning to ease.

"What would you say, Andrew?" he asked. "Is Koretia founded on blood, as Lord Carle says?"

"I think that Lord Carle has noticed Koretia's outward rituals without understanding their inward significance," I said, carefully phrasing my words so that the council lord could not accuse me of insulting him. "Blood is a sign of sacrifice in Koretia. The Koretian people believe that loyalty to the gods must be shown through offerings of sacrifice. It is true, as Lord Carle says, that the blood feud was used as a form of justice in the old days, but it was not considered a form of private justice, a way to achieve vengeance on one's own behalf. Rather, it was a way to avenge deeds that broke the commands of the gods."

"That hardly reassures me," said Lord Carle, and then paused momentarily to swat a small butterfly that had taken his green and gold tunic to be a flower. Probably, I thought, struggling to remain just toward Lord Carle, he had mistaken the butterfly for one of the Koretian blood-flies that had been feasting upon us since we crossed the black border mountains.

"The bloodthirstiness of this land's gods is a model that I imagine the Koretians strive to imitate," continued Lord Carle. "Take this man, the Jackal. He first appeared during that blood feud to end all blood feuds, the Koretian civil war. I don't suppose that he could have chosen a more fitting moment to make his entrance, considering all the times since then that he has slaked his thirst on the blood of men. He has certainly fashioned himself after your god."

I pulled my horse's reins tight – I think that it was only a reflex action, but once I had done so, I discovered that my horse was standing still, and both Lord Carle and Peter were watching me. The Chara was unconsciously stroking his horse's mane, reassuring it as to our sudden delay, and at sight of Peter's characteristically gentle and affectionate action, I felt my resentment flame within me at Lord Carle's typical harshness. "They are not my gods, Lord Carle," I said. "I wish that you would remember that."

"Yes," said Peter, looking toward the council lord in a pointed manner. "I too wish that you would remember that, Lord Carle. Whatever point you have been trying to make during this trip, I think you can assume that you have long since made it. I am growing weary of hearing you sing the same stale tune."

Lord Carle kept his gaze fixed on me rather than Peter, but he said with that overcourteous formality which I knew drove Peter mad, "I will endeavor to serve you better in the future, Cha— Lord Peter. Is it the Cha— Is it your wish that we stay in the governor's palace tonight?"

I could see Peter biting away a smile at Lord Carle's fumbled speech. If there was one form of loyalty that Lord Carle had never managed to achieve toward his master, it was in following Peter's frequently expressed desire that his council lords not treat him with strict formality during his leisure hours. I suspected that Lord Carle's unusually bad temper during this trip came, not only from his hatred of Koretia and of me, but also from his frustration at Peter's command that Lord Carle address him at all times by his childhood title.

"Why do you ask, Lord Carle?" replied Peter.

"Because we may have to return to our old speed if we are to reach the city by nightfall," said Lord Carle. "This road meanders quite a bit before it reaches the western gates."

This was, I thought, one of Lord Carle's milder statements during the trip. Koretia being the smallest of the Three Lands, it took travellers merely two weeks to journey between the Emorian capital and the Koretian capital at the southern tip of this land. Or rather, it would have taken two weeks if the Koretians had built straight, paved roads the way the Emorians did. As it was, only the Chara's lightning-swift messenger journeyed between the capitals in that amount of time. Ordinary travellers took a month or more, held back by mud and muck, deep cart-ruts that threatened to trip their horses and mules, bridges that were inevitably broken, roads that zig-zagged back and forth for obscure religious reasons or simply because it suited the fancy of the road-builder, and, of course, the Koretians' unique method of collecting tolls.

To prevent Lord Carle on offering further comment on this, I said, "You appear to know a great deal about Koretia."

Lord Carle's gaze drifted over my way once more and remained fixed on me as he said blandly, "It is always wise to know one's enemy."

I was saved from making a reply by the appearance of Lord Dean, who, seeing us halted in the road, had ridden ahead of Curtis and Francis. Peter, glancing his way, started his horse forward again, but the imperturbable High Lord took this as a sign of encouragement and continued toward us. I quickly pulled back behind the others in order to allow Lord Dean his place beside the Chara.

"I hate to admit it, Lord Carle," Peter was saying, "but I have reached the conclusion that you are right about this land, at least as far as the weather is concerned. After two weeks' worth of hot and dusty travel, I am ready to hand my office over to any man who can give me a few days' worth of Emorian coolness."

"Well, it has allowed for a quick journey," said Lord Dean cheerfully. "At least we haven't had to endure any rain."

Lord Carle glanced over his shoulder to where I was riding, a few paces behind Lord Dean. Our eyes met, and I knew that, for once, our thoughts were in sympathy.

Peter, who always caught small gestures in a conversation, asked, "Is the lack of rain a problem?"

"Only because this is a land whose weapon of war is fire," replied Lord Carle.

"Why, we all know that," said Lord Dean. "That's what allowed us to win the Border Wars; the Chara Nicholas was able to turn the Koretians' weapon against them."

Lord Carle said, "Even the Koretians, High Lord, would hesitate to use their favorite weapon during a summer like this."

"Why is that?" asked Peter quietly. I could tell from his tone that he had already guessed Lord Carle's warning, but as always, he preferred to hear other men explain matters in which they had expertise rather than offer comment himself.

Lord Carle looked back at me again. "Perhaps Andrew could give you part of the answer by explaining why all of the towns we have visited have moats surrounding them."

"I had assumed that they were there to protect against invaders," said Peter, looking at me inquiringly.

I shook my head. "Until the civil war, it had been several centuries since any large-scale warfare took place in Koretia. Koretians usually fight through blood feuds, which involves one-on-one combat, rather than through the large battles favored by Emorians. That was why they were so ill-prepared to fight the Emorians. Though the Koretians had an army, they were inexperienced in mass slaughter."

"They seem to have successfully overcome their inexperience and gentleness in the case of the borderland villagers," Lord Carle commented dryly.

"So why do the towns have moats?" asked Peter, cutting off Lord Carle's further words on the subject.

I said, "It is only in the towns and the city that large fights sometimes break out – riots that are sparked when anything causes the inhabitants to quarrel especially hard. In the old days, it was blood feuds that caused the riots, but these days I imagine it is the Emorian rule. You know how the Koretians use fire in these riots, lighting them when there is no wind in order to burn a particular section of the city. But sometimes the wind springs up suddenly, and when that happens, the fires spread out of control, and the entire town may go up in flames. The moats are there to keep the surrounding countryside from catching on fire. There was one particularly bad fire five centuries ago, before the moats were built. It was a windy day, and the summer was dry like this one. The fire ended up burning half of Koretia before it was finally contained by a thunderstorm."

"Well, but now that Koretia has moats—" Peter stopped himself in mid-sentence.

"That is exactly the point," said Lord Carle grimly. "The Koretian capital does not have a moat – not since Lord Alan decided to turn the old moat into a flower garden to impress visiting noblemen."

This time it was Lord Dean who cut off Lord Carle's comments. He said smoothly, "I will save you, Lord Peter, from hearing the remaining text of Lord Carle's elegant and vitriolic speech about how the moat ought to have been retained to protect against future treachery by the Koretians. I and the other members of the council heard half a dozen versions of the speech when we debated the matter ten years ago. The rest of us, however, believed that the city wall was protection enough, should war break out again."

"I wish that you had consulted me on the matter," said Peter. "It touches upon matters of war, which are my province."

"You may recall, Lord Peter, that, with your permission, we consulted with Subcommander Rudolph," said Lord Dean. "He was not in the city at the time of the invasion, of course, since he was leading the northern campaign, but you yourself had been sent back to Daxis by your father. I do not know of any high-ranking Emorian official, other than the Chara Nicholas, who was in the city during the fire."

There was the pause of a heartbeat; then the three noblemen simultaneously looked back at me. "Well?" said Peter.

I shook my head. "I'm afraid that Lord Carle is right. The capital has an inner ditch, but the flames were leaping beyond that and the wall when I was taken from the city. If the moat hadn't been there, the fire would have spread to the countryside."

"Let this moment be recorded for future generations," said Lord Carle. "Andrew has actually admitted that I am right. I never thought that the day would come."

"I suppose," said Peter, "that we can be glad that there has been no wind recently. If this remains true— Hold a minute. Which path do we take?"

We halted our horses again, and this time Curtis and Francis were close enough behind us that they soon reached the branching of the path as well. The six of us stared at where the tree-arched forest path forked, with no sign as to which was the main stream of the road and which was the tributary.

"I don't recall this on our maps," said Peter. "Andrew, which way do we go from here?"

A small black carving, nearly invisible against the dark trunk of the tree to which it was attached, had caught my eye. I slid out of my saddle and went over to the side of the road to touch it with my fingers. At the moment that I did so, I felt memories cut into me like the slice of a blade.

It took me a moment to catch my breath and answer the question that Peter had asked in the meantime. "Yes, it's a carving of a god-mask. This path leads up Capital Mountain to the priests' house."

"Which god is it?" asked Lord Dean pleasantly. He had been doing his best during the trip to catch up with Lord Carle in his knowledge of Koretia.

I remained where I was, touching the side of the small wooden mask, whose face was stained entirely black. "It isn't one of the seven gods. It's the mask of the Unknowable God, who symbolizes any god who is not yet known to the worshipper. Some priests think that all of the gods are just different faces of the Unknowable God."

"He is not a god who is directly worshipped by the Koretians," added Lord Carle. "We may thank the wisdom of the Charas that we do not have eight dagger-wielding Koretian gods to contend with."

I said nothing more, but my gaze drifted toward the side path, where the mountain began climbing steeply above the main road. Somewhere up there was a building I had once known very well, though it was no longer inhabited by the one person in this land whom I would have liked to have seen during this lonely homecoming. I wondered whether, in his new home, John had finally learned who his god was.

I did not realize that Peter had slipped down from his horse until I heard him murmur in my ear, "Shall we go there?"

I looked over at him, and though I spoke no reply, he must have read the thought in my eyes, for he swung around and said to the others, "Well, we're here to uncover information about the Jackal, are we not? What better place to start at than with the priests? From what Andrew has told me in the past, they take guests overnight. I suggest that we stay there tonight rather than risk still being on this road after nightfall."

Lord Dean looked uneasily at the main path ahead of us. Only twice before had we been caught on the road after dark, and on both occasions we had met bandits who wished to exact "toll" from us. Though Lord Carle had grumbled that this was the sort of encounter we might have expected in a land watched over by a thief god, he and the other armed free-men appeared to enjoy the opportunity to use their blades in defense. Lord Carle, it had transpired to no one's surprise, was the most skilled and ruthless bladesman of the five, yet Peter had shown himself surprisingly dexterous, despite the fact that he had received little training in blade-play.

I had stood to the side and watched, secure from harm by the thieves since I bore no weapon.

"I would rather that we were safely inside the governor's palace tonight," Lord Dean said, "but you may be right, Lord Peter. What do you think, Carle?"

"I think that it is the Cha— It is Lord Peter's decision to make," said Lord Carle. Then he added, to my surprise, "I can imagine that after ten years of imprisonment in his palace, he might wish another night free before he enters the imprisonment of the governor's palace."

Peter smiled easily at Lord Carle as he pulled himself back onto his horse. "Then we're decided. One more night of play before we all set about doing difficult and possibly dangerous work."

"Dangerous?" Lord Dean gave a short laugh as we started forward. "I doubt that we need worry about the Jackal showing up at the governor's palace. No, the worst that we have to fear is that we will all die of heat-stroke. . . ."

I did not hear the rest of what he said; I had allowed my horse to fall back until I was halfway between the noblemen and the servants. I did not try to join Curtis and Francis, whom I could hear discussing a free-woman that they had both taken a fancy to. I had long since resigned myself to the fact that I would never be fully accepted by the noblemen or by the slaves or even by the lesser free-men whose rank I officially shared. My leaps downward and upward through the ranks had left me dizzy with uncertainty. Only when I was alone with Peter did I lose all interest in whether I was slave or free-man, Emorian or Koretian, for Peter had always treated me as his loyal friend, no matter which identity I took on.

In this respect, of course, Peter could not have differed more greatly from my previous master. When I was sure that he was not looking my way, I stole a look at Lord Carle's proud, harsh face. In the twelve years since Peter had taken me out of the council lord's care, Lord Carle had never ceased to torment me. Time after time, he had questioned my loyalty, reminded me of what he had made me into when he first bought me. Worst of all, he had repeatedly attempted to persuade Peter to break his friendship with me.

The last action was so futile that I wondered that he even tried it. It was true that Peter was forced to see a great deal of Lord Carle: my former master was one of the leading senior council lords and moreover had been Peter's tutor during the months preceding Peter's enthronement. Biased as I was, even I knew that Lord Carle had great learning in the law and was a valuable member of the Great Council. But this could not balance for me the evidence I had encountered over the years of Peter's suffering in Lord Carle's hands: Peter showing forced cheerfulness after Lord Carle's frequent and lengthy visits to the Chara's quarters. (Peter, mindful of my feelings, always sent me away during these sessions.) Peter growing silent whenever I referred to Lord Carle, though he had told me at length what he thought of the other council lords. And on a couple of terrible occasions during his time as Lord Carle's student, Peter breaking down into sobs after Lord Carle had disciplined him.

It was this, as much as my own experience under Lord Carle's care, that had caused me to try to kill the council lord. Only later had I realized that I had brought further trouble to Peter by my actions. Since the trial, I had tried, without much success, to contain my bloodthirst toward Lord Carle, but my anger rose whenever I saw how oblivious Lord Carle was to his true nature. He was widely known as the cruelest master in the palace, yet he spoke with pride about his training of his servants. Though my only release from his torments could have been to escape his presence, he continued to hold me captive in conversation with such regularity that it was clear that he thought I welcomed the attention. And though it must have been obvious to him how little Peter cared for him, he always appeared at the Chara's door casually and unbidden, as though sure of his welcome.

I could be certain that Peter had done his best to rid himself of Lord Carle. Several times I had overheard Peter coolly addressing the council lord by his name alone, as though to remind him that his title had been given to him as an honor by the Chara. Lord Carle had a mind more keen and cunning than even Lord Dean's, yet he appeared to have no awareness that other people in the world might think less of him than he did of himself.

Now, as we made our way up the steep mountain path toward the building I was beginning to glimpse through the trees, Lord Carle fell back alongside me, and I realized with horror that he was about to give me one of his lectures. He inflicted these on me from time to time, always using the same gentle voice he used toward Peter, in an attempt to lull me into thinking that he was no longer my enemy. He appeared to have a talent for knowing the exact moment at which I was beginning to lower my guard, and to use that moment in which to attack me. If I had been Peter, I would have long since removed this malevolent lord from his council chair – but of course Lord Carle, like all of the other council lords, was awarded his office until death or until he was charged with a crime. There were times when I almost wished that Lord Carle would murder me, just so that he could be summoned for the deed, and Peter would have a way to rid himself of the lord.

"Tell me, Andrew," said Lord Carle in his deceptively mild voice, "do you have any blood kin in this land?"

"No," I said shortly. I cast my gaze toward Peter, who was looking back anxiously toward us, but Lord Dean had him well trapped in conversation.

"None at all? Nobody who might remember a blood vow that you once made?"

"No." I kept my voice low, trying to determine where the conversation was headed. If Lord Carle had been less skilled at inflicting wounds, I would have assumed that he thought I might be swayed by the sight of my blood kin to keep my vow, but Lord Carle's mind was too subtle for him to make the obvious accusation.

"You are fortunate, then."

I looked over at Lord Carle, startled, then saw him looking levelly at me and understood. He would not attack me directly, not after what Peter had said. Instead, he would attack the Koretians and wait for me to fly to their defense.

It was likely that he would succeed. I would have defended even the High Lord if I had witnessed him being attacked by Lord Carle.

"Lord Carle," I said, "you seem to have devoted the past fifteen years to discovering the most unpleasant aspects of Koretian life."

"Don't flatter yourself," replied Lord Carle curtly. "It has been a good many years since I first had the unhappy experience of learning what the Koretians' penalty was for breaking a blood vow to murder." He steered his horse around a tiny sapling that had taken root in the dirt path, and then, with one vicious yank, pulled the tree from the ground and flung it into the undergrowth. He continued calmly, as though the violent abortion had not taken place, "Because of Emorian law, the blood feuds are now outlawed in this land, and because of the Emorian courts, there is no need for the feuds. Therefore, you have the Chara to thank that you will not enter the city tomorrow with your life forfeit."

I wrapped my hands around the reins of my horse in order to resist an impulse to strangle Lord Carle. "You know a great deal about Koretian life, Lord Carle, but your knowledge has certain gaps. I made my vow as part of a vow of friendship, and that vow of loyalty supersedes any other vows I made as well. Even if my blood brother were alive today, even if he hated me for breaking my vow, he would still be sworn to prevent harm from falling upon me."

"Koretian blood vows do have certain subtle loopholes," admitted Lord Carle. "In the last case I knew of this kind, the oath-breaker in question was hunted down and murdered by his own kin. I am relieved to hear that I do not have to worry about the same fate overtaking you."

I stared at the coarse hair of my horse's mane, hating Lord Carle for his ability to take words that appeared kind on the surface and twist them into weapons of torture. Still following his unspoken and evil pleasure, I defended my native land by saying, "He was probably killed because his kin thought him god-cursed for breaking his vow. But there have always been Koretians who understood that men break vows for good reasons as well as bad ones, and that it is possible to break a vow and still remain loyal to the gods. If the gods exist—"

I hesitated. We had reached the top of the path and before us spread the stony face of the priests' house. I said rapidly, "If there are such beings as the Koretian gods, I think that they understand why I broke my old vow and made my new one. Loyalty is something which I was taught that the gods understand."

"Oh, yes, I am sure that you were taught about loyalty," said Lord Carle, his gaze now on Peter, who was about to reach the main door to the priests' house. "The Koretian concept of loyalty is a peculiar one, though. The murderers of that oath-breaker no doubt thought that they were being loyal to the gods in doing what they did. They had no law to tell them otherwise – nothing unchanging and concrete, which stays the same from century to century. There is no question of what it means to be loyal to the Chara; if you have any doubts on the matter, you may consult the law book that describes the crime of disobedience to the Chara. But here we are in a land with no native law of its own, whose people have always depended on the whims of passion to decide their loyalties . . . or else have followed the commands of enigmatic and irrational gods. I hope that you do not allow this visit to confuse your carefully acquired Emorian sensibilities as to the proper definition of loyalty."

I did not reply to Lord Carle's abrasive advice. I had slid from my horse and was looking down the mountainside toward a bit of slope that led to a cave. Fifteen summers ago, I had stood at the mouth of that cave, torn between going toward Peter or fleeing with John. Now there was no question of where my loyalties lay, and none of Lord Carle's dark insults would change that. All they could do, and did, was bring back the pain I had felt in making my choice.

"Are you coming?" It was Peter, standing quietly beside me. I saw that the others were now waiting for us beside the door.

Our eyes linked together in their old manner, and I was suddenly glad that I had come on this trip. No doubt I would encounter further pain from my memories here, but I would have felt greater pain in being parted from Peter during these weeks.

"Gladly," I said, and led my horse up to the wooden doors of the priests' house. This time, I placed myself firmly behind Peter and beside the servants whose rank I was assuming. Curtis and Francis moved over to make room for me, but otherwise made no gesture of welcome.

Lord Carle, who was energetic in all tasks he undertook, raised his fist to give the door a knock that would undoubtedly have reverberated through every corner of the building. At that moment, however, the door opened and a priest emerged.

He was wearing the woollen brown robe of his office, and his hood was flung over his head – this, plus the pack over his shoulder, told me that he was on his way out to minister to the sick or the dying. I could not see his face from where I was, but from the way he came to a halt suddenly, it was clear that he was not expecting to meet six Emorian travellers at his doorstep.

He recovered himself quickly, though, and said softly, "I beg that you impart to me your names."

In his best Koretian – which had improved considerably from practice during our trip – the Chara said, "I am Peter, Lord, through the Chara's honor. These men are Lord Carle and Lord Dean of the Great Council of Emor. We and our free-servants were wondering whether you might have room to allow us to stay the night. We would be glad, of course, to give an offering to your gods for this favor."

The priest swung his head around, perhaps trying to assess from our appearances how great an offering he could hope from us. As he did so, his hooded face came into my view. He was dark in complexion – after several weeks back in Koretia, I still had not accustomed myself to being surrounded by dark-skinned people – and his brows were straight and serious, as befitted a man who had dedicated himself to serving the gods. He had a man's short hair and a man's beard, but he was young, about Peter's age. A white scar upon the left side of his face suggested that his entire life had not been dedicated to acts of worship. His eyes were the color of the midnight sky.

I took a step forward, and as he turned to look at me, the hood fell back. I was by the Chara's side now, but barely aware that Peter was also looking at me. I felt fifteen years falling away from me until there was nothing left but a single word that welled up inside me and then slipped out of my mouth in a whisper.

"John."

o—o—o

In the silence that followed, John looked back at me without expression. I had a sudden vision of what I must look like to him: a beardless man in an Emorian tunic, travelling with Emorian noblemen and speaking in an accent which sounded very Koretian to the Emorians but which, I had learned during this trip, sounded equally Emorian to the Koretians. I was dark-skinned, certainly, but so were many Emorians who lived near the border, just as there were light-skinned Koretians. There was nothing about me to show I had ever lived anywhere but Emor.

John had been right as a boy, I saw. We had met again, and one of us did not recognize the other.

At that moment, another priest came out and gestured toward John. John looked back at him, but did not speak. Instead, he re-entered the house.

I stood motionless as Peter introduced his party once more to the new priest. The priest, with a minimum of words, welcomed us to the refuge of the gods and asked us to pray for this house's peace during our stay. Then, as other priests came forward to take our horses, he escorted us into the building.

The priests' house was just as I remembered it: windowless, hot, and silent. Hanging on the walls were lighted torches that sent smoke puffing up to linger in the corridor. Amidst the torches hung the painted masks of the gods: the Moon, the Sun, the Raven, the Owl, the Cat, the Jackal, and the Fish. Each mask was the shape of an inverted triangle with convex sides – I remembered my delight when John had revealed after a geography lesson from Lovell that Koretia was the same shape as a god's mask. Each mask contained the eyeholes that had once revealed the eyes of the priests who wore the masks. The eyeholes were empty now.

We were led to an area of the house I had never seen before, and Peter and I were shown into a small priests' cell containing little more than some lighted candles and two thin reed pallets on the floor. Peter placed his bag near the door and went over to look at the mask hanging on the wall. The stiff cloth was painted black but for the features of the face, which stood out starkly: slanted golden eyes surrounding the eyeholes, golden whiskers as thin and sleek as knife blades on edge, and a silver and jagged-toothed mouth that was turned up in something between a grin and a snarl.

"The Jackal," I said. "Not the best start to our visit here, that the priest would place us under that god's protection."

Peter reached out to touch the mask gently. "So he is alive," he said.

I did not bother to ask who he meant. "Yes."

"Did he recognize you?"

"I don't think so."

Peter held his fingers to the mask a moment more, as though communicating with it. Then he turned and said, "Go find him. I'll invite Lord Carle to come and bore me with his opinion of the Koretians. Perhaps that will put him in a pleasant mood."

I smiled faintly, but said nothing more as I left the room.

The narrow corridors were filled with torch-smoke and masks. I could see no priests. None of the wooden doors were labelled or open, and I knew that I would no longer be able to find John where he had once lived, in the orphan boys' dormitory. Finally I sighted a door that was ajar; a chorus of voices and some fragrant smoke whispered through the doorway. Hesitantly, I slipped through the door.

I found myself in the priests' sanctuary, a large, square hall that was filled with brown-robed men. They took no notice of my entrance. Their attention was focused on the central dais, where one of their members stood next to a stone altar; with curved dagger in hand, he was poised to strike a goat that lay bleating and bound in preparation for the sacrifice.

I froze, not daring to move during this sacred moment. The area above the altar was open to the sky in order to let out the fire from the sacrificial flame that would soon be lit. One thin rod lay over the opening, and from this branch dangled a mask, but the sunlight above was so bright that I could not see which god was being prayed to.

Already, I knew, I had missed most of the rite. In the Invocation of the God, the god had been called down. In the Plea to the God, the god's assistance had been sought. In the God's Announcement, the priest, speaking for the god, told what he wished as his sacrifice, and the goat had been lured into the sanctuary – only willing victims could be sacrificed to the god. In the Offering to the God, two priests had given their witness as to why the goat should or shouldn't be sacrificed as a symbol of those present. Now all that remained was the God's Decision.

The priest, speaking for the god, spoke the word of the god's decision. The dagger plunged down, the goat screamed in pain and fear, and then the priest raised the bloody blade toward the mask to show the god that the celebrant had honored his priestly vow and made the sacrifice that the god demanded in exchange for bringing peace to the land.

I had not been a pious child, and had rarely come with John to these ceremonies, but I found myself wondering what sort of blasphemy I was committing, that I should stand here in my Emorian clothes, watching rites made to a Koretian god. If John saw me from where he was standing, I thought, he must be horrified at the presence here of a man who was Emorian, yet not even wholly Emorian. As I felt the dark pain inside me grow, I wished to myself that a god, whether Koretian or Emorian or from some unknown land, would speak to me and tell me what sacrifice I should make in exchange for peace to my heart.

As the priests began to stir, their most sacred moment complete, I slipped out of the door and began retracing my path to the Chara's cell.

CHAPTER TEN

In my haste to find John, I had forgotten one important fact about the priests' house: every room inside that building looked the same. Every windowless corridor was dark with torch-smoke; every featureless door was made of the same iron-bound oak planks. I wandered up and down the labyrinthine house without direction, unwilling to knock on any doors and ask directions. Once I passed a priest, but his head was bowed and his face hidden in the shadow of his hood, and I could not be sure whether he was absorbed in prayer or merely trying to ignore the foreign intruder near him. So I remained silent until, with much relief, I saw an open door. Composing in my mind an excuse to Peter for my quick return, I entered the cell and found myself facing John.

He was just rising from beside his pack, which lay on a pallet to the right of the door. The room was nearly identical to the one I shared with Peter; even the god-mask was the same. John's hood was tossed back, and he stared silently at me for a moment. I supposed that he was waiting for me to explain my entrance. Then he moved forward a few steps, stretched out his arm, and pulled back his sleeve to show the white scar that ran down his dark skin.

I raised my own arm, and for a moment our wrists hovered next to each other, the two scars from one dagger joined once more. Then one of us moved, I am not sure which, and we embraced.

I had shown no emotion when I was beaten, nor even when the men came to geld me, but now I wept.

We might have stayed in that embrace all day except that the sound of men's voices in the corridor interrupted us. Pulling away, John shut the door; then he turned to me, his face shining with joy and contentment.

"God of Mercy, you've scarcely changed!" he said with a laugh. "It's something about your lack of a beard; it makes you look like a boy still." Then, before I could think how to answer this observation, he handed me the face-cloth in his hand. "I was taking that cloth out for myself. I waited for you here because I didn't want to cry like a babe in front of noblemen. I knew that you would find me."

I passed the cloth over my face and took a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to steady myself. "I would have come looking for you long ago if I had known that you were here. I thought that you had been killed."

He touched the scar on his face briefly. "I was lucky. I arose to my senses before the fire reached me and was able to find refuge in this house during what followed." He hesitated, as though picking his next words carefully. "I knew somehow that you hadn't been killed. I thought perhaps that you must have been enslaved."

"I was." I crumpled the cloth in my hand, waiting for the next question.

John said slowly, "And are you still a slave?"

Like the reverberating jolt of a prison door slamming shut, the mask I had worn for the past fifteen years returned to my face. I knew this, not only because I could feel it, but because I could see the shock on John's face as he witnessed the disappearance of the only face he had seen me wear in the time that he had known me. To him, it must have seemed as though I had been suddenly killed, and a stranger had usurped my place.

I knew then what I had tried to hide from myself during the trip: that the boy I had once been was gone forever. Whatever John had been expecting to find, I could no longer give him.

John had hidden his shock immediately; he was now waiting quietly for my reply. Beyond him, I could see the slanted eyes of the Jackal staring at me. I took a step backwards, which brought me up against the table behind me. Placing my hands behind me as though they were bound, I said in the cool, hard voice that John had never heard, "My master freed me many years ago. I stayed with him as his free-servant. My mother was dead and I thought you were dead and . . . I had certain ties in Emor. So I became an Emorian. And I broke the blood vow I made to you and the Jackal."

Two pairs of eyes looked upon me: the golden hunting eyes of the thief god and the dark, dispassionate eyes of John. I could see reflected in John's eyes the golden flame of a candle as he stared at me without blinking. Finally he said, "Some vows are the type that the god would not want us to keep. I have visited Emor; it is a beautiful land, with people who are capable of great honor and sacrifice. I can see why you grew to love your new home, and I do not believe that you have broken your vow to me in any way."

The relief that flooded over me was like fresh water on a dry day. It was not simply his words that were merciful. It was the fact that he had bothered to say them. Unspoken was his second message: he was willing to accept me – this strange, cold man – as the blood brother to whom he had pledged himself as a child.

Too grateful to John to know what to say, I remarked lightly, "I didn't know that the priests at this house were allowed to travel."

"They aren't – but I'm not a priest. I'm a trader."

"A trader?"

My voice lost its customary evenness, and John laughed, breaking the tension. "You needn't act so surprised," he said. "I'm not the first boy to entertain himself with lofty ambitions of becoming a voice for the god, only to spend his days as a man arguing whether two geese are a fair bargain for three hens. I enjoy being able to travel, and it gives me the opportunity to meet new people. But sometimes I feel the need to come back here and offer up prayer and sacrifice to the god."

"Which god do you pray to?" I asked curiously. My hand was touching something on the table, and I looked down to see what it was. A book lay among several that John must have brought with him, and it was open to a picture of the seven god-masks.

John waited until I had looked up again before saying, "Any god who will speak to me. When the god sends his peace, it doesn't matter to me which mask he wears."

The sound of the men's voices had long since faded, to be replaced by something deeper and more solid: a silence as naked and precise as an unsheathed sword. As a boy I had thought of the silence here as a mere absence of sound and had scorned its comfort. Now I saw that the god's peace was gentle and soothing only in the same way that John himself was: underneath the tranquility was something firm and distinctly delineated. I breathed in and felt the sound of my breath break the silence like the warm moisture of breath breaking the crisp coldness of winter.

I said, "You're fortunate to have such security to turn toward. I wish that the Jackal had been able to help me during my early years in Emor. Are you here now to seek the god's help with any trouble in your life?"

John swung away, and for a moment I thought I had offended him with the directness of my question. Then he walked over to the mask. He placed his left hand upon the stiff black cloth, touched the mask briefly like a man touching his beloved on the cheek. As he let his hand fall, he said, "I suppose that the gods always bring peace to those who pray to them, but their ways are mysterious to men and often seem senseless. I hope there's meaning to what they do, for I came here to pray, not for my own peace, but Koretia's. Things are very bad here." He turned back.

"I know," I said quietly. "That is why my master and the other lords have come to Koretia. Though you may not believe it, we Emorians are seeking peace as well."

I had phrased my last sentence deliberately, to gauge his reaction. He replied with ease, "I believe it. On my visit to Emor, I visited some of the borderland villages, and I heard what the Koretians had done to the villagers there at the beginning of the Border Wars. It seemed to me then that the Chara had shown mercy by enslaving us rather than destroying us for our deeds. But that was long ago, and people here are growing restless in their bonds. It is as though they are just waiting for a sign before they rise up against the Emorians."

"A sign from the Jackal?" My eye caught sight of the mask once more; the painted curves danced in the candlelight. "My master tells me the thieves have been busy."

John shook his head and sank to his knees beside his pack. "I don't know what the spark will be. But if the city goes up in flames again, whether it be months from now or days from now, neither the Jackal nor any other god will be able to bring this land its peace. After fifteen years in captivity, the people here are becoming set in their opinions as to whether the Emorian rule is a good thing. Everyone has been forced to take sides, and this has caused brother to turn against brother."

I said nothing for a minute, watching him pull from the pack some clothes, a few items of food, and the type of satchel in which traders carry their documents. I said, "I think I know, without asking, which side my blood brother has taken."

John smiled again. "I'm on the side of peace. I don't see any way to have peace without gaining our freedom, but while it's easier to kill an Emorian than to talk with him, I think it's less likely to bring peace in the end."

"We wanted to become the Jackal's thieves at one time."

"You wanted it. I wasn't sure whether it was right to kill a man. I'm still not sure."

He began to open the satchel, and then closed it again and rested his hand on the worn leather, not looking my way. I said softly, "You were there with a dagger when I needed you. You are a peacemaker, but you are not a coward."

"Thank you." John's voice was as faint as though he spoke from a great distance. Without looking up, he said, "I had planned to leave tonight; I have important business in one of the towns. But now you are here, and I confess that I'm also curious to see what Emorian noblemen are like. Do you think that your master would be willing to exchange a few words with me?"

"I've told him about you," I replied. "He will want to exchange more than a few words with my blood brother."

John knelt back on his haunches and tilted his head up. His hair fell over his eyes, shading them like shutters on a window. "If you stayed with your master after he freed you, he must be a good man."

"He is—" My throat closed before I could finish. "He's hard to describe. You'll have to judge him for yourself."

John continued to look at me, as though waiting for me to say more. When I remained silent, he rose to his feet and said, "I must go request permission to stay here one more night; then I'll come by to see you. I have—" There was a pause, during which I drunk in once more the sight of John's still, serene face, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious, but always full of peace. Finally he said softly, "I have very much missed you. If your master will allow you the freedom, I would like us to spend some time together during your visit to Koretia."

"Whether he allows me to or not," I said, "you may be sure that we will."

o—o—o

I returned to the Chara's room and found Lord Carle there, trying on the Jackal's mask.

I stopped just outside the doorway. Around the corner to my left, I could hear Peter protesting mildly, "Carle, if you wish to be blasphemous, please wait until we return home. I don't want for you to be dragged away some night by the Jackal's thieves because you've offended their god."

"I am being but a loyal Emorian by committing blasphemy to a Koretian god," said Lord Carle, pulling off the mask. "And there are no Koretians here to take note – unless, of course, Andrew is preparing his report for the Jackal now."

I stepped into the room and said coolly, "I am Emorian."

"That statement was implausible in Emor and is ridiculous here. Have you had your joyous reunion with your Koretian blood brother?" Lord Carle tossed the mask face-down onto the pallet beside him.

"Lord Carle," warned the Chara softly.

He was sitting on the pallet against the wall beside the door, his knee drawn up and his right arm casually slung on top of it. He held Lord Carle's eyes. After a moment, the council lord bowed in acquiescence to him and said to me, "I am corrected. You are Emorian. Now, if the Cha— If Lord Peter will excuse me, I will consult with Lord Dean and discover whether there is a single windowed chamber in this smoke-clogged building."

I stepped back and let him pass before walking over to pick up the Jackal's mask from where it had been flung.

"Did you find John?" Peter asked as I carefully replaced the mask on the wall.

I nodded as I turned. At Peter's gesture, I came forward and sat next to him, pausing on the way to close and lock the door with the key we had been given by the priests. "It was good to be able to talk with him again."

"I have always appreciated your gift for understatement. Leaving aside Lord Carle's sarcasm, it must indeed have been a joyous reunion – that is, if John is still the friend you remember."

"He is like I remembered him." I leaned my head back against the wall, staring at the god's mask on the opposite wall. "When I saw him last, fifteen years ago, he was saying that we should make peace with Emor, and today he was saying the same thing."

"Well," said Peter quietly, "then I suppose that you and he have made your peace over the fact that you stayed in Emor."

"Yes." As I closed my eyes, I felt a smile drift over my lips. I heard Peter get up. When I opened my eyes again, he was standing over me with a wine pitcher and two cups. He handed them to me, and then eased himself down beside me.

"Tell me what you think of this," he said. "It is a gift from our hosts, and while my first taste led me to conclude that the priests are in the pay of the Jackal and that they are trying to poison us, I may be wrong."

I poured myself a cup and tasted it. "I'm sorry to inform you, Peter, that this is fine wild-berry wine, and our hosts will be much insulted if you don't finish the pitcher. So you must at least find some ground to empty the wine onto."

Peter sighed as he took the cup back that I offered him. "My father told me when I was young that the Chara must suffer for his people, but I didn't fully understand what he meant until this journey. I am depending on you to help me with this pitcher." He took a sip, made a sour face, and promptly took another sip. "So your friend desires peace. I suppose that it's easy for him to find peace in a house such as this."

"He doesn't live here. He is a trader."

"A trader. . . ." Peter leaned his chin onto the rim of the cup and left it there for a moment, meditating. "Do you think that your blood brother would be willing to speak to an Emorian lord?"

"He asked me whether my noble master would be willing to speak to him." I looked sideways over at Peter as he gulped down the last of his wine, shuddered, and poured himself a second cup. "Peter . . . What sort of questions do you plan to ask him?"

"Nothing that I couldn't learn from any other Koretian; I'm not planning to wring secrets from him. But if he's a trader, he'll know what the people throughout this land think of the Chara and his rule, and that is the sort of information that I've found it difficult to obtain through my spies." He put down his cup and stared at it. "If you want me to tell him who I am, I will. I can't ask you to keep secrets from your blood brother."

"Thank you," I said, "but it has been many years since I saw him, and while I know that he wishes you no harm, I don't know whether he's the type of man who can keep a secret. I don't want to put you in danger, even if it means hiding something from him."

He was silent for a minute. Then he handed me his cup and said, "Will you finish this for me? I promise you, I will try it again later, until I love it as much as any Koretian, but I think that my Emorian body cannot stand any more of a shock than it has already undergone during this journey."

I laughed before sipping from the cup. "Peter, it's your own fault. I am Emorian, you know that, but even so, I think you're a fool to have us wear these woolen Emorian tunics in the middle of a Koretian summer. Wouldn't it be possible for you to demonstrate your love for Koretia by having us adopt the native dress during our visit?"

Peter smiled at me. "That is advice worth considering. I knew that I brought you on this trip for some reason other than friendship. Would you consider becoming one of my council lords?"

"Lord Carle might have some objection."

"Well," said Peter, "I wouldn't want to hurt Lord Carle's feelings, as I'm feeling friendly toward him at the moment. We had a pleasant conversation just now."

"On military matters or on Koretian barbarities?"

"Both. He told me that a priest who visits the city regularly told him that the Jackal and his thieves have been unusually quiet during the past few days. On most occasions, I would have continued to keep the conversation steered away from his views on Koretia. Instead, I found myself explaining to him that Koretia is the most barbaric, fly-infested land I've ever visited." He smiled at me.

John said coolly, "If you wish to avoid Koretia's blood-flies, it is best to come during the winter."

Peter's smile faded as he turned to look back at the doorway where John stood in his priestly robe. The door had been closed and locked a moment before; I wondered how he had managed to make his way in.

The Chara said quietly, "I ought not to have been making such remarks while being hosted by Koretians. I apologize for causing offense." Then he gestured in the manner that I had seen him do only once before, touching his breast and forehead.

John continued to stand at the doorway, and for a moment it seemed that he would make no reply, either in word or gesture. Finally he said, "No, you spoke truly. Koretia is undoubtedly fly-infested, and it is also barbaric in certain ways. In any case, it is hard to become used to life in a different land." He returned Peter's greeting with a smooth motion of the hand. Then, apparently taking this exchange as permission enough, he closed the door and sat down cross-legged in front of us without another word. I handed him the cup of wine from which I had been sipping.

Peter gestured away the second cup that I filled and offered to him. "It is a pleasure to meet Andrew's blood brother at last. Andrew is not very talkative about his past – it is unwise to be talkative in the Chara's palace, where we live – but he has told me enough about you to intrigue me."

John stared back at Peter, his dark eyes unreadable. Finally he said simply, "It is a pleasure to meet you as well."

The quirk of a smile began to quiver at the edge of the Chara's face. He controlled himself and said, "I hear that you are a trader."

Once again John was silent, his gaze focussed on Peter. I leaned back against the wall, watching the two men fight some private dagger-duel through the eyes. John's voice, when he replied, was low. "I do not suppose that, as an Emorian, you are familiar with the life of a Koretian trader. We travel the country, carrying no goods with us, but instead arrange for barters between merchants who will later deliver the goods themselves. Because we carry no goods, we can travel quickly, and because we travel widely, we are generally the first to hear rumors and to learn what is happening throughout the land. We are the first, besides the governor's soldiers, to know when a Koretian has been arrested; we are the first, besides the Jackal's thieves, to know when an Emorian has been murdered. Unless he consulted the Chara's spies, it is unlikely that an Emorian would be able to find anyone who could tell him as much about the Koretian people as a trader."

Peter looked at John for a moment more before turning his head toward me. "Andrew, I believe that I'll have that cup of wine after all. I think that I'll need strong medicine in order to deal with your blood brother."

For the first time since he entered the room, John smiled. "I am just as interested in Emor as you are in Koretia," he said. "I work as a trader, so I will offer you an exchange: I will tell you what the Koretians think of the Chara's rule if you will tell me what the Chara thinks of the Koretians."

"I think," said Peter slowly, "that you have must be very skilled at your work. It is a fair bargain. What would you like to know about the Chara?"

"Ask me your questions first."

Peter reached up to wipe his neck free from sweat. The air around us was musty and hot, and more heat drifted down to us from the wall-perched candles in the cell, whose flames were steady in the breezeless room. I reached up to wipe the dampness from my face with the back of my hand, but John, motionless and expressionless, had no moisture on his face.

"I am interested in the Jackal," said Peter, gesturing with his head toward the mask on the wall behind John. "I would like to know what sort of man he is and what it is that he wants. Is it the Koretian throne that he is fighting for?"

John was slow in replying. "That is hard to say. The god does not often speak to the Koretians, and his ways are mysterious. But certainly the Jackal has never been heard to make any claim for the throne. In any case, the matter cannot be decided by the Jackal alone. In order to become King, a Koretian would need the consent of his people."

Peter frowned and absentmindedly sipped from the cup I had handed him, too absorbed in his thoughts to notice what he was drinking. "I don't understand," he said. "You make the Koretian throne sound like some barbarian chief's title, in which the chief becomes master through wrestling with all of his warriors."

John drew his left knee up and rested his elbow on it, placing the back of his hand under his bearded chin in a reflective fashion. "There are worse ways to select a leader. However, I am surprised, Lord Peter, that after all these years of governing this dominion, an Emorian council lord should remain so ignorant of Koretian customs. In the old days, it was the High Priest who gave his consent to the enthronement of the heir presumptive, and he did not do so until the Koretian people had indicated, through the King's Council and their local councils, that they wished to be ruled by the heir. This is not Emor, where a master may bond men into unwilling servitude."

Peter put down his cup abruptly, placing it deliberately near me. As I picked up his cup and sipped from it, Peter said, "As I recall, it was the Chara Nicholas who persuaded the Great Council to end slavery in this land, and he did so because it took the most barbaric form possible: the slaves were stripped of their names, deprived of their voices, forced to wear masks, and treated as though they were living corpses. Emor, for all its reputation of harshness, has never done anything to match that; nor has it had blood feuds or demon-stonings or any of the other religious barbarities that Emorian law eliminated from this land."

John paused again before replying in a soft voice, "If you look carefully at the old rules concerning those institutions you will find that even they required consent. No man was ever bonded into Koretian slavery who did not accept the gods' law. But I will not defend those institutions to you. They were indeed barbarities, twistings of the gods' law to serve the baser passions of men."

"Then you understand why we Emorians believe that we have brought good to this land by replacing the gods' law with the Chara's law."

Muffled through the roof, the bell of the priests' house tolled the hour, while in the corridor, footsteps went by. John waited until the passersby were gone before saying, "Lord Peter, I am sure that you have witnessed the Chara in judgment. Did you ever attend a trial in which the Chara would have been creating an injustice if he were to have followed the law strictly?"

Peter's gaze drifted over toward me, silently sitting beside him, sipping from the wine that had turned warm in the heat. "Yes, I know of such a case."

"And did the Chara then decide to destroy Emorian law altogether? Or did he exploit it in such a way as to correct the injustice?"

Peter accepted the cup from my hand as I offered it back to him. "I take your meaning. You are saying that the gods' law could have been reformed rather than eliminated. But the Chara has not forbidden religion in this land. The Koretians are free to worship the gods, in the same way as many Arpeshians and Marcadians continue to do."

"The Chara has forbidden the use of religion in deciding matters of the law. I am not against the Emorian court system; I think that it corrects an imbalance in the gods' law, a tendency to interpret the gods' wishes in a manner that best suits the priests. But I think that the Chara's law is also lacking in balance, in an ability to take fully into account a prisoner's character when passing a judgment. That can be done under Emorian law, but not to the same extent as the gods' law allows it, for in Koretia the gods judge men for all the deeds of their lives, not only for the deeds of a single moment."

"Well," said Peter, leaning back against the wall, "I doubt that we will come to an agreement about this."

"That is exactly my point," said John. "We will never agree about this, any more than the Koretians will ever agree with the Emorians about how to run this land. That is why they are seeking release from the bonds of the Chara's tyranny."

Peter's expression darkened, and I saw that he was close to casting judgment upon John. If this happened, there was a good chance that his look as the Chara would surface, and then his identity would be revealed. I made a small movement to distract his attention. He glanced my way, and his expression relaxed.

John continued, "I do not mean that the Chara intends to be a tyrant. His errors are the result of his ignorance of Koretian customs and his unwillingness to accept that Koretians do not wish to separate their religion from their public lives. I cannot blame the Chara for wishing to rule this land in an Emorian manner. That merely shows why he ought not to be ruling Koretia."

Peter looked steadily at John, his fingers dipping down into the wine he had not sipped for some time. "Then we come back to the question of who should rule Koretia, and that is a question which must be settled before all others."

I had been reaching over to move the wine pitcher. I nearly spilled it. Peter had that effect on me sometimes. I would think that I knew all that he thought and felt, and then I would discover, without warning, that his thoughts had been in a different place altogether than mine.

That the Chara had been considering granting Koretia its freedom he had never hinted to me.

If John was disconcerted by Peter's leap forward, he gave no sign of it. He asked calmly, "Why do you say that, Lord Peter?"

Peter stood suddenly, walked over to the door, and opened it. I wondered whether he had grown concerned that someone was listening to this conversation – one of the Jackal's thieves, perhaps. He lingered in the doorway for a moment, staring out at the corridor. When he had closed and locked the door and returned to where he had been before, he said, "I am Emorian, and I cannot help but be concerned with laws and with order. I see what I imagine the Chara sees as well: that the Chara cannot simply give freedom to this land while the people are without a ruler and while this land has no courts of its own, no central army, nothing that would keep Koretia from collapsing back into civil war. He must give the government over to a ruler until the Koretians have a chance to rebuild their government, create their own law-system, and choose whether they want this man or another to rule over them. Now, who shall the Chara appoint for such a duty? A nobleman who has supported the governor? I doubt that the Koretians would accept him. The Jackal or one of his thieves? The Koretians would accept this but the Chara would not, because he does not wish to arm the hunting god. In any case, Emor cannot withdraw its soldiers and court officials immediately, lest Koretia be destroyed, and since it cannot, the Chara needs someone in power who can both bring peace to the Koretians and work in peace with Emor. Where will the Chara go to find such a man?"

John was silent for a moment, his eyes suddenly distant in a manner that made my back tingle at the memory. Then he said quietly, "If I were the Chara, I would seek the god's command."

"I hope," said Lord Carle from the doorway, "that you are not advising us to place ourselves under the command of Koretian gods. I would say that one god at least is busy enough tonight without our bothering him."

I had been surprised to discover that John had made his way through a locked door; to discover that Lord Carle had managed to pick a lock surprised me not at all. Nor, it seemed, did this cause any questions to rise in Peter's mind; his thoughts were elsewhere. Lifting his head suddenly, like a dog scenting danger, he asked, "What is it?"

"Lord Dean and I have been on the roof. You had best see for yourself."

Peter was on his feet immediately, but John was already out the door and racing down the corridor. We followed him to a stairway and scrambled up after him onto the roof.

Many centuries ago, when there was danger of the Daxion army invading the border from either side of the mountain, the priests' house had been equipped with two square lookout towers. One tower lay at the east end of the roof and the other on the west end. The towers were only slightly taller than the roof connecting them. We found Lord Dean standing on the western tower, leaning his arms onto the stone parapet and staring meditatively at the view to the northeast. He did not turn as we joined him at the parapet.

It was twilight, and night's shadow had spread its cloak across the land. To the west of us, the Daxion border mountains were silhouetted against the shell-pink setting sun. To the east, the coastal waters were lit by the rising moon. The war moon – that was what the Koretians called the full moon, because it shone like a silver blade.

Down in the darkened countryside was evidence of the moon's power.

It was a flame, glowing from the dark land like a red star blazing in the night sky, but larger than any star would be. From this distance, it looked like nothing more than a hearth-fire, but since we were far away, it must be something greater.

"Where is that?" asked Peter.

"Valouse," replied John. He was staring at the fire intently, as though he could see what was happening in the streets there. "It is a large town, with its own garrison. Also, the governor has been sending army divisions there for the past two weeks. There have been hints that riots were about to occur, and he wanted more soldiers there to control the Koretians."

Peter murmured, "May your gods watch over them."

"The soldiers or the Koretians?"

"Both." Peter was silent a moment, as though trying to hear the screams in the town. Then he asked, "How far is the town from here?"

"Lord Peter." The speaker was Lord Dean, turning his gaze for the first time toward the Chara. "It will do Emor no good if we enter into battle now. Our duty lies at the governor's palace, not Valouse."

I did not hear Peter's reply, for at that moment John pushed himself away from the parapet and walked rapidly from the tower. After a moment's hesitation I followed, and caught up with him finally at the eastern tower, staring out at the same view.

From this high up, we could hear no sounds of the night except the occasional cries of the doves settling for the night in the cotes near us, as well as snatches of the raised voices of Lord Dean and Lord Carle as they argued with Peter. I looked sidelong at John. His eyes were calm as he stared out at the burning town, but there was a tightness about his mouth.

He said, "My duty lay in Valouse tonight. That was where I was planning to go."

"Then it's good that you didn't," I said. "You might have lost your life there."

John said softly, "A trader friend of mine asked me to come. He said that he needed my help on some business. I would be at his side now if I hadn't stayed here."

I could think of nothing to say in reply at first, so I glanced over at the western tower, where Peter was standing like an immovable rock as the waves of his council lords' arguments crashed about him. "My master has a strong sense of duty as well. The other lords don't seem to be having much success in convincing him to stay away from Valouse."

"Is he your blood brother?"

I jerked my head back toward John. He was leaning against the tower wall, facing me, and his expression was unreadable.

I said, "Emorians don't have blood brothers."

"That doesn't answer my question."

I looked over at the Chara, still battling with silence the suggestions that he keep himself from danger. Next to me, John waited in similar silence.

Finally I met John's eyes and said, "You are my only blood brother, but Peter is . . ." I tried to think of a way to explain what we were to one another, and then settled for the words that, to an Emorian, would be sufficient explanation. "We share the same cup of wine."

John nodded as though he understood. I asked, "How did you guess?"

"He told me himself when he gave me the free-man's greeting. He wouldn't have greeted me in such a way if he hadn't already done so to my blood brother." He waited for me to say something more, and when I did not, he added gently, "I'm glad to know that you have a friend in Emor. Don't be upset about this."

"It isn't that," I said. "I'm only sorry that I didn't tell you myself."

I sensed that John had a reply ready, but he focussed his view back on Valouse before replying. "Andrew, I know that you've always believed me unworldly, but I'm not a fool. I know that your party is here, not only as diplomats, but also as spies for the Chara, finding out what you can about the Koretians and giving away as little information as possible about yourselves. I knew before I spoke to you that those would be the new terms of our friendship. It did not pain me to accept those terms. You are Emorian and I am Koretian, but it doesn't change what we are to each other. If we must keep secrets from each other for the sake of our lands, it will not change the oath we made to be blood brothers, beyond death. Nothing can change that, because our friendship was ordained by the gods."

I continued watching John's serene face for a while; then I switched my gaze back to Peter. He was speaking in a low voice that did not carry over to where we were. I asked, "What do you think of him?"

John paused a long time before answering, as though his answer was a summary of all that had happened that evening. "I can see why you are friends. He fascinates me. I'm glad to have met him, and I wish that I could talk with him more. I suppose, though, that once you reach the governor's palace, you'll be unable able to leave."

"Peter won't be able to," I said, "but I'll certainly slip out and see you when I can."

"Then come to the market and ask for John the trader. My house lies nearby, and anyone can direct you to it."

He stopped as Lord Carle appeared suddenly at the foot of the short flight of steps leading to our tower. Peter and Lord Dean were following a short distance behind, deep in conversation with one another. Lord Carle said, "Lord Dean has managed to convince your master that the quickest way to bring war to this land would be for an Emorian lord to deliver himself into the hands of the Jackal. I imagine that if your master had had his way, he would be charging up the road toward Valouse right now, waving his sword and acting as vanguard to the army that was nowhere behind him."

Lord Carle paused, and for a moment his eyes slid between me and my dark-skinned blood brother. Then he said coolly, "But since you are, as you have so often told us, a loyal Emorian, perhaps you yourself planned to be your master's army. You would of course have to act like any other Emorian soldier, imprisoning and killing and raping the Koretians. Well, perhaps not raping; I doubt somehow that lovemaking was in your plans for the future."

"Lord Carle." It was Peter, who had carefully placed himself so that his back was to John and me. I could guess that this was because his face had grown cold in the manner of the Chara in judgment, if only from the manner in which Lord Carle turned pale. The council lord turned stiffly to face the Chara. Though he kept from bowing to the man who was now supposed to be a fellow lord, his gaze fell to the ground. Peter said with quiet hardness, "I would like to speak to you privately, if I may."

Lord Carle said nothing, but nodded and walked away. Peter's face returned to normal and he began to follow, but he hesitated and looked up to where John and I stood. John had turned his back on the proceedings, and his eyes were fixed once more on the town.

Peter stepped lightly up the steps, came over to where I stood, and spoke gently to me, as though John were not at my side. "Andrew, he is angry about Valouse, that is all. Don't let this spark your own anger. The last thing that I need on this trip is for you and Lord Carle to cut each other's throats."

I said in a dull voice, "I've tired of fighting him in any case. He has won every battle we have waged since the very first one – as he so kindly reminded me just now. You needn't fear that I'll cut his or any other man's throat on this trip."

Peter began to speak, looked back at where Lord Carle and Lord Dean were disappearing down the roof stairs, and nodded to me, then left.

I turned back to the view. After a minute, John said, "At least there's no breeze tonight. If the winds were up, half this land might burn, but I think that Valouse's moat will be able to contain the flames."

He would not ask me, I knew. Nor was he likely to guess, for only a few outward clues might have revealed my secret shame. My boyish appearance he had already dismissed as unimportant. I had no beard, but I had solved that problem by living in a land of beardless men. The differences to my body were either hidden under my tunic or could pass as normal; tall men with long limbs are common enough to cause no question. As for my voice, I had long since trained myself to speak in the man's voice that would never come to me by nature.

Speaking in that voice now, in a detached manner, I said, "Lord Carle was my first master. He is a man with a strong belief in discipline and order, and when I originally came to Emor, I had no interest in following Emorian laws or adopting Emorian ways of behavior. And so, since I disobeyed Lord Carle's first command, he had me gelded."

There followed one sound – John's breath swiftly rushing in – and one gesture – his hand curling into a fist. It was, for John, as though he had lifted his dagger and given a shout of rage. He did not look my way but said, with an edge to his voice as sharp as a blade, "The Emorians did that to you?"

"Lord Carle had it done to me. Peter would never have done it."

John was silent a long time before saying, "Perhaps. But your master strikes me as a man who is as interested in laws and discipline as any other Emorian. And the soldiers who are down there in Valouse tonight are no more bloodthirsty than any Koretians. They are simply following the customs of Emor, which say that they must maintain discipline at any price."

I said softly, "You won't tell anyone of this?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw John looking my way. "You know that I won't. But it's as honorable as any other war wound. You ought not to be ashamed."

"I'm not," I said, "except when I see the look in the face of a woman who has just discovered what I am."

Many minutes passed before John spoke again. Finally he sighed. "Andrew, I must go to Valouse tonight. The fighting will be over before I arrive, but if he has survived, my trader friend will need my help, as others may."

I said, "I suppose that the best that you can do for them is pray to the gods. The gods listen to you in a way that they don't listen to the rest of us."

"I wish that that were true," said John, "but I have been praying for peace for a long time now, and it seems further away than ever."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Next morning, as we passed through the city gates, we met John again.

I had lingered at the gates as the rest of the party rode forward, because from this vantage point I could see down into the rest of the city. Most of the city was unfamiliar – the fire had cleansed the capital of its past. The houses I had played amidst had been replaced by an Emorian army camp; the streets were in a new pattern, as though a spider had rewoven its web during the night. My eyes sought one of the few remaining landmarks of my childhood: Council Hill, still covered on its slopes with trees, but now capped by a miniature version of the building that was my home. Another palace, another place of imprisonment for Peter.

Something to the side of me caught my eye. It was John, sitting on a traders' mule and gazing upon the city with a strange, tender look. Dark circles smudged the skin under his eyes, and his face was solemn.

He looked over at me and said, "I saw you ahead on the road. I thought I would catch up." He had changed from his priestly robe into the dark tunic that traders wear, but unlike most Koretian men, he bore no weapon. To the left side of his chest, pinned over his heart, was one of the tiny, wooden god-masks that Koretians wear for protection. The mask was black on black clothing, hard to see even at close range, and I leaned over with curiosity to discover which god John had chosen to place himself under the care of. It took me a moment to realize that John was wearing a mask that no Koretian ever wore: the mask of the Unknowable God.

He reached upward at that moment with his dagger-hand to sweep his hair out of his eyes. His fingers were curled slightly inwards. I caught a flickering sight of his palm: it was black and rugged.

The sharp intake of my breath caught John's attention away from the city. He followed my gaze and said, "That happened years ago. I burnt myself on a fire that I built for a god."

I said slowly, "A sacrificial fire?"

John looked back at me steadily, his silence his only answer. I said, "You must have needed a great deal of help from the god in order to make such a sacrifice."

"It was for a friend of mine. An Emorian soldier had stabbed him, and he was in danger of dying."

I remained without words a while, thinking that it was just like John to fight the Emorians, not with weapons, but by sacrificing his own flesh. Then I asked, "Did you reach Valouse?"

"Brendon, my trader friend, was halfway to the city when I met him. We came back together and took a room for the night along the way. Brendon needed the rest. He travelled on to the city this morning, but I rode up to the priests' house to see whether you had left yet." John kicked his mule forward. Ahead of us, Peter looked back to see where I was before he turned back to continue his conversation with Lord Carle.

I asked, "Did Brendon tell you how things were in Valouse?"

John made no immediate reply. We had wound our way down onto a broad avenue that cut through the trading district – must have been cut through in actual fact, I realized, looking at the haphazard arrangement of the houses around us. As John swiftly turned his mule out of the path of a division of soldiers, I saw that the Chara had stopped his horse and was speaking to the leader of the soldiers. We continued to ride forward slowly as John said, "It was very bad in Valouse. Brendon lost his home; he was lucky to keep his life. He said that the soldiers were not taking prisoners."

John said nothing more, for Peter had wheeled his horse around and come over to us. The Chara nodded his greeting to John before saying to me, "I've just talked to Lord Alan's subcommander. He says that the governor went to Torrid Springs in Central Koretia last week to enjoy the waters, but that he is expected back this morning." Peter sighed and added, "The governor has a long ceremony planned for our arrival. It will take most of the day, I expect. He has invited our servants, but it will be a formal occasion." His hand rested lightly on his dagger hilt as he awaited my reply.

"Then I will be able to escape the torture," I said. "I will find some other way to entertain myself, no doubt."

"I thought, if John had the time, that you might spend the day with him," Peter said, and looked with a questioning expression at my blood brother.

John replied, "I would certainly like to spend time with Andrew, though I may have business to do later this morning. It is kind of you to allow him the time free."

"Well," said Peter, turning his horse forward, "of course we Emorians usually keep our servants chained in a dungeon, but we do allow them out on occasion. I will let the governor's palace guards know that you are expected, Andrew. Return whenever you are ready." Without looking our way again, he spurred his horse forward.

John followed him with his eyes, and then turned his mule off the avenue onto a side street. As I followed him through the dark, narrow alley, he asked, "Why won't you be attending the governor's ceremony?"

"Only free-men are allowed at Emorian ceremonies," I said, "and I don't have a weapon to show that I'm a free-man."

"Couldn't you borrow one from Lord Peter?" John asked. The street grew more narrow and began to be crowded with children playing in the dirt. John slipped smoothly from his mule and began guiding it carefully through the games; I followed suit. My nose was beginning to recognize the smells of my native land: wild-berries set out on windows to dry, blackroot nuts being roasted, and the green scent of leaves from the saplings that always seemed to take root in the roads.

After several minutes, I said, "I had a dagger once. I tried to kill Lord Carle with it when he was unarmed. After that, I decided it would be better not to carry a weapon."

I kept my eyes on the road, dim beneath my feet. The dry dust rose up in protest at each step I took. When I finally looked over at John, he was smiling.

"You've changed," he said. "You always wanted to be dagger-mounted when we were young, and that worried me. Some people like to fight, and some people fight because they have to, but it always seemed to me that fighting was to you like drink is to a weak man. Put a weapon in your hand, and you wouldn't be able to keep yourself from using it, no matter who was your victim. That could be good in the right circumstances, but dangerous in the wrong ones. I'm glad that you've acquired the vision to know yourself so well."

He stopped at a lean-to attached to a house. Pulling the door open, he led his mule into a tiny stall that another mule already occupied. With some difficulty, I managed to squeeze my horse inside as well. John had started to unload his pack from his mule when a voice said, "When are you going to build a new stable, John, so that you can welcome your guests in a manner befitting your station in life?"

A brown-bearded man stood in the doorway. His clothes were tattered and covered with soot, and a red stain was making its way through the cloth that bound his right arm, yet he smiled affably at us.

"I didn't expect to have two guests at once," replied John, knotting his mule's rein around a post. "Did you find the soldiers' supply-keeper?"

"Yes, and he has an extra room, so there's no need for you to crowd me into your house." The man stepped forward into the dark stable and said to me, "You must be a friend of John's."

"This is my blood brother Andrew," said John. "I didn't have time to mention him to you last night."

"You had no time to mention anything to me, for I was too busy telling you of my adventures." The man scanned me quickly, obviously trying to ascertain my land loyalty, and then gave me the free-man's greeting. "Are you the blood brother who disappeared into Emor so many years ago? John has mentioned you before."

"And I venture to guess that you are Brendon," I said, returning the greeting. "I was sorry to hear about your home."

"Ah, well," said Brendon, scratching his forehead beneath the ragged brim of his hat. "Possessions are a curse to a trader in any case. I've always wanted to be able to travel from town to town without having to worry that the Jackal's thieves have set up their lair in my house during my absence."

"The governor will no doubt be sure that the Jackal was in Valouse last night," said John.

"If the Jackal had been in Valouse, he would be dead now," said Brendon tersely. "The tales say that the Jackal barely managed to escape the flames when the capital was burned fifteen years ago, and on that occasion he was unable to stop the carnage. I imagine that the god knew better than to come to a town where he could do no good. Even the Jackal can't solve all of this land's problems. Trade has become very bad. . . . Speaking of bad trades, your supply-keeper friend has managed to convince me to trade a bale of cloth for five of his wife's dinners. Can you advise me on how to escape from this deal?"

John looked at me apologetically. "Thus goes the life of a trader – I am no sooner home than I must talk business. Andrew, I don't want you to fall asleep listening to my advice on the price of linen cloth versus the value of wool cloth. Let me settle you inside, and then Brendon and I will go off and have a drink in a tavern for a short while. You look as though you could use strong sustenance, Brendon." He guided us outside, shut the stable door, and opened the door to his home.

It was a small house, unusually dark for a Koretian building, with only the broad window facing the street and a little window in the back door that overlooked the garden behind the house. The first thing I saw as I entered was the hearth, placed not in the middle of the wall in symmetric Emorian fashion, but off to one side. Over the hearth hung all seven masks of the gods. The rest of the room contained the usual clutter of chests, cooking implements, a table, and two benches. At the far end of the house stood a sleeping alcove with its curtain drawn.

I had seen this in the time that it took the three of us to step inside the house. The rest of my observation was cut short as a young woman rushed forward and flung herself into John's arms.

He held her tight for a moment as she buried her face in his shoulder. I heard her whisper, "You have been gone too long." Then something made her look up, and she stared at me.

She was a year or two into womanhood, about a decade younger than John. Her hair was black and her eyes were dark, like that of all Koretians. But the eyes were set into a face that was paler than my own, and I realized that she must be the product of one of the informal and unfortunate unions that inevitably result when soldiers are stationed for long periods in a foreign land.

She smiled at me, but in a tentative fashion. That fact, added to the peace I was feeling once more in John's presence, caused me to give her one of my rare smiles. Immediately her face lit up, and she turned to look at John inquiringly.

John laid his hands on her shoulders, slowly turning her to face me. Looking down at her face as he stood behind, he said, "Ursula, this is my blood brother Andrew."

I saw the shock go through her like a bodily blow, and her face grew as white as the stones of the Chara's palace. John was still watching her and gently gripping her shoulders as though he were holding her up. Some emotion welled up inside her so great that it seemed that in the next moment it would explode. She took a step forward, heedless of John's hands, which fell away. The hint of a shout or a smile appeared on her face as she whispered, "But this is wonderful. You are—"

As she spoke, she took another step forward. She was within reach of me now, and still walking. I had not noticed that my smile had faded, but she stopped suddenly like a tame creature who has reached the limit of its leash. Whatever great emotion had been about to explode died out, as though cold water had extinguished it.

I noticed this because I had become accustomed in Emor to reading expressions. But this was not something, I think, that anyone else would have noticed, for in the next moment she smiled as she said, "You are alive! After all these years, you have returned home to your blood brother. I'm so glad to meet you. How did you find John?"

John had come forward. He touched Ursula briefly on the shoulder, looking down at her shining face, and then turned his back to us as he placed his pack on the table. He said, "Andrew came knocking at the door of the priests' house just as I was about to leave. I nearly walked into him."

Ursula laughed. "It's as though you had been sent by the god, Andrew. How is it that you were able to return to Koretia?"

John still had his back to us. I saw him bringing out the same items he had unpacked the night before: the clothes, the food, and the satchel. A small roll of white bandage material emerged as well. I looked at the half-breed girl, thinking that she of all people must hate the Emorians, but I found it oddly easy to make my confession to her. "I am a free-servant in Emor, and my master has come to Koretia on business. I did not believe that John was still alive, or I would have visited Koretia before."

Brendon was in the process of tossing his hat onto the table beside John's pack. I saw his eyes flick my way; then he handed John the satchel he had been reaching for. Ursula did not seem disturbed. She said over her shoulder, "I told you that he would find his way back here in the end, John. You needn't have made those long trips to Emor."

John did not reply; he was beginning to pull papers from his satchel. I said quietly, "You went looking for me?"

"I knew that I wouldn't find you. But I had to try."

He still had his back to me. I saw from his arms that he was tugging at one of the papers that must have caught itself in the satchel. I took a step forward to see what was in his face. But my path was blocked by Ursula, who skipped forward another step toward me and said, "The first time he visited, he went to the Emorian capital and saw the Chara's enthronement celebration. He said that it seemed as though everyone in the Three Lands was there. Did your master go? It would be strange if you and John had been in the same city at the same time."

"The Chara!" Brendon struck his forehead with the heel of his palm. "I'm a fool, John. Not only did I not listen to your news, I didn't give you my own. The Chara is here."

"Here in Koretia?" Ursula bounded to the table and leaned toward Brendon.

"I heard that rumor too, before I entered the priests' house." John closed the satchel and walked over to hang it on a hook by the hearth. "Do you suppose there's any truth to the story?"

"There is if your supply-keeper friend is to be trusted. He said the soldiers were saying that the governor expected the Chara to arrive soon."

John picked up his pack and carried it to the sleeping alcove, leaving it lying next to the curtain. "Perhaps we will see him when he enters the city, then. I expect that he'll be accompanied by an impressive array of troops."

"I thought the Chara never left his palace!" exclaimed Ursula. "I'd love to see him when he travels through the city. Andrew, have you ever seen him?"

"My master is a lord living in the Chara's palace," I said carefully, "and the Chara often walks about the palace. I have seen him many times."

"What is he like? John has seen him only once."

"Ursula," John said with a slight note of warning. "Andrew is our guest. You ought not to quiz him in this fashion. Andrew, please be seated. Ursula and I seem to have lost our manners as hosts."

I took the windowseat he offered. Brendon had already seated himself on one of the benches and was staring at the wine cask against the opposite wall with a reflective look. I said to John, "You saw the Chara?"

John smiled. "I saw a voluminous black cloak that the onlookers claimed was the Chara. I was in the crowd at the enthronement celebration when the Chara stood at the east palace gate to greet his people. Like Ursula, I thought the Chara never left the palace, so it seemed my one chance to see him."

"Do you suppose he'll speak to the Koretians while he's here?" Ursula asked wistfully, skipping around the table to take hold of John's waist. "I'd very much like to hear him."

"So would I," John replied. "I doubt, though, that he will leave the governor's palace, not with Koretia on the edge of war. The Chara has probably come to advise the governor on what to do here."

"Well, if I saw the Chara, I'd know how to advise him," said Ursula, her voice rising with passion. "I'd tell him to free Koretia. That's all he needs to do."

Brendon laughed. "Ursula, if you saw the Chara, I know just what you would do. You would begin by scolding him and end by sympathizing with him for all his troubles."

Ursula lifted her chin. "I am Koretian. The Chara is my enemy. I wouldn't sympathize with him for the way he has oppressed us."

"Enough," said John. "Ursula, please bring out wine for a peace offering to Brendon. He needs it." He came over and sat by the trader. "Show me that bandage."

"You wrapped it yourself. Why do you need to see it again?" Brendon tried to edge away from John, but halted as John gripped his left wrist.

"Because I know how you take care of yourself. It is courage to die of a wound gained in battle, but folly to die of one that has been infected through carelessness. Now, sit still." John reached out and began with painstaking care to unwrap the strip of cloth on Brendon's right arm. He looked up, and his eyes met mine. "This isn't much of a homecoming for you, Andrew."

"It feels very much like home," I said. "Matters were always a-broil when I was living in Koretia."

"More so now." John paused a second as Brendon flinched; John had reached the wound. Then, ignoring Brendon's wince, he tore away the cloth that was sticking to the wound. "It looks fine at the moment," he reported.

"It's just a flesh wound, I tell you."

"You would say that if the soldier had cut you to the bone. But you're right this time." John began binding the wound with fresh bandaging, saying, "You have the cunning of the Jackal, Brendon, to escape from that horror with only a flesh wound."

"I call it luck. If I'd had a family to defend, like most men there, I'd be meat for the soldiers' table now."

"Yes." John's eyes drifted upwards to Ursula as she placed a cup of wine in front of Brendon.

She said, "I was going to give Brendon some nuts, but it has been five days since you promised to take me to the market, John, and I'm about to fight the rats for their food."

"You'll have to wait a short while longer, I'm afraid. Brendon and I are about to set off to the tavern and sort out some of this—" He waved his hand toward the business papers strewn on the table.

"Oh, John!" Ursula shook herself with frustration. "It won't take long for me to get what we need. Can't I go on my own?"

"No. I'm sorry." John began gathering the papers into a pile without looking up.

Ursula was silent. I said, "I can take Ursula to the market. I'd like to see what the new one looks like."

John looked over at me. With barely a pause, he said, "Thank you; that is kind of you. That will allow Brendon and me to do our business here, as I don't think our favorite tavern would appreciate having a wounded man bleed all over the customers. May I show you something before you go?"

I nodded. John tightened the bandage; Brendon gave an involuntary whimper, and John's gaze travelled up to his face, but this time John did not pause. When he had finished, he beckoned to me, and I followed him over to the sleeping alcove.

He ducked around the curtain without pulling it back, and I did the same. In the dim light of the alcove, I could see a plain-framed bed and beside it a wooden chest. On the chest was a single carving, that of the blank god-mask. John opened it and began rummaging through the clothing inside.

I could hear Ursula chatting with Brendon at the other end of the house. I said in a low voice, "You didn't tell me you'd married."

John bent over, trying to peer into the dark chest. "I didn't know how to describe Ursula to you. I thought I would let the two of you come face to face so that she could introduce herself to you."

"I like her very much," I said.

John looked back at me then, smiling. "I'm glad. I'd hoped that you two would enjoy each other's company. Ursula is friendly with anyone who will allow her to be, but I can see that she has taken a liking to you."

"I've hardly spoken a word."

"Ursula doesn't need words in order to judge a man. —Here we are."

I sat down beside him and watched as he brought out the iron dagger that had been at the bottom of the chest. He held it out to me, but I did not touch it. Instead I said, "I can scarcely believe that you still have it after all these years."

"It was dedicated to the Unknowable God; I would not have lost it. Nor would I have misplaced the dagger with which we took our blood vow."

I touched it then, very lightly, but withdrew my hand quickly. Looking up, I saw John's eyes on me. He said quietly, "I haven't forgotten what you told me before, but life in Koretia is dangerous now, especially for Ursula. I can go weaponless when I take her to the market because people here know me, but you're wearing an Emorian tunic. You need a blade on display to prevent men from starting fights with you and Ursula. I doubt that you'll need to draw it."

"John . . ." I stopped to phrase my words correctly, and then borrowed them from another source. "John, when I nearly killed Lord Carle, Peter told me that I'm not the sort of man who can master my bloodthirst. I ought not even to wear a weapon."

"Lord Peter is right: you cannot be master over your rage. You can allow someone else to be master of it, though. I am your blood brother, bound to you by an oath to the gods, and I am placing Ursula under your care. In turn, place your anger under my care and swear to me that, while you carry my dagger, you will not do anything that would bring harm to Ursula. If you swear this, then I know that you will not break your trust."

I felt my heart pounding, and I was not entirely sure why. It had taken only a moment to turn gentle John, whom I had cared for when I was a boy as though I were the elder, into something much harder and firmer. It was like the moment when we had made our vows, or the more terrible moment later when I saw John with the dagger in his hand. Yet John's eyes looked upon me with their usual light touch, so I said, "I am Emorian now, and Emorians do not swear to the gods. But I will give you the oath I gave to the Chara, that I will obey the laws that you have bound me with, and I will use the dagger only as you would have me do."

John smiled and said in an easy voice, "Tell Ursula that we'll need plenty of blackroot nuts. I may invite some friends over soon, and we always seem to be short of food when that happens."

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was a beautiful Koretian morning. The meadow-green cloth covering the market stalls shone in stark contrast to the deep blue sky. Moisture shimmered on the ground ahead, brought forth by the warm air that enfolded us in its arms. Holding an apple up to inspect it for wormholes, Ursula said, "So you and John saw the demon being stoned?"

I held Ursula's basket forward so that she could fill it with apples without my having to look at the fruit. I had stopped eating apples on the day that I learned Lord Carle owned one of the few orchards in Emor. "It was my idea to watch. I was rather bloodthirsty in those days. I had never seen John so angry – not at the demon, but at the men who stoned him. He said that of course such a man ought to be kept from doing wrong, but that there must be a way to exorcise the evil spirit from him, rather than destroy both the man and the demon at the same time. He talked about it for days."

"It's hard to believe such things ever occurred," said Ursula, handing a few copper pieces to the fruit-seller before taking her basket back from me. "The gods be thanked that the priests no longer allow such happenings."

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again. This was not the place to say that it was not the gods she should be thanking but the Chara. I could see out of the corner of my eye that the stall-keepers and customers in the market were watching suspiciously the half-breed woman and the man in Emorian clothes. It had taken no effort on my part to return to my usual cold expression; now and then I saw Ursula glance uncertainly at my face, but she made no comment on the fact that I had donned my old mask. Just as my rigid face had protected me in Emor from the back-stabbing palace dwellers – or from the more direct assaults of Lord Carle – so too, here in Koretia, the men and women who muttered remarks about Ursula and me appeared unwilling to come close enough to be within striking distance. I was beginning to believe that John's dagger would be a superfluous weapon during our market visit.

As if she had guessed my unspoken thought, Ursula added, "Of course, the priests are to blame in the first place for ever allowing something like that to happen. When the gods gave us their law, they left it up to men to decide how it was used. Ceremonies like demon-stoning destroyed the whole purpose of the law. When you have seen the gods' law used properly, you can't doubt that it's a great gift."

I looked curiously at John's wife, who was swinging around a pole in order to turn a corner between the stalls. "Have you seen the gods' law used? Aren't you too young to have seen it before it was outlawed?"

Ursula turned quickly toward a nut-seller's stall she had just sighted. "Oh, well . . . you know, even rites that the Emorians outlawed still take place. Not demon-stonings, of course, but good rites that shouldn't have been outlawed, like trial by the gods' law. Anyone who has seen the god in judgment isn't willing to accept the Emorian view on such matters."

She spoke as though she had witnessed the god himself pronounce judgment, but I knew what she meant. I had witnessed the gods' law in use only once, when John had been unjustly accused of stealing money from the priests and had asked me to be his witness at the trial. The "trial" – as an Emorian, I no longer regarded it as such – consisted of John and me and John's accuser meeting with his tutor, Lovell, and answering whatever questions the priest asked about John, whether they were connected with the theft or not. I could not initially understand the point of many of the questions, though I was interested in what they revealed about John. I heard not only of his virtues, which I knew, but also of his weaknesses, such as allowing the younger boys under his care to go unpunished for their misdeeds and covering up the wrongdoing of others in order to help them escape punishment. This latter fault was how he had come to be accused of taking part in the crime. I would gladly have adopted such vices, since they were more noble than many of my own virtues, but I was concerned by the strained look on John's face when it came time for Lovell to pronounce in the gods' name what sacrifice the god wished John to make for what he had done. John knew that the gods, being wiser to the consequences of evil than men, could require anything of him up to his death.

In the end, the punishment had been quite small, but I remembered Lovell telling John, "Though the gods' ways may seem mysterious to us, the life of Koretia depends on us obeying the gods' commands."

The memory echoed in my mind – surely I had heard those words at some more recent time – but a shout of voices roused my attention. I looked over at Ursula. We were standing now in the avenue, and she was waiting for me to speak, so I said, "I have seen the gods' law in use, and it is a wonderful tool in the right hands, but I think that if I had a choice between facing trial under a mediocre Koretian priest or facing it under a mediocre Emorian judge, I would prefer the judge. The gods' law is too easy to manipulate."

Ursula's gaze drifted away from me. Fearing that I was being too critical of her land, I changed the subject and said, "Does John know that you go to these unlawful trials, or do you—"

"Look out!" Ursula cried suddenly, pointing behind me.

I whirled, and had just time enough to thrust Ursula to the side of the road. There she fell into the arms of a black-bearded Koretian who, like everyone else, had darted out of the way of the approaching soldiers. Then the horses were upon me, squealing as they rose into the air above my head. The soldiers had stopped them just short of running over me.

For a moment, my vision went dark with fear. I heard shouts and footsteps, and someone grabbed my arms, pinning them behind me. My vision returned, and I discovered that I was surrounded by a half dozen soldiers, all holding swords unsheathed. Beyond them and the horses was a carriage, with a round-faced, clean-shaven man staring angrily out the window at us.

A lieutenant came up to him and said, "I'm sorry, Lord Alan. It's a Koretian blocking the way – probably one of the Jackal's thieves, trying to cause mischief."

"Well, you've played right into his hands, haven't you?" the governor said sharply. "How many times must I tell you? If anyone gets in the way, ride over him. I'm not going to make myself a target for assassins just in order to keep from offending your sensitivities. Now, get this man out of the way, arrest him, and carry on."

The soldier who was holding me dragged me aside as the other soldiers remounted. For a moment I could not speak because I was coughing from the dust flung up by the horses. Then, as the horses and carriage drew away and the lieutenant came forward, I said icily in my best Emorian, "Let me go. I'm no thief; I am free-servant to Peter, Lord through the Chara's honor, who has just arrived at the governor's palace."

The lieutenant looked doubtfully at my face – dark but beardless – and then at my Emorian tunic before nodding to the soldier holding me. As I pulled my numb arms back into place, he said, "Watch your step in the future, Koretian – Emorian – whatever you are. The governor doesn't take kindly to having his path blocked."

I made no reply as the soldiers mounted their horses and hurried to catch up with the others. My gaze was on the bystanders, who had not heard my words, but had witnessed the soldiers' quick release of me. No doubt if I had been some innocent Koretian, I would now be on my way to the governor's dungeon.

I felt a familiar sickness in my mouth as I turned away. This sort of episode was all too familiar to me. For the Chara's sake, I had sometimes returned to his palace slave-quarters to try to help settle disputes that had arisen between the Chara and his slaves. There, for a brief while, I had acted as though I were any other slave-servant again – until evening, when the slaves were locked in for the night, and I returned to my comfortable chamber in the Chara's quarters. The looks I had received then were the same as I received now.

I roused myself from my self-pity only when I realized that Ursula was nowhere to be seen. I could guess where she had gone; she had undoubtedly run back to her house to tell John what had happened. I began to make my way back toward the house.

I learned the error of my assumption when I heard Ursula scream.

Fortunately, she was not far away – I say "fortunately" because she was on the point of being dragged into a house near the market where she would no doubt have been gagged to keep her from screaming any further as the black-bearded Koretian took his pleasure. Not that anyone seemed ready to come to her rescue in any case. A few people glanced uneasily over at the half-Emorian woman struggling in the grasp of the Koretian man, but no one seemed ready to fight the man in her defense.

I skidded to a halt just a few paces from the Koretian, and his look of frustration – Ursula was biting his hand to keep it away from her mouth – changed to one of high delight.

"So, the apostate comes to claim the whore's bastard," he said. "You two are certainly well suited for each other."

"Then give her to me," I said. My palms were tingling, but I kept my hand well away from my dagger. His was already unsheathed; he had used it to persuade Ursula to come this far.

The Koretian smiled and thrust Ursula behind him into the open doorway. "Come take her."

A curious crowd had gathered around us. They were watching me closely. Behind the Koretian, Ursula tried to squeeze her way out of the house, but he pushed her back carelessly with his arm. I heard her cry as she fell to the floor. Slowly, feeling my blood throb in a manner it had not done for a year's time, I pulled out the blade and took a step forward.

A quiet voice next to me said, "Thank you, Andrew. You may give that back to me now."

I was ill-trained in these matters; I made the mistake of looking over to the side. The Koretian was not ill-trained; he chose that moment to attack me. He never reached me, though. The next I knew, John, unarmed, had him on the ground and was wrestling with him for possession of his dagger.

I would have joined the fight at once, but I found myself being held back by Ursula. She had fled from the house and had evidently decided that it was her duty to keep at least one of her protectors alive. Before I could push her aside, the fight was over: the Koretian, panting, had scrambled to his feet and was looking warily at his opponent. John had a cut on his cheek but was otherwise serene in expression as he held the Koretian back with the man's own dagger.

"Andrew," he said softly, "please take Ursula back to the house."

I looked uncertainly at John, raised in the priests' house, who to my knowledge had no more skill with a dagger than that which I had taught him as a child. But Ursula was tugging at my tunic, and I realized that John would have even less skill if he were distracted by worries about his wife's safety. So I took Ursula's hand, and we fled the marketplace together, running for the safety of the house.

o—o—o

The street window was already shuttered and bolted when we arrived. I waited until I had bolted the door as well before I flung John's dagger onto the table and leaned back against the door, trying to catch my breath. Ursula, who seemed well endowed with stamina and nerve, was already unpacking the basket she had quick-wittedly rescued on our way back. As she pulled out the nuts she had bought, I said, "Would you be safe if I left you here?"

Ursula looked up and gave me a rueful smile. I saw that her hands were shaking and realized she was not as calm as she appeared. "You needn't worry about John," she said. "This has happened before, and he knows what to do."

"God of Mercy," I said, lapsing back into a Koretian oath. "I had forgotten what Koretia is like. We have dangers in the Chara's palace, but they do not include rescuing women from dagger-wielding abductors."

"It isn't because I'm a woman." Ursula bent over the nuts, which she was wrapping in a cloth. "It's because I'm half Emorian."

I watched silently as she pulled up a trap door and placed the nuts into a cool cellar box. When she had raised her head again, she was smiling. She said, "You must be hungry. Would you like something to eat?"

"To witness the truth, my appetite has fled me."

Ursula laughed. "Well, John may be hungry. I'm going to go into the back to pull some vegetables."

I went over to the rear window. A tall wall guarded the garden, and its gate was bolted. "If anyone tries to come into the garden, call for me. I will then repeat my performance of pretending to know blade-play."

Ursula's rippling laughter remained ringing in my ears after she had been in the garden for several minutes. I watched her from the window as she urged a shrunken parsley plant with gestures to grow taller, and then paused to chat with a butterfly that had landed nearby.

A loud knock on the door cut into my thoughts. I was quiet for a moment, waiting to see whether John's voice would follow, but nobody said anything, so I stepped lightly to the table and picked up the dagger. I could remain silent, but the person at the door might be Brendon or one of John's other friends. "Who is it?" I asked in my deepest voice.

"An Emorian soldier, come to pillage your house and rape your women."

I fumbled in getting the bolt slid back and the latch lifted. By the time I opened the door, he was leaning against the doorpost with his arms folded, greeting me with a smile which had a touch of darkness to it that looked vaguely familiar. I said, "I'm sorry. I was just threatened by a Koretian who'd decided that traitors like me don't deserve to live."

Peter's smile disappeared, and he stepped into the house at my gesture of invitation. "Yes, I saw that," he said. "I wasn't worried about you, though; you looked quite dangerous yourself. I could have sworn that you'd been taking secret lessons from Lord Carle in blade-play and intimidation."

"What are you doing here?" I asked, glancing through the slats in the shutters of the window before sitting down on one of the benches. Only a light guard stood outside: two men, armed with daggers rather than swords. I was not particularly surprised. Peter, the Great Chara of Emor, had never liked having guards around him, saying that living in the Chara's palace was imprisonment enough. I had helped him slip away from his father's guards at regular intervals when we were boys.

"I got tired of waiting for the governor," replied Peter as he took the bench opposite. "All of his officials were fawning over me – I think they learned their manner from Lord Alan. Finally I decided that my time would be better spent seeing how a common Koretian lives, so I slipped out of the palace when Lord Dean's back was turned."

"Don't tell me that you actually managed to escape the palace without Lord Carle catching you," I said. "I'm acquainted with a number of slave-servants who would love to know your secret."

Peter gave a small smile. He was dressed in a dark blue linen tunic with the gold edging appropriate for a high nobleman, several steps up from the peasant-brown tunic he usually wore at the palace when not at official functions. At his side was the bone-hilted dagger. The tunic's neck-flap was clasped with a copper brooch he had borrowed from me – officially, I remained a less free-man, with no significant rank, but Peter had insisted during the past year that I wear the same copper brooches as the lesser noblemen who were often made palace officials, for otherwise my true status in the palace might be misunderstood. It was typical of Peter to mix rank-markers on his own clothing, but I could see near the copper brooch the faint outline of the emblem brooch that was pinned to his undertunic.

"Your blood brother seems to be well known in this city," he said. "The Koretians I met were eager to tell me where he lived – once, that is, that I had assured them of my peaceful intentions and listened to their long descriptions of the kind favors he had done for their families. If the people here are to be believed, your blood brother is a man of godly mercy, always generous with advice and help, dealing fairly with Koretians and Emorians alike. Since the Koretians I spoke with feared I was coming to arrest him, they particularly emphasized that he is always unarmed and opposed to violence. The Emorians have nothing to fear from John the trader, I was told."

I was puzzled by the tone of Peter's voice, which was dry. "So you found the house. Did John tell you that his wife and I were at the market?"

Peter shook his head, his gaze travelling around the room until it rested upon the Jackal's mask over the mantelpiece. "I saw him leaving the house and followed him at a distance. I was just in time to witness your confrontation, and I stayed to see the aftermath."

"I take it that John is safe, since you came back here?"

"Oh, yes," said Peter. "I would say that John is quite safe."

His words were a tad too light, and there was a touch of coldness to his smile once more. I said, "Heart of Mercy, Peter, don't keep me in suspense. What happened after Ursula and I left?"

"Well," said Peter, tracing a knothole on the table with his finger, "the first thing that happened was that John handed back the dagger to the Koretian."

I was slow to reply. "He hates to fight. He always did."

"Yes, I remember you telling me that. From what you told me, I assumed that John did his fighting with words."

This time I did not reply. I was beginning to see where the story was headed and why Peter's manner had been so restrained. Peter leaned his elbows onto the table, clasped his hands, and rested his chin on the knuckles, saying, "The Koretian was eager to explain why all half-breeds are renegade rabble – parasitic, perfidious miscreants who deserve to die painful deaths. He explained all of this while waving his dagger at John." There was a pause, replete with significance. "John appeared to agree with what the Koretian said. When I left him, he was keeping a careful eye on the dagger and nodding to every word the Koretian spoke."

"Peter . . ." I said, and then stopped, unsure of how to comment.

"I'm sorry, Andrew," he said gently. "I would very much like to believe that your blood brother isn't a coward, but perhaps he has changed since you knew him last."

"John is not a coward!"

I looked over my shoulder and saw Ursula standing at the back door, her arms full of vegetables and her face red. She marched over to us, dumped the vegetables onto the table, and stood with her arms crossed.

Peter was already on his feet. I joined him and said hastily, "Lord Peter, may I present Ursula, who is John's—?"

"He is not a coward, and you wouldn't say that if you knew him!" Ursula was too angry to notice the introduction. She thumped the table with her fist for emphasis. "Anyone can tell you that John's the bravest man in this land. He is always helping people, even at his own risk."

Peter was staring at Ursula with his mouth agape. I supposed that no one had addressed him in this manner for quite some time – perhaps not since the last time he and I had fought. He recovered himself, though, and said firmly, "Madam, I have certainly heard that your husband is generous to his neighbors. But it seems to me that the most important thing a man can do is protect those who are under his care, and I cannot see that he has done that today, by allowing your honor to be sullied."

"What do you know about caring for others?" cried Ursula, throwing a carrot down on the table in Peter's general direction. "You Emorian lords hide yourselves away in the Chara's palace and never go out to see how others live their lives. John lives here amidst the people of our land, and while he cares for me, he also cares for the others here. He does what is best for all of us, not just for those whom he has under his immediate care. He's not like the Chara, who cares only about his friends and family and not about what goes on outside his palace."

I looked back at Peter, wondering whether I would see him angry or amused. What I witnessed was a look of respect that I suspected few people besides myself had ever seen. He said quietly, "The Chara has no wife, but if he did, I think that he would count himself lucky to be married to a woman who showed such loyalty to her husband."

Like an emptied wine bladder going flat, Ursula's anger drained out of her, and she looked at Peter uncertainly. Then the door to the street opened, and John slipped inside.

He did not appear to be harmed in any way except for the cut on his cheek, where the blood had begun to dry. As he closed the door, his gaze travelled between Ursula and Peter, but he did not ask the Chara why he had come. It was Peter who took the initiative, saying, "He let you live, then, even though you're married to one of the rabble."

John went over to the mantel and adjusted the mask of the Jackal, which had fallen crooked. Without looking Peter's way, he said, "Yes."

Ursula came over and hooked her arm around his. "Did you convince him?"

A faint smile travelled onto John's face as he looked down at Ursula. "In the end. We decided that a half-Emorian woman must by definition be half-Koretian. We also decided that anyone who insults a half-Koretian woman is demonstrating a lack of respect for Koretia. And we agreed that, if any Emorian soldier dared to insult you, we ought to defend your honor to the death."

I stood halfway between John and Peter; thus I could see the change in Peter's face as John spoke. When he had finished, Peter said quietly, "So your peacemaking methods work. I would not have guessed that they would be so effective."

John's dark eyes rested upon me for a moment before turning toward Peter. "They work, Lord Peter, because I am Koretian, and I know my land's customs. This is not Emor, where you can maintain discipline by beating others into submission. If you do not allow a Koretian to state his grievances, he will refuse to listen to anyone, even the gods. If you allow him to tell his troubles, then he may be willing to accept the possibility that he is wrong."

"I suppose," said Peter awkwardly, "that it is hard for an Emorian to correctly interpret small confrontations such as this."

I caught my breath as John curled both of his hands into fists. Ursula had taken a step back and was biting her lip; only Peter was unaware that anything had changed.

John said softly, "And how many small confrontations is it going to take, Lord Peter, before you and the other Emorian noblemen realize that you cannot treat Koretians the way you treat your slaves? How many Koretians will have to go to prison because they refuse to humble themselves sufficiently when in the presence of the governor and his officials? How many priests will have to die because they refuse to stop bringing the gods' law to the Koretians who request it? How many more Koretians must endure the Chara's discipline by being burnt alive or raped or sent to Emor in slavery, to face mutilation of body and spirit?"

My gaze was fixed upon Peter. By tremendous strength, he succeeded in keeping his own face, but his eyes were as cold as when he was in judgment. He made no reply, and after a moment, John said, "I apologize, Lord Peter. I ought not to have spoken to you in such a manner – particularly since you are a nobleman."

Peter hands gripped the hilt of his dagger. His fingers on it were as white as the bone itself. He said shortly, "Koretians must have their say, as you just told me." There was a pause; then he added, "I asked you to tell me what the Koretians think of the Chara's rule. I cannot blame you for being honest in your answer. But I think it is likely that both of us have gone astray in our judgments today."

"You may well be right," John said very quietly. "It is hard to get to know another person's character quickly, and I assume that Andrew, who has known you for many years, sees aspects to you that I do not. I am only sorry that you and I will not have more of a chance to get to know each other." He glanced toward the doorway, and I knew that he was thinking that the chance that the palace guards were eavesdropping on this conversation was even greater than the chance that Lord Carle had eavesdropped on his conversation with Peter in the priests' house. This was not the place for whatever uninhibited conversation John wished to hold with Peter.

Peter nodded, perhaps in agreement with John's assessment of the situation, but he made no suggestion of an alternative place for discussion. He was still watching John as warily as he might watch one of his conniving council lords. John turned to me and said, "Andrew, I came to the market to tell you that some of my friends are gathering at a tavern nearby at noonday. I'd like to be able to introduce you to them, but I would rather not leave Ursula alone. Would you mind if she joined us?"

I could not see why he was asking me permission to bring his own wife, and I opened my mouth to say that I would enjoy her company. But Peter cut in swiftly, saying, "If you wish, and if it is agreeable to your wife, I would be glad to keep her company while you and Andrew are gone."

John had turned to pull his satchel off the wall hook. He looked over his shoulder at Peter, and the Chara added, "You may be sure that I will not allow any harm to come to her. You have my oath as an Emorian."

John flicked the briefest of glances over at Ursula. Despite my training in reading people, I missed whatever message passed between them. Turning his attention back to the Chara, he said, "Thank you, Lord Peter. We appreciate your offer."

"At least I have somebody to prepare a meal for," Ursula said, gathering her vegetables together. "Lord Peter, is there any Koretian food you especially hate?"

We left Peter assuring her with convincing sincerity that he loved all Koretian food. We started to walk out the back way through the small garden, but had not gone far when John turned to look back, and I saw that Peter had followed us out.

He came up close to John and said in a low voice, "I may be ignorant of a good many Koretian customs, but I do at least know the Koretian tradition of hospitality, and that a man may not enter a Koretian's house without first giving his name and title. Therefore I would like to give you mine."

John shifted the satchel on his shoulder so as to hug it tighter to his body. He said softly, "I learned who you were when we first met; there is no need for us to exchange names. However, I'm sure that Ursula would be interested in hearing about life at your palace." Then he turned, leaving Peter to stare after him with a disconcerted look.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We did not ride this time, but instead wove our way by foot through the threadlike streets. I could see that the governor had made an attempt, when rebuilding the city, to recreate the symmetric pattern of the Emorian capital, but it appeared that the Koretians had simply abandoned use of the broad roads and had instead crowded into the narrow, eccentric alleys.

John and I were silent. I longed to ask him questions, but since he had not asked me about my secrets, I could not ask him about his. With an effort, I cast my mind instead on the scenery around me: the men and women clustered around the large shop windows, ordering their wares; the beggar-boys fighting each other on a heap of rubbish; and a hand-bound Koretian man being escorted by soldiers, protesting his innocence of whatever crime he was charged with.

John said, "I suppose that I should have let you stay in the cave after all. It would have saved you the trouble of having to go to Emor to meet him."

I looked over at him. My blood brother was staring straight ahead, a smile on his lips. "John," I said, "how can you continue trusting me when I keep such secrets from you?"

"When you worship the Unknowable God, you get much practice in trust. Trusting you is easy by comparison." He ducked his head under the sign of a candle-maker, and then took a wide berth of an argument that had arisen between a candle-maker and one of his customers. An Emorian soldier stood nearby, watching to be sure that the peace was not breached.

I said, "You guessed from his name? Because you knew that the Chara was in Koretia?"

"I saw him in the cave as well, you remember. He hasn't changed so much."

"I'd forgotten that you were there."

John did not reply for a minute. Then he said, "I think that in the cave you also forgot I was there."

His eyes were still focussed straight ahead, watching a hay-cart head relentlessly our way – Koretian carts do not stop for obstacles in their path. John's voice held a tone I had never heard in him before. The tone was not of pain or anger, but it brought suddenly to my mind an image: John standing silently in the doorway of our priests'-cell, watching Peter give him the free-man's greeting, and knowing in that moment what the Chara was to me.

I was trying to find something to reply when we were hailed by a thin man in a leather work-apron, who was travelling down an alley we were crossing. As he came close to us he said, "This is a piece of good fortune, John! I was just coming to your house to see whether I could beg a bit of your service."

John shifted the strap on his satchel to another position on his shoulder. "I wish I could be of help, Nathan, but I am on my way to a meeting with friends. In any case, I thought I had explained that I cannot take on any new trades at this time."

"I know, I know, you explained it quite well," said the man. I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye; otherwise he ignored me. "This is not a new trade, though; it is a failed old one. I bargained by word of mouth with Harold the butcher for a load of his meat, and now neither of us can agree to what the other said."

"You ought to have had a witness," John replied.

"I knew that you would say that," replied the man. "You are right, of course; we should have hired a trader. Still, what can we do now? I've already delivered my wine, and it would be more trouble than it is worth for me to take all of it back. Could you not come and help us sort this through? We ask you to judge the matter and decide what is fair, nothing more. It will take little time."

"And Harold agrees to this?" John cocked his head to one side.

The vintner laughed. "You do not believe me, I can see. But yes, Harold has for once agreed to let another man decide the matter. I have told him I will keep my cart parked in front of his shop until that happens."

"Well, then, I had better come, if not to keep peace, then at least to see this miracle for myself." John took a step in the direction the vintner had come, and I followed. The vintner shot another look at me, and John said, "This is my blood brother Andrew."

The vintner's eyes narrowed, but he said, in a pleasant enough voice, "Good day to you, Andrew. John, while I have your attention on business matters, I may as well ask you . . ."

The alley was cramped, and I allowed John and the vintner to walk together a few steps ahead of me. When I caught up, John was just ducking his head under a doorway into the butcher's shop. The butcher, a large, sturdy man, was giving him a loud and friendly greeting.

His greeting cut off as I reached the door. I stopped, and the butcher looked from me to John. This time John did not introduce me, but he stepped back out onto the road next to me.

The butcher, stone-faced, said to me formally, "I beg that you impart to me your name."

I could not give him my real title on this trip, nor could I lie to such a question, so I invented a new way to describe myself: "I am Andrew son of Gideon, free-man of the Chara's palace." I touched my heart and forehead in a slow and ceremonious manner.

A long silence spun out. The butcher was blocking the door, and he seemed in no hurry to reply. John said, "Harold." He spoke no further word, but the butcher looked suddenly uneasy.

I turned quickly to John and said, "I think I would rather wait outside, John. It is too beautiful a day to be inside."

The butcher hastily greeted me with his hand. "I am Harold son of Ulric. You are welcome in my home."

I shook my head and walked past John toward the shop window. A boy was standing there, guarding the vintner's cart. He spat on the ground as I came near, and then ignored me as I settled myself on an upended wine barrel, one of several that had already been unloaded next to the shop window. I sat facing the alley but could still watch, out of the corner of my eye, as the men walked into the shop and went to sit at a table in the back. Their voices drifted back at me: the butcher and the vintner exchanging grievances, John occasionally inserting a quiet question. I paid no mind to what they were saying, but instead concentrated my thoughts on the midday sun, feeling its moist warmth as though I were being showered with sultry snowflakes.

After a while, John said, "This is how I judge the matter: that Harold is right in what he asks, except that Nathan should be allowed to have a say over the quality of the lamb."

The butcher gave an appreciative grunt. The vintner sighed and said, "I agreed to abide by your ruling, so I suppose that I must."

"Good," said John in a tone that suggested there had been no question in his mind of anyone going against the bargain he had made. He stood up, went over to the satchel he had laid next to the wall, and pulled out a pen, ink bottle, and piece of paper. "Which language?" he asked.

"Koretian," said the vintner firmly.

"Emorian," countered the butcher with just as much determination. "I am no lover of the language, but if this bargain falls through again, I want a document I can take to the court."

"I hope that it will not come to that," said John, sitting down beside the men. "You know that I cannot appear in the court. But I take it, then, that you will let the court decide the penalties for oath-breaking?"

The butcher nodded. The vintner shrugged and said, "What alternative do we have?"

"Well," said John, dipping the pen in the ink and beginning to write, "you could follow Koretian tradition and burn each other's houses down."

The butcher gave a guffaw. The vintner looked annoyed as he said, "I am prepared to admit that Emorian rule has its benefits, but even the courts are not worth the price we have had to pay for the Chara's tyranny." He glared my way. I kept my eyes carefully fixed on the alley.

John was silent for a minute, his quill scratching on the parchment. Then he laid the pen aside and read, "'Nathan son of Boris and Harold son of Ulric do swear on this day the following oath to the gods: that Nathan shall deliver ten casks of wine and, in exchange thereof, Harold shall give him twenty pounds of Daxion lamb of the quality Nathan shall request. The witnesses for this oath are John the trader and the gods under whose care we are placed. The penalties for the breaking of this oath shall be determined by the city court, and in token of this oath we place our pledge here.' I have signed and dated the document. Do either of you have a blade, or should I use the quill?"

The butcher silently unsheathed his dagger and handed it to John, who pricked his finger with the tip. He then handed the dagger to the vintner, who followed suit and said, "You will poison yourself one of these days from that ink-stained pen. Why don't you carry your own dagger like any other trader?"

The butcher took the dagger from the vintner, pricked his fingertip, and grumbled, "If you carried a free-man's weapon, you could at least appear in the court if this bargain falls through."

"You can take that for your answer, then," said John. "I would not care to appear as a witness in an Emorian court. Nathan?" He pushed the document over to the vintner.

The vintner touched his bloodstained finger to the paper and said, "In the Jackal's name."

The butcher did the same and said, "In the Moon's name."

John took the document back, pressed his finger down, and said, "I swear this vow of witness in the name of the Unknowable God. —Now I must be on my way. You know my fee already, Nathan; you can send the wine to my house."

A minute later he joined me outside, and we made our way through the alley once more. "I apologize for being so long," said John.

"I found it interesting. It's been years since I've seen a trade take place."

"Most of my trades aren't done in that manner, of course; I generally negotiate on behalf of one of the parties. But every now and then I must act as judge over a word-bound oath that's disputed."

"Are the oaths usually phrased in that manner?"

"These days they are. They need to conform with Emorian law so that the documents can be admitted as court evidence. But I believe that the old Koretian oaths weren't much different. It's surprising how much our lands have in common. —Here we are." He pointed, and I saw that we were at the tavern. As we passed through its door I caught a glimpse of its sign, whose image seemed oddly familiar: a rose growing out of a fire.

We could scarcely make our way through the crowd inside. The room was drowned with smoke from the hearth fires heating the food. Amidst the smoke, dozens of bodies were jammed together: traders dressed in dark tunics and holding their cups with ink-stained fingers, housewives taking a break from their work and holding squalling babies, market-sellers rushing in to buy a drink and keeping a nervous gaze through the window at their lightly-guarded stalls, and many more. The tavern guests stood close to each other with fellowship and also with the usual Koretian stubbornness against accommodating others. Yet as I entered the room, the crowd, seemingly without taking any notice of me, parted so that they would not have to touch me.

I looked over to the other side of the room and discovered I was not alone in my isolation. Fully half the tavern was taken up with soldiers sitting in neatly ordered groups and ignoring the Koretians with as much concentration as the Koretians were ignoring them. I saw a few of the Emorians eye me curiously, but none of them showed any signs of wishing to speak to me. Perhaps my face was too Koretian for that.

John led us through to the back of the tavern, heading for a door there. He reached the door at the same moment as a serving woman who was holding a tray full of mugs and a pitcher.

"John!" she cried with delight. "Where have you been hiding yourself for the last few days?"

"I've been at the priests' house, Mai." John spoke in a low voice I could barely hear above the chatter around us.

Mai cocked her head at him. "And did your god speak to you?" she asked with such mockery that I wondered whether she was insulting John.

John answered her seriously, however. "Only with commands, not with the answers I was seeking. Are you taking that tray to the others?"

"This is their second tray – the ale is flowing there as fast as the gossip. And as for gossip, a few rumors have been spreading here at the tavern."

John smiled. "I'll be glad to relieve you later of the burden of keeping all of those rumors locked in your mouth. In the meantime, let me relieve you of this." He reached out and took the tray.

"Are you trying to steal my job again, John? You should let one of the other men play the role of servant for once."

"I am free-servant to the others – I do this of my own free will. In any case, you appear to be busy this afternoon."

Mai cast her eye back at the crowd. "As busy as we have ever been. We've run out of room for all the soldiers here."

"Ah." John shifted the tray in his hands and caught hold of a mug that had been about to slide off. "The governor has sent more divisions to the city?"

"He has sent back the division from Valouse, at any rate. Nothing is left there to guard." Her gaze slid over to me.

"This is my blood brother Andrew," said John. He did not look at me as he spoke. His eyes were on the soldiers, as though he were memorizing their faces.

Mai smiled at me and gave me the free-man's greeting. "You are very welcome here, Andrew. I heard Brendon telling the others about you; he said that you had known John when you two were boys. Has John changed much since then?"

"Not much," I said. "Except that, when we were young, he let me order him around more."

Mai laughed. "That hasn't changed, has it, John the free-servant? Let me know if you have need of anything more. It looks to me as though that soldier over there is about to pick a fight with one of our customers. I had better go prevent the city riots from beginning at this tavern."

Mai left, and I lifted the latch to the door in front of us so that John could walk through. We entered a dark passage that immediately veered off to the left. John turned the corner and then stopped suddenly. "I forgot to ask – do you prefer ale or wine?"

"I've found myself drawn to wild-berry wine since my return, but I'll drink whatever is in that pitcher."

"It's ale, but I know where Mai keeps the wine. Guard this; I'll return in a minute." He placed the tray on a small table in the passage, and then disappeared back into the main room of the tavern.

The passage was musty with the scent of dust and wood. It was as dim as the corridor at the Chara's palace, lit only by a small window facing south. I went over and rested my arms on the windowsill, listening with half an ear to the muffled sound of voices that were raised and then subsided. Mai had evidently been able to prevent the fight.

Idly, I gazed out on the open square behind the tavern. I had never seen it before, of course; the houses surrounding it had all been built since the fire. Looming over it was Capital Mountain. I thought I could see, well hidden by summer foliage, a bit of red stone that might have been the gods' house. Then my gaze drifted down the mountainside: to the priests' house, to the trees that hid the cave, to the city wall at the other end of the square, and, finally, to the charred remains of a tree trunk standing in front of the wall.

I do not know at what moment I realized where I was. But after a time I found that I was frozen, reliving in my mind an earlier square, with flames surrounding it on all but one side. The flames touched my mind and burnt at it with the fire of remembered death and lost hopes. Within a short while, I could not bear the images brought forth, so I stared instead at the blackened tree marking the tunnel. John and I might have escaped through that tunnel – we might have helped my mother escape through it – if only the god had placed us under his care that day.

The dark hole of escape grew in my mind as though it were something greater than a simple tunnel. Soon the flames were gone, the tavern was gone, and all that I could see was blackness.

"I've sometimes wondered whether what happened that day was my fault."

The voice drifted to me through the blackness. I was already vaguely aware that I had been standing in the dark for some time, unwilling to return from it to the pain of my memories. But the sound of John's self-judgment jolted me back to the tavern, and I found myself still standing by the window, my head cradled in my arms.

I raised my head and looked at John. He was gazing unwaveringly at the scene before us, but his fists were clenched tightly against some enemy. As he saw me look his way, he let his hands grow loose and said, "I don't think the soldier had any immediate plans to harm you. If I'd talked to him rather than trying to kill him, I might have been able to persuade him to let you go."

"John," I said firmly, "there is a time for talking and a time for fighting, and that was the time to fight. You're in no way to blame for what happened."

"Blood must sometimes be shed, I know," said John, "but talking is more likely to bring peace." He turned abruptly and picked up the tray. I followed him to a door at the end of the passage and walked beyond it into the next room.

The sounds from the main room of the tavern subsided to a whisper as the door closed behind us. The only sound which greeted us here was that of Brendon, who was speaking, with long pauses between his sentences, to five men seated at a table. They made no move as we entered the room, but one of them looked at John, a couple gave the free-man's greeting, and the rest nodded their welcome. Then their attention was focussed back on Brendon, who was rubbing his bloodstained bandage as he spoke.

John ushered me into the one of the two remaining chairs at the table, poured me a mug of wine, and began refilling the other men's mugs with ale. Brendon paused again in his narrative, this time with a small gasp of pain. John glanced toward him before continuing to make his way around the table.

"You aren't badly hurt, I hope?" said a man sitting next to Brendon; he was wearing the dark clothes of a trader.

Brendon gestured toward John. "John says I'm not, so you may be sure that I'll heal. I'd have been glad to have my arm cut off if I could have accomplished my goal, which was to save a man who had just been stabbed by a soldier and who was too badly hurt to move. But by the time I'd killed the soldier, it was too late: the flames had reached the man."

John finished pouring the ale for the others and went over to the window opposite me, where he placed the tray. He took up the remaining mug and poured himself some wine, and then stood with his back to the window, watching the others. The man who had spoken before said, "So then you escaped?"

"Then, as you say, I escaped, and was joined by a lucky few on the road. Soldiers were posted at the town gates, killing the townsmen who tried to leave, but I managed to slip past them."

"They showed no mercy." A man sitting near the window slammed his mug down onto the table. "It's no more than we might have expected. These Emorians have hearts of stone."

John did not look my way, but he said quietly from his place of isolation, "What Brendon has told me of Valouse reminds me of a village I visited several years ago. I spoke to a woman who lived there – she was in fact the only person who lived there, for the village had been burnt to the ground by soldiers, just as Valouse was. I think she continued to live there out of sheer hatred of the men who had destroyed the place. She said she had been visiting the city at the time the soldiers came, or else she would have been killed with the other villagers. Just as in Valouse, the soldiers took no prisoners."

"How can we hope to gain peace with such people?" exclaimed the man near the window. "It seems to me that we should simply destroy the vermin before they spread their poison further."

John took a sip of his wine before saying, "This particular village was one of the borderland villages in Emor. It was destroyed by the Koretians."

Silence lengthened. Finally Brendon said, "I fancy it was after you moved out of the priests' house that you learned blade thrusts such as that, John."

"It was a shock to me as well." John leaned over to the wine pitcher and poured himself another mugful. "It was then I realized that the only way to peace was either for one of our lands to utterly destroy the other, or for the Koretians and the Emorians to speak together peacefully and jointly find a solution to our problems. I think that the gods' peace is more likely to rest upon us if we talk with the Emorians."

"Speaking of Emorians . . ." The man sitting next to me flashed me a smile.

"My apologies, Andrew," said John. "I haven't yet introduced my friends. This fiery gentleman near me is Faustus . . ."

He gave me their names, and the men all greeted me with smiles and friendly looks. It appeared that their hatred of Emorians did not extend to John's blood brother. When they had finished, the farmer next to me raised his mug. "Welcome, Andrew, in the name of the god you worship."

I raised my mug in thanks, responding, "In the uncomplicated days of my boyhood it was the Jackal that I worshipped, but somehow I do not imagine he has me under his care these days."

The others laughed heartily at my small joke. The farmer replied, "The ways of the gods are mysterious, and the Jackal may surprise you one of these days. At any rate, he is likely to look with more love upon you than upon most Emorians, who are not even willing to admit that he exists."

"I met a city court official the other day who was willing to entertain the idea that the Jackal God existed," said the third trader at the table. "But he only wished to do so because it gave him the opportunity to tell me what the god was like. He said he knew that the god was named after the animal, and everyone knows that jackals are cowards and lackeys."

A roar of laughter went up at this statement. Even John smiled at the tale of the Emorian's impiety as he reached forward to refill the mug of the fiery-spoken doctor near him. Brendon growled, "If he thinks that the Jackal is like that, then the Emorians are bigger fools than I thought. . . . Begging your pardon, Andrew."

The third trader said, "I didn't conclude from this episode that the Emorians have dull wits, but rather that the god of disguise has done a masterful job at his work. If the Emorians think the Jackal is a mere follower and a recreant, then we needn't worry they will ever penetrate beyond that mask."

"Oh, it's a favorite occupation of Emorians to speculate about who the Jackal truly is," said the man sitting next to me. "We get soldiers at my market-stall all the time, and they're forever offering theories as to who the man is behind the god-mask. Some say he's an old Koretian soldier, some that he's a trader, some that he died long ago and that only his death spirit now leads the thieves. One soldier even speculated that the governor is the Jackal."

Amidst the laughter, the farmer said, "If that were the case, then this land would have no more troubles, if the rumors are true and the governor is playing host to the Chara. That would be a nice trap for the Chara to find himself in."

Brendon drained his ale and added, "John would say, I suppose, that the Jackal should talk to the Chara, rather than kill him."

"That is the method I would recommend to the god," responded John, coming forward to refill Brendon's mug. "But from what I hear, the Chara is just as stubborn in his beliefs as the Jackal is supposed to be. Such a conversation might bear no fruit."

"But would be worth trying?" said Brendon, looking up at John.

"Would definitely be worth trying. However, the Jackal would first have to find a way to lure the Chara to his lair, and that in itself would be difficult."

This long discussion of the Jackal caused my mind to wander. Any one of these men, I thought, could be one of the Jackal's thieves, and if so, the words I spoke this day might be reported to the man who claimed to be the thief god. I had never known as a child whether my prayers reached the god, and now I preferred to think that the god had not heard them, rather than that he had ignored them. Slowly I began to think of matters I had long ago hidden dark inside me, rather than allow them to pain me.

I became aware of my surroundings again and realized that many of John's friends had already left. The only men still remaining in the room were John, Brendon, the farmer, and the one man who had not spoken since my arrival nor even looked my way. He was seated in the far corner of the room, close to the window, and John was now kneeling at his side, murmuring something, while the farmer continued to speak to Brendon about the Chara.

Suddenly the silent man turned his head to look at me, and my throat tightened.

The left side of the man's face, which I had not seen hitherto, was black and broken and sunken, scorched by fire as the earth is scorched by the sun. The man – his name and occupation had long since fled from my mind – stared at me with deep hatred through the one eye he still retained, but he remained silent, as though waiting for me to make the first approach.

I said, "You wanted to say something?"

The mutilated man remained speechless a minute longer, his eye fixed on mine. Finally he said with soft anger, "If I were the Jackal, and I had the Chara in my power, I would not talk to him but show him. I would show him the piles of ashes that still dust the streets after all these years, and the bones that lie in the gutters unclaimed. I would show him the beggars on the streets who still have nowhere to go because they never regained what they lost. I would ask the Chara – I would ask all Emorians – how in the name of all mercy they can claim to bring peace to this land and yet allow such a thing to happen."

I stared down at my pewter mug, which I had set in the path of the sunlight falling from the window. A bit of the fiery light was trapped in the metal. I reached forward to touch it, but pulled my hand away quickly as the heat seared my finger. Instead, I picked the mug up by its bone handle and drained it. As I lowered my mug, I saw that John was watching me, waiting.

I said, "I live at the Chara's palace, so I have heard him answer the question you ask. I will not tell you what he said, because I received no satisfaction from his answer, and I doubt that you would either. But I will say that, if you were to show the images you mention to the Chara, I would also want you to show them to the Jackal."

"The Jackal does not need to be shown," said the man, his voice angrier than before. "He was in the city when the fire broke out, as everyone has heard."

"That is exactly my point." I looked at the men in front of me. Brendon and the farmer were waiting to see what I meant. John's hand hovered over that of the mutilated man, perhaps in an effort to keep his friend from drawing a dagger against me. The man had opened his mouth to speak again, but he looked over at John and subsided.

I continued, "I say these words, not as the Emorian I am today, but as the Koretian I once was. I have told you that the Jackal was my god, and because I served him and loved him, the one thing I was certain of on the day that this city was destroyed was that the god would not allow such a thing to happen. It is easy enough for me to understand why a fallible man like the Chara would do something that was wrong, but I have never been able to understand why the all-wise Jackal allowed the Emorians to destroy this city. Either the Jackal is not all-wise or he is not all-powerful – in either case, that is why I found it possible in the end to leave the service of the Jackal and place myself under the care of the Chara. At least the Chara is sometimes willing to admit that he is wrong when he has caused great suffering."

Brendon and the farmer were looking at each other, and the mutilated man gazed at John. Only John continued to look at me, his black eyes as calm as the night sky. He said quietly, "If the Jackal were here, he might remind you that, since he was in the city that day, he presumably suffered along with the Koretians. But since you no longer serve the god and have not asked for his peace, I will not speculate on what he might say. All I can tell you is the answer I found for myself in the days after the fire, when I too wondered at the mystery of the Jackal's actions."

He reached down and picked up the wine pitcher, which was carved with the symbol of the tavern. "This tavern is called the Flower and Flame because, like the rest of the city, it grew up out of the ashes of the old city. We can say that it would have been better if the old city had continued to live, and perhaps that is true. But we cannot deny that a new city has bloomed out of the flames, just as a forest regrows after a fire. The fire brought death, but it also brought new life."

"Then you are saying that the Jackal wanted there to be a fire?"

I had kept my voice at its usual even level, but I saw something flicker in John's eyes and knew that he had seen beyond my mask to the anger I had long nurtured toward the god.

John walked toward me from the window, saying, "I doubt that the god created the fire, any more than he creates the blades that men use to kill one another. But since the fire was created, it may be that the god made it his own fire and used it to bring both vengeance and mercy. The fire brought pain and death, and if it had been only men's fire, that is all that it would have brought. But in ways that men will never fully know, the god's fire brought peace as well."

I stared down at the mug in order to avoid looking up at John, who was now standing beside me, pitcher in hand. I said, "If the Jackal is all-powerful, then I fail to see why he could not simply have given us the peace without making men undergo the pain."

"I do not worship the Jackal but the Unknowable God, whose thoughts will be forever cloaked to man, so I am unable to understand why the fire has to bring pain as well as peace. What I do know is that the gods give us what we pray for. If your wish is to have peace without pain, then the Jackal will find a way to give it to you. But if you wish to live your life without pain, you must give up everything that might bring you pain. Is that what you want?"

The room was very still, as though John and I were the only men there. I stared at the sunburst on the mug, and images came to me of the most painful moments of my life: Myself, standing amidst the carnage of the flame-filled square, on the point of being captured. Lord Carle, smiling at me as he prepared to make me his maimed slave. Lord Carle, smiling again as he told me what my punishment would be for running away from him. Myself, staring at the Koretian mountains in the moments before I broke my blood vow to the Jackal and became an Emorian. Lord Carle, staring at the dagger as I placed it against his heart. And finally, an image as terrible as the first one, Peter wearing his pendant and judging me with the cold face of the Chara.

And it came to me then, with a shock, that if any one of these sufferings had not occurred to me, Peter would not have become my friend.

I touched the sunburst again, and this time I did not flinch away from the pain it caused. John's voice drifted down to me: "Which type of peace do you want the god to give you?"

"His fire," I said in a low voice. "I want the god to give me his fire."

"Then he will give it to you," said John, and leaned over to refill my mug.

I think Brendon said something thereafter that broke the tension and allowed the conversation to continue. But I did not speak again while I was there. My eyes were fixed on the blood-red liquid that John had given me, and I felt, without knowing why, as though I had just placed myself under the high doom.

Blood Vow 5

THE EYES OF THE JACKAL

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"The only way in which to bring peace," said the governor, "is to find this Koretian rebel-leader and kill him."

We had finished dinner that night in the presentation chamber of the governor's palace. Lord Alan was now occupied with passing around Daxion nuts to the Chara, Lord Dean, Lord Carle, and myself. Upon our first meeting – or so it seemed to Lord Alan – the governor had treated me with the distant dismissal with which he treated the other servants. But throughout the afternoon I had noticed him watching the Chara as he spoke to me, and when Peter, without comment, included me in the governor's dinner party, Lord Alan showed no surprise. He had me placed on the reclining couch that stood next to the Chara's – Lord Alan followed the older custom among Emorian noblemen of reclined dining. From that point on, the governor had treated me with great courtesy.

Lord Alan poured out a glass of Emorian wine and offered it to me. He had dismissed the slaves from the room earlier, explaining that he could not be sure which of his servants were in the pay of the Jackal. I shook my head, declining the gift. Lord Alan gave the glass instead to Lord Carle, who said, "Whether it brings peace or not, this fellow must be executed. It is an affront to Emorian dignity that he has been able to defy the Chara's commands for so many years. He ought to have been captured long ago."

"So I thought, when I first became governor," said Lord Alan. "But the Jackal inspires a fanatical loyalty among his thieves. It has proved difficult to send spies to his lair, and those I have sent are killed by the Jackal. Or else – this is far more discouraging – they are converted to his cause." He paused to crunch delicately on a nut. "The Jackal has been making trouble in this land since before the Chara Nicholas even arrived here, yet after all these years, his true identity remains unknown. He is never seen by any but his closest followers without his mask. As for his voice . . . Well, nobody seems to be able to agree on the nature of that."

Lord Dean peered over his wine glass. "Yet you say that he has become bolder in recent weeks."

"Yes, and that may be his undoing," said Lord Alan. "Andrew, if you do not care for wall-vine wine, may I offer you some wild-berry wine? I received several casks of it as a gift from some Koretian noblemen who support me, and I am told that it is quite good."

"Thank you, no," I murmured. "I have no taste for it any more."

Lord Alan smiled. "A true Emorian. I had no intention of suggesting otherwise; it is just that old customs are hard to abandon. I find myself longing sometimes for all of the ceremonial trappings of Emorian life, though I have been here for fifteen years now. It is hard to adjust to the sloppy manner in which these Koretians carry out their civil ceremonies."

"I understand that their priestly rites are more impressive," said Peter. He had been scanning the narrow-windowed room with his eye, his gaze stopping now and then on vases, paintings, and gold-tasseled cushions.

"You may be right, Chara, but I confess that I avoid the god-worship here as much as possible. It is hard for me to comprehend why the Koretians spend all of their time worrying about what the gods want rather than simply obeying the laws."

"Perhaps that is because they had no laws before we came," suggested Lord Carle, reaching to take another nut from the cut crystal bowl.

Lord Alan laughed. "Much as it pains me to agree with you, Lord Carle, I think you have wisely hit upon an important point about the Koretians. The Koretians certainly have some noble qualities – that is why it has given me pleasure to govern them for so long – but they have no history of ceremony or law. The result, as one might guess, is that they can be unrestrained in cruelty. This recent incident in Valouse is an example of what I mean."

A pause hovered, and Peter looked at me as though bidding me to speak. So I said, "From what the High Lord was telling me this afternoon, Lord Alan, I thought that you had not yet determined how the riots began."

"Quite true, Andrew; thank you for mentioning that. I ought to have said, the incident that caused the town to be in a riotous spirit to begin with. This event happened a fortnight ago, while your party was still on its journey. The incident gives us much insight into the nature of the Jackal and how we may be able to capture him in the end."

"The nature of the Jackal interests me very much," said Peter, wiping his fingers on the embroidered cloth he had been given. "Any leader who has been able to inspire his followers for so long must be an extraordinary man."

"The Chara is no doubt right," said Lord Alan, "but I confess that this story makes me wonder instead how the Jackal manages to persuade any Koretian to follow him. Cruel as the Koretians can be, the Jackal seems to exceed them all. What happened in Valouse two weeks ago was that the Jackal murdered a man. This happens regularly, of course. In this particular case, though, the man was no spy of mine, but simply an unlucky Koretian who stumbled upon the rebel-leader's lair."

"You now know where the Jackal's hideout is?" Frowning, Lord Carle leaned forward quickly.

"We know only where his hideout was two weeks ago, alas," said the governor. "The Jackal changes his lair regularly. In the past, however, he has usually met with his thieves in isolated locations far from any villages. If he is beginning to set his lair in large towns such as Valouse, it is possible that he will meet with his thieves here in this city. If that happens, I doubt that we will fail to find him. My soldiers are thick on the ground here, and they will be able to detect unusual activity."

"How did it come about that the murdered man happened upon the Jackal?" asked Peter. He was busy trying to mop up a wine drop that had fallen onto the precious fabric covering his couch.

"For the most part, we know little about such killings, but in this case we were fortunate," replied Lord Alan. "I have recently sent out a new spy, and while he has not yet become one of the elite who sees the Jackal without his mask, he was able to locate the Jackal's lair one night, and thus was witness to the murder of this poor fellow. It seems that the Jackal had chosen the empty home of a man who was out of town on business, and a neighbor became suspicious at the midnight activity. This neighbor would have done best, of course, to alert the soldiers, but he was certainly brave, creeping up to the house with not even a dagger to protect himself."

Lord Carle reached out and poured himself more wine from the black marble pitcher. "And did he remain brave once the thieves had captured him?"

"Surprisingly so, yes, and that is what makes this such a tragic story. The Jackal – who was, alas, masked on that night – at first tried to persuade the man to turn a blind eye to the presence of him and his thieves, at least until the Jackal could move his lair. Now, this man was a Koretian, but unlike many Koretians, he had a great love for lawful order, and he did not hold with rebels who creep around at night stirring up trouble. So he boldly told the thieves that he planned to report them to the soldiers. He said this despite the fact that he was in a room full of brutal and beweaponed men."

Lord Carle grunted. "I have known brave Koretians, but few that would defend the law of the Chara. It is a pity that this man died."

"The pity is in the manner of his dying. But I am getting ahead of my story. According to my spy, the Jackal then forced the man into another room and interviewed the man alone for several hours – threatening him or torturing him or whatever the Jackal's methods are."

"Or perhaps trying to persuade him to join the thieves, as some of your spies were persuaded," suggested Lord Dean, his expression carefully innocent of all malicious intent.

"As you say, Lord Dean," responded Lord Alan with an amiable nod. "At any rate, the Jackal failed to destroy this man's loyalty – and here is the part of the tale that turns my stomach. Rather than simply kill the man quickly, as any decent Emorian would have done, the thieves turned this into a lengthy, protracted affair, parading the man around the room and making various speeches about why they were killing him and so on. They even went to the length of binding his hands, though, as I have mentioned, they were murdering an unarmed man."

"And the method of execution?" asked Peter. His finger was running over his dagger sheath, but his eyes were now firmly fixed on the governor.

"The Jackal stabbed him through the heart, which is at least a humane death, but there is apparently a reason for that as well. My clerk has turned up information about a superstitious legend connected with the Jackal God – something to do with goats, I believe, but I couldn't quite follow what he was saying. At any rate, it seems that this man who calls himself the Jackal has adopted the method of murder preferred by the Koretian god. Otherwise, I am sure, he would have found a far more painful way of killing his victims."

The room was silent but for the echo of the governor's soldiers drilling outside in precise order. Peter, reaching vaguely forward to put down his glass, balanced it on the edge of his table, and the glass shattered on the mosaic tiles below.

"I beg your pardon, Lord Alan," said Peter. "I did not mean to mistreat such a beautiful and precious item."

Lord Alan waved his hand in the air, either in graciousness or to prevent a blood-fly from landing in his wine glass. "It is a small matter, Chara. I received these glasses as an inheritance from my grandmother, but the cups are fragile, so I have gradually lost most of them over the years. Would you like another glass?"

Peter shook his head. His gaze drifted from the governor to Lord Carle and finally rested on me. Lord Alan, following his gaze, turned to me and said, "I know that you have been Emorian for many years, but I am sure that you heard stories of the Jackal when you were a boy. Can you give me insight into why the Koretians would support such a bloodthirsty man?"

Lord Carle, I saw, was watching me with narrowed eyes. I said in an impartial voice, "When I was a boy, I did not hear stories with as much detail as you have just given us, Lord Alan. But I suppose that if you were to ask a Koretian what made him obedient to the hunting Jackal, he would say that the ways of the gods are mysterious."

Lord Alan smiled with all but his eyes, which remained watchful. "I am glad you have told me that. I imagine it must be an important fact, and it makes me regret that I have not learned more about the local religion over the years. What do you think of Andrew's idea, Chara?"

"I fear that I too am ignorant of religious matters," said Peter. "But I do have one circumstance in common with the Jackal, and that is that I must place some of my people under the high doom. I have no doubt that many of my subjects over the years have been mystified by how I act when I wear the Pendant of Judgment. So, while I am fascinated by the story you have just told, I am forced to agree with Andrew that the true nature of the Jackal remains a mystery."

Lord Alan's smile disappeared for a moment, but the next moment he was cheered as Lord Carle began giving his opinion of the terrible weather in Koretia.

o—o—o

"Did you mean what you said about the god, or did you simply not wish to answer Lord Alan?" Peter asked.

We had returned from dinner and were standing in the Chara's guest chamber. I helped Peter to remove his sheathed dagger as I said, "I'm not sure. The story he told was certainly disturbing, and it makes me wonder about the motives of the Jackal. But I can't help but feel that the governor, or his spy, is looking at the Jackal through a mask whose eyeholes are too small for him to see the full view. Something is missing in what he told us, something that might better explain who this man is. As to whether he is a god . . . Well, I believed so as a boy, and as Lord Alan says, it's hard to abandon old customs."

Peter undid his belt and collapsed onto the couch. "Staying in this palace has made me regret one old custom the governor holds to," he said. "I refer, of course, to his decision to build a palace with tiny windows in a land where the slightest breeze can mean the difference between life and death. I'm thinking of spending this hot night on the balcony. Will you join me there?"

"Gladly," I said, "if you don't think that the governor would be shocked that your servant is spending the night in your outdoor sleeping chamber."

"He doesn't seem very shocked by you, does he? He was quite friendly to you tonight." Peter watched as I silently began to gather up the luxurious cushions and blankets that covered the bed. "Putting aside for the moment the mysterious Jackal, what do you think of our equally mysterious governor?"

"I think," I said precisely, "that he doesn't like Koretians, no matter what he may say about their noble qualities. This makes me wonder why he was so friendly to me tonight."

"Yes," said Peter, reaching down to touch the alabaster legs of the couch. "Of course, I'm used to watching my subjects try to befriend you in order to persuade you to tell them my secrets – a device I would have thought they would have long since realized was futile. Lord Alan, though, seems to have a special talent for congeniality. I spent much of this afternoon listening to him tell me how much he loves the Koretians. Later, I overheard him telling Lord Carle what barbarians the people here are. And from what Lord Dean has reported to me, it seems that the governor has already guessed that my High Lord is interested only in political expediency and has conversed with him in that fashion. This alone would be enough to worry me, but my breath was taken away tonight by Lord Alan's ability to satisfy all three of us at once. I suspect that we are dealing with a dangerous man."

"I wonder what his true face is under that mask?" I asked.

"If you're right in thinking that he hates the Koretians, then he may be most himself while talking to Lord Carle. As for Lord Carle, he has reached the pinnacle of happiness in finding someone who will talk to the end of time about the barbarity of this land."

I made no reply. Instead, I gathered up the blankets and cushions, and then went out to the balcony to arrange our beds. Peter followed me there and leaned over the balustrade, looking out at the darkened city. From this vantage point we could peer over the palace wall and into the market area. Seeing Peter scan the view, I came over to stand by him.

"John's house is over there," I said, pointing to a rooftop that was nearly hidden by the surrounding houses.

"John," murmured Peter, and I wondered whether he would refer to their confrontation that afternoon. But all that he said was, "How long has he been married?"

"He didn't say. It can't have been very long; Ursula looks as though she has recently come of age. I was surprised to see that John had a wife. When he was a boy, he used to talk as though he would never marry."

"I suppose that it's easy to change one's mind on such a topic." Peter pushed back a forelock that had become plastered against his sweat-wet brow. "And in these matters, a great deal depends on finding the right woman. It appears that your blood brother has been lucky in that regard."

"You think so?" I was feeling the heat around me, warm and comforting like a childhood blanket. Distantly I remembered the cool air of Emor, the chilling breezes that blew through the windows even in the middle of summer.

But all that seemed far away. "What did you talk about with Ursula?" I asked.

"Oh, this and that. We found that we had more in common than I would have thought. Her mother died in childbirth and mine while I was still in the nursery, so we both grew up without any women in our lives with whom we had strong ties. I've always considered women to be a mysterious race; it was pleasant being able to chat with one for a while. It took my mind off my problems with the Jackal."

As though on cue, a cry drifted faintly across the city, cutting through the sound of the cicadas. It was a thin, hoarse, and chilling sound, like the desperate cry that a dying man might make. I saw Peter's hand travel swiftly to his side before he remembered that he was unarmed. He asked abruptly, "What is that?"

"The jackal," I said. Then, at his sharp look, I added, "No, not the god; the god is always quiet. That sound comes from the animal which the god is named after. It hides by day and hunts by night, in packs or pairs or alone. It feeds on the dead."

"So," said Peter quietly. "The Jackal has named himself well. I wonder who the hunting god is hunting tonight." Without saying anything more, he turned and left the balcony.

I lingered where I was, staring down at the uneven rows of houses and the horizon-bound sea of trees beyond. The cicadas sang without pause, like an endless rush of waves, and I felt starting within me a pain. As yet, the pain had no name, and I instinctively knew I did not wish to name it. I turned away and walked rapidly back into the Chara's chamber.

There I found Peter talking to a Koretian man.

"This is the spy whom the governor mentioned tonight," Peter told me. "He tells me that, as Lord Alan had hoped, the Jackal has moved his lair to somewhere in the city."

"Where, I do not yet know," said the man softly. "But I have received a summons from one of the thieves to visit the Jackal tonight, and then I will find out. Lord Alan had asked me to try to discover the true identity of the Jackal, but since I have not been able to do so, he has decided to have his soldiers attack the lair. The thieves have managed to slip away in such situations before, but they may not be able to do so here in the crowded city, where so many people can note their movements. I have promised to send the governor news by night's end if I can."

"It is brave of you to undertake this task," I said.

The spy smiled and nodded his thanks. "You are Koretian-born, sir, so you will understand the difficulty I had in deciding where my loyalties lay. But if the Chara were to end his rule here, this land would dissolve once more into terrible war. I hope to do what I can to help prevent that."

"So the governor may give us news of peace by tomorrow," said Peter. "That would be a welcome change."

The spy said, "Peace is what this land needs more than anything. Even the Jackal would agree with that."

o—o—o

I woke with a start the next morning. Opening my eyes, I found that I was sitting straight up as Peter gripped my shoulders and stared gravely at me. For a moment, all that I could see through the lingering traces of fire was the Chara, the vengeful ruler of my people's enemy. Then Peter slid back, resting himself on his haunches and regarding me silently. The present returned to me like a rush of cold water, and I buried my face in my hands.

After a minute, I looked up and said, "I ought not to have slept beside you this night."

"It's nearly dawn in any case." Peter's golden hair was tousled and dark with moisture. The dawn air could almost be called cool, but several hours had passed before either of us had been able to sleep in the heavy, heated air that we found even on the balcony.

I pulled back the light silk sheet I had thrown over myself the previous evening and said wearily, "I don't understand why I continue to have this dream. I've found my blood brother alive; I thought that the nightmare would end."

"I thought that it would grow worse," said Peter.

I looked over at him. He was sitting on the floor of the balcony, peering between the balusters at the ground below, where the soldiers were outdoing the birds with their boisterous calls to one another.

He met my eyes finally. "I didn't want to take you on this trip, Andrew. I knew that it would be hard for you, returning as an Emorian to Koretia. And now you've found your blood brother, and your loyalties are torn even more, like those of the spy we met last night."

"I made my decision long ago," I said. "You are the one I chose as my master, and John understands that."

"That doesn't make it any easier for you." Peter ceased looking down at the ground and slid himself around so that his back leaned against the balusters. "Curse those soldiers. They woke me long before your dream did, what with their clattering and shouting. . . . Andrew, I didn't want to pain you by bringing you here, but I very much need your help. I can't rule the Koretian people without knowing what is best for them, and I can't know that without understanding who they are. You are the only one I know who can tell me – unless I were to meet the Jackal himself, but that will never happen. I like to dream of the Jackal and me meeting under a peace oath, negotiating peace terms as one ruler does with another. But I cannot negotiate with a rebel; that would be as though I signed my approval to his law-breaking deeds. The Jackal and I will never come face to face unless he is my prisoner, or I am his. Therefore, you are my ambassador to and from the Jackal, showing me what sort of man he is."

Peter's face glowed on one side with the early light. Behind him, the land still lay mostly in shadow, dark and quiet before sunrise. I said, "Chara, you know that I would do anything for you; I would give you my life if you wanted it. I'm not sure I can help you with the Jackal, though. I've never understood the gods, not like John does, and the god taken human form baffles me. I don't know whether, if I met him, I would raise my hands in worship or whether he would prove to be an ordinary, vulnerable mortal."

"Well, if John knows the gods, then it is to John we must go for answers. That is what I don't like about this business: sending you to your blood brother as a spy." Peter slid forward onto his knees and began folding up the blankets. "I hope that our ever-friendly governor doesn't curse me when his slaves tell him what we have done with his precious Emorian cloth, placing it on this dirty balcony. I need the governor's good will today, for I'll be spending several hours going through his documents, trying to find the clue that will help me sort out what to do in this land. And I suspect that if the governor has miraculous information that would help me, he'll want to keep it to himself. It will be a tedious task, reading document after document, and you would be better occupied going down into the city and discovering what you can from John."

For once I allowed the Chara to be his own servant. I stood up and leaned over the balcony railing, seeking out a small breeze that had managed to crawl its way into the city. The streets below had begun to stir with activity: the stall-keepers were opening the market, the taverns were taking in a few early customers, and the traders wound their way between the shops. I asked, "Couldn't Lord Dean help you find what you need?"

"Lord Dean is always trying to take my decisions into his own hands. I'm not saying that he's disloyal, but he doesn't like following my orders, and he would make an easy tool for the governor to twist. I've had enough of my spies corrupted without having to place a council lord under the high doom for disobedience. While here, I will seek the assistance only of those I can absolutely trust, such as yourself." Peter pushed the blankets through the doorway into his room, and then came to join me by the balustrade. Looking out, he said, "It's a beautiful view. I'm glad that I overcame the governor's objections to my taking the one guest chamber that has a Koretian-style balcony. Shall we see whether Lord Alan's cooks have begun their work? Afterwards, we can go our separate ways."

When we reached the presentation chamber, we found that we had been preceded by Lord Dean and Lord Carle. Lord Carle was addressing the High Lord with raised voice. As we entered, the council lord broke off, staring at me with a furious expression. Then he bowed to Peter and said, "If the Chara will excuse me," before leaving the room in a rush.

"Has Lord Carle encountered a new form of Koretian barbarity that he dislikes?" I asked.

"I think that Lord Carle has left because he would prefer to give his opinion on Koretian barbarities to Lord Alan rather than the Chara," replied Lord Dean dryly. "The governor's free-servant just brought us news. A man was found on the palace grounds this morning, stabbed through the heart."

Peter was mute a moment before saying, "The spy?"

"The governor doesn't seem to have much luck with his spies. The soldiers who found the body believe that the spy was not killed on the spot, but that the body was brought here from elsewhere. A bold move, even for the Jackal. But the Jackal may have had a bold purpose to his move. The body was found under the Chara's own balcony."

Peter reached out and poured himself the last of the Emorian wine from the night before. "Well, then," he said, "I have narrowly missed my one opportunity to meet the Jackal. I suppose that this is the Jackal's way of sending me a message."

"It may be that the message was intended for the governor, whose room is close to yours," said Lord Dean. "But it isn't a comforting thought to know that the Jackal and his thieves were prowling the grounds while we were peacefully asleep. It is possible that the Chara ought not to have come to Koretia."

"It is possible that you are right, and it is possible that you were right when you told me this back in Emor. I am here now, though, and the best I can do is try to ensure that I do not become the Jackal's next victim." Peter stared reflectively into the air as he swirled the final golden drops of wine in his glass. "I am not going to give up the only room in the palace that allows air in. If the Jackal did not try to kill me last night, I doubt he will try to do so tonight or the night after. But to allay the fears of you and Lord Carle, I will ask the governor to post guards at my door and under the balcony."

"Just be sure that the guards aren't in the pay of the Jackal," said Lord Dean. "The Jackal often does his dirtiest work from within."

Peter put his glass down abruptly and stared at the pitcher. "He failed to succeed in corrupting the governor's new spy, anyway. Whatever this Jackal is, it seems he cannot respect another man's loyalties. If the spy's murder was a message intended for me, I doubt I will have much to say to the Jackal in the future."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dawn had broken by the time I reached John's house. Dodging in between two boys who were carrying an armful of dead hens to a merchant's shop, I made my way to the door and knocked.

Ursula answered my knock. She had a blanket tossed over her body, and I caught a glimpse of her shift under it. I stepped backwards and said stiffly, "I did not mean to wake you and John from your sleep. I will return later."

Ursula shook her head, gazing at me from under sleep-sanded eyelids. "Come in. John will be glad to see you this morning." She held the door open wide. After a moment's hesitation, I stepped in.

The house was empty but for Ursula. She stepped into the sleeping alcove, drew the curtain, and said from behind it, "John has been out since before dawn. We heard a rumor from a neighbor that there had been a murder in the city, so John went to see whether there was any truth to it." Faintly, through the outline of the curtain, I saw her abandon the blanket and reach for clothes. I hastily unshuttered the street window and seated myself there with my back to the curtain.

Ursula emerged soon after, dressed and holding in her hand a pitcher of wine and two cups. "Do you still like wild-berry wine?" she asked. "I've heard that all the Emorians think it tastes like poison."

"I told the governor last night that I disliked it, so that he would not doubt my loyalty as a true Emorian. But while my loyalty is sworn to the Chara, I fear that my body has never agreed to my oath. I hate Emorian winters, and I still love Koretian wine."

Ursula laughed and poured the wine for us before curling herself into the windowseat, opposite to me. Beside us, we could see the early-morning carts rattling over the stone-studded dirt path, on their way to the market.

We watched the city people for a while before Ursula said, "John and I talked once of going to live in Emor. He thought it would be easier for me there – that not so many people would hate me. And I was curious to see what life there was like. But John has his work here, and he wasn't sure it would be any better for me in Emor than it is here."

"He was probably right about that," I said. "Most Emorians hate Koretians just as much as most Koretians hate Emorians. In any case, it would be hard for you to become accustomed to life there."

Ursula tilted her head, a strand of black hair falling over her pale cheek. "Was it hard for you? I know that you love the land now, but you came there as a slave, and that must have made it hard for you to like the Emorians."

I watched with half an eye the familiar tapestry of city life: a small girl accompanying her mother to the market, laden down with a woven blanket that her mother intended to sell there; two small boys challenging each other to a dagger duel, and then looking cautiously around to ensure that adults were standing nearby who would stop them if they fought too hard; an Emorian soldier watching the boys' play with a look of disapproval.

I said, "When the soldier first took me prisoner, I tried to kill him – not only because of what he was doing to me, but because of what he had done to John and my mother. I think I will never hate anyone as much as I hated that soldier. Later I tried to kill the slave-seller to whom the soldier sold me. Then that man sold me to another slave-seller, and I tried to kill one of the seller's assistants. After that— After that, I decided to wait until I was a man and then take my vengeance."

Ursula was listening carefully to me, but she had dipped her head so that her hair covered her eyes. I had carefully kept all bitterness from my voice, but now, staring at her bowed head, I continued more gently, "Then, one day when I was older, I tried to run away from the master I'd been sold to. I was caught and beaten, and I think I would have died from that beating except that the Chara convinced his father to buy me. So my life was saved. About a year ago, I did something foolish that could have cost me my life, and again the Chara came to my rescue. But even if he hadn't done these things, I would remain oath-sworn to Peter because of who he is."

Ursula had gradually raised her head as I spoke. Now her face brightened and her hands burst forth into the air. "I don't think I've ever met anyone like your Chara. At first I thought of him only as a mighty conqueror who had done much harm to Koretia, but he spoke to me as though I were an old acquaintance instead of a common half-Koretian girl. He seemed like any other man I have known when he talked of how hard his life was when he was a boy, and how much your friendship meant to him. It was only later that I remembered he was the ruler of an empire and could execute any man or woman under his care. It was as though I had been talking with a god."

"Emorians don't regard him as a god," I said, "but he is the man who wears the face of the Chara, and that amounts to the same thing in the end. I know that the Koretians think the Emorians are impious because we don't have priests or goat-sacrifices or god-masks. But we do have the laws of Emor, and they are reverenced as much as any god could be. The Chara is the embodiment of the law. His task is to make sure that Emor's law is upheld, and he must do this at any cost, no matter what the pain to him or anyone else. If he went against his duty, it would be a kind of blasphemy to us. And that's hard for Peter, because he isn't a god but just an ordinary man."

Ursula considered this, her face turned to watch the passersby. Then she said with a sudden fierceness, "No one should have to bear that kind of burden. It isn't fair when the gods ask that of men."

So distant was she in her thoughts that I reached out and touched her hand lightly. She turned then with a smile, as though I were a lover calling her name. "But he has you as a friend. At least he isn't lonely."

"I don't know whether he is." I leaned back quickly to my side of the windowseat, keeping my eyes fixed on her. "I suppose I know the Chara as well as anyone does, but even to me he is something of a mystery. He's like the Jackal that way."

"The Jackal." Ursula sighed. "I think the Jackal should just talk to the Chara and bring about peace in that way. They're both wise masters – I'm sure they could find an answer to Koretia's troubles. I told John this once, and he said he doubted that the Chara would be interested in speaking to the Jackal because the Chara believes him to be a rebel rather than a god. But now that I've spoken to the Chara myself, I think John is wrong. I'm sure the Chara would be glad to speak with anyone who wanted to talk with him."

I had a sudden memory of Peter, standing a while before, speaking lightly his words of anger. This image halted my thoughts long enough that, before I could reply to Ursula's words, the door opened and John entered.

He paused at the threshold as he saw me. He was wearing his night-dark tunic again, but as before, he bore no weapon. Slung over his shoulder was his satchel; he turned to hang this on the wall. "You're awake early."

"As are you, it seems," I said. "Ursula told me why you were out."

John glanced my way, and then turned his attention back to the satchel.

"Did you find out whether the rumors were true?" asked Ursula. "Was a man killed last night?"

John walked over to the table nearby and put his fingers lightly on the pitcher, tilting it so that he could see the purple-red liquid inside. "Rumors are still winging their way around the city. It's hard to say what happened."

He did not look up as Ursula came over to his side. But as she placed her cup of wine in front of him, he smiled at her. "I'm very hungry. Do you think you could persuade that crotchety laying hen of yours to give me an egg for my breakfast?"

"I will go whisper pretty words to her," said Ursula. "Some bread is left from yesterday if you'd like that."

As Ursula went into the garden, John walked over to the food box. Ignoring the knife sitting there, he tore off a chunk of bread from the hard loaf and brought it back to the table. He sat down in front of the bread, stared at it, and then picked up Ursula's wine instead and began sipping it.

I started to speak but stopped, going instead to sit opposite him at the table. He did not look up as I seated myself, but he said, "If you've come from the palace, then you already know. Brendon told me when I met him this morning at the market."

"What did Brendon say?" I asked carefully.

John did not seem to notice the phrasing of my response. "No more than what he heard from the supply-keeper. He said that the man was evidently murdered by the Jackal, that he was the governor's spy, that he was a Koretian, and that he had taken the work, not out of greed or disloyalty to Koretia, but because he believed that Emor's rule kept peace in this land." He continued to stare down at the knothole in the rough planks before him as he added, "It isn't my business to ask this of you, but what did the Chara say when he heard of this?"

I was silent a moment, then took the pitcher from next to John and poured myself another cup. "He was very bitter. He said that the Jackal ought to have respected another man's loyalty."

John raised his eyes slowly to meet mine. "Well, then," he said, "the Chara and I are of one mind for once. This murder sickens me, not only for what happened here, but because such things have been happening more and more during the last few months. Have you heard how the riot started in Valouse?"

"No," I said. "The governor doesn't know how it happened."

"Brendon knows; he was there. No Emorians were involved at the start. It was a fight between Koretians, arguing over whether one of the Jackal's recent murders was justified. When I told you things had grown bad in this land, this is what I meant: if these murders don't end, we won't need the Emorians to kill us all, for we will be able to do it ourselves."

"If people are questioning the god's way," I murmured, "then matters are truly bad for Koretia."

John placed his cup on the table with great care. "I am one of those who is questioning the god."

I waited, watching my black-eyed blood brother who could look into the air and see images I had never seen and hear voices that few men had ever heard. Behind us, in the garden, I could hear the faint voice of Ursula as she cooed at the hens. John rose smoothly and unhurriedly, collecting the cup in his palm, and went to stand by the street window, his back facing me.

He said quietly, "The Jackal God issues his commands to the Koretians and says this man should die or that man. It was bad enough when Emorians were dying, some of them good men, but now the god has decreed that friend shall betray friend and brother kill brother. If the god can speak to us to command us, why can't he explain to us what the reasons are for his commands? For I do not understand why the hunting god has chosen to hunt his own people."

I stood up from the table and went over to John. Through the back window I could see Ursula on her knees, leaning over to smile and cluck at a hen. I began to walk in front of John, but something held me back. Standing behind his shoulder, I said, "John, you've always been the one who has visions of the gods, and I can't help you to understand why they act as they do. But Ursula and I were speaking just now of the laws of the Chara and of how they are to the people of Emor what the gods are to the Koretians. So I'm reminded of the one time in which I disobeyed the command of the Chara, and how I almost killed an unarmed man as a result. If the Chara had explained to me the reason for his command, I wouldn't have believed him, for I did not yet know how dark my temper was. The Chara knew better than I did what I should do, and if I had simply trusted him, all would have been well. So perhaps you should accept that the gods know what they are doing when they issue their commands, and trust them."

John stood for a while looking at the street or the gods or nothing – I could not see his eyes. At last he said, "Will you excuse me for a minute?" He went out the back door without looking my way.

After a while I looked through the back window and saw him standing with his back to me, talking to Ursula in the chicken coop. I could not hear what he was saying, but he was evidently telling her of the murder, for her head hung low. Then I saw her nod, and John gathered her into his arms. I turned away.

When John returned to the house, he was alone. He said, "I've decided to go up to the priests' house until this evening. After today, I don't know when I will be able to go there again, for the danger is too great in this city for me to leave Ursula alone any more. I don't want to leave her alone even for this one day, so would you be willing to stay with her until I return tonight? It is much to ask, but you are my blood brother, and I know that you will keep her under your care."

"The Chara has no need of me today, so I will stay," I said. "It is very little to ask from a blood brother. Make your peace with the gods."

o—o—o

Late afternoon light soared lazily through the street window, bounced off the windowseat, and landed assertively on the wooden floor of the house, where it took its rest. I was sitting on one of the benches, having vacated the windowseat in favor of Ursula, who was stretched out there as she mended a gown. She had a tendency, though, to jump up every few minutes and chase a spindle of thread that was trying to make its escape.

She reached over now to grab the spindle, which was teetering hopefully on the edge of the windowseat. As she did so, she asked, "What else did the Chara do for you?"

She had nearly drained me dry of anecdotes about the Chara by now. I ventured further into the dark passage of my memories before saying, "One incident I learned about years after it happened, by way of Lord Carle's free-servant. It occurred a few months before the Chara's enthronement, when he was still Lord Peter. It seems that Peter tried to convince Lord Dean and Lord Carle, who were in charge of arranging the enthronement, that I be allowed to take part in the ceremony as a representative of the palace slaves. Both lords said no, of course, and since they had to give a reason why, they argued that only free-men could attend the enthronement. I suppose they believed that it was too sacred a ritual to be attended by mere slaves, though that didn't keep the High Lord from ordering that the slaves work till dawn three nights in a row to prepare the Court of Judgment and the rest of the palace for the ceremony."

Ursula jerked the gown she was mending to one side, which caused the spindle to jump hastily from the windowseat. Having released her frustration in this manner, Ursula let the spindle lie where it was. "Did the Chara know about this?"

"Not until afterwards; then he was furious. But that's not the end of the tale. Peter was still being tutored by Lord Carle during the previous winter, and Lord Carle asked him, as a final exercise, to prepare a sample proclamation making a major change in the interpretation of the law. The way that such proclamations are written is that the Chara lists firstly his interpretation of the law-structure, which is the base of Emorian law, then the relevant court cases, then his reasons for desiring a change, and only in the end does he announce what change he is making to the law. So Peter was able to read his proclamation all the way to the end, with Lord Carle nodding his agreement the whole way through, before Lord Carle learned that Peter interpreted Emorian law to say that slaves are a category of free-men."

This time the gown slipped to the floor as Ursula bent over and buried her face in her knees to smother her laughter. My own expression remained serious. I waited until her mirth had subsided before I added, "It wasn't so amusing an incident, actually. Lord Carle punished Peter by making him spend a week in his quarters, memorizing a series of unimportant laws."

"But Andrew, just think of what Lord Carle's face must have looked like when he realized that he had been fooled!"

My gaze drifted away from Ursula. I stared at the thread wound tight around the spindle as I said in a detached tone, "I would rather not think about it. If you had ever seen Lord Carle when he was angry, you would understand what I mean."

For a minute, the only sound was a rustle of cloth as Ursula bent down to retrieve the gown. Then she said in a hushed voice, "But the Chara says that the only way to deal with Lord Carle is to keep your sense of humor. He says that, if you can do that, then you find that Lord Carle really is not—"

The rest of her sentence was cut off by a series of thumps at the door. Before I could stop her, Ursula poked her head out the window. She said calmly, "It's a soldier. Perhaps it's a message for you from the palace."

"Do you want me to answer the door, then?"

"Please do," she said. "My Emorian is good enough for me to understand what other people are saying, but my grammar is atrocious. John has always wanted to teach me how to speak properly, but he has never had the time."

I got up and walked toward the door, reflecting, as I did, that we had spent all day talking about me, and I still knew almost nothing about John's wife. Surely, I thought, I ought at least to ask her about her blood kin. She could not take offence at such a question if it came from an Emorian.

I opened the door and was forced to step back hastily as I was nearly hit in the face by the soldier standing there. His flustered look told me that he had merely been preparing to knock louder. He was perhaps forty years of age and wore the blue-border trim of a subcaptain, but he looked as nervous as a suitor meeting his beloved's father as he said, "John the trader?"

"No," I replied with my usual coolness. "My blood brother is out for the day. Would you like to speak to his wife?"

He looked uncertainly from me to Ursula. She, having chosen not to speak, was communicating with a broad and friendly smile. "I'm not sure," the subcaptain said. "The trader said that John was the man I should speak to."

"The trader?"

"A Koretian by the name of Brendon." The subcaptain was still running his eyes over me, obviously trying to ascertain both my land loyalty and my rank. "I met him at the army headquarters; our supply-keeper buys goods through him regularly. I got to talking—" He stopped, and then suddenly gave a sheepish grin that made him look very young. "I got to shouting, actually, about all the ways in which the Koretians are ruining this land. I thought he was going to challenge me to a duel for a while there. Then he suddenly laughed and said that the person I should be speaking to was John the trader – that John was an expert on such matters and could tell me whether my ideas had any worth."

Standing a few feet behind me, Ursula said in Koretian, "Invite him in, Andrew. John always listens to anyone who is troubled with a problem. He wouldn't want us to send the soldier away."

Seeing the subcaptain's blank expression as Ursula spoke, I thought to myself that part of this land's troubles might come from the governor's army officials not knowing the native tongue. I raised my hand in the free-man's greeting and said, "My name is Andrew, and this is Ursula. You are welcome to come in if you would like to wait a while for John. I am not sure how long he will be."

I had made the free-man's greeting without thinking; here in Koretia, even the most snobbish nobleman would hesitate before rejecting such a greeting from a lesser free-man. Already I had forgotten what it was like in my adopted land, and I was momentarily puzzled as the subcaptain began to raise his hand, and then let it fall. I opened my mouth before closing it quickly again. Even in Emor, the question of my rank had never been fully settled, so there was no way I could advise him on this matter.

The subcaptain covered his own confusion by saying as rapidly as he could while I closed the door, "I am Gladius, Subcaptain of the Koretian Army under Captain Malise, lately of the Garrison of Valouse."

Ursula's smile dropped from her face like a leaf torn from its branch by a chill winter wind. The subcaptain noticed this and hesitated on the point of sitting down. I said dryly, "Then you are fortunate that Brendon chose not to challenge you; he is lately of Valouse as well. Please be seated, Subcaptain."

Gladius's gaze remained on Ursula, who had turned away to busy herself with the kitchen items at the far end of the room. "Yes, that was where our argument began. He had only the town dwellers' perspective on what happened; I had only the soldiers' perspective. I suppose that we both came to a better understanding by the end of our conversation. But he was unable to change my mind on one belief: that the Koretians don't have the capacity to rule themselves."

I glanced over at Ursula, who was on her knees digging into the food box, seemingly oblivious to what was being said. "That has been our view for many years," I said. "I fail to see why Brendon would be surprised to hear this from yet another Emorian."

The phrasing of my reply reassured the subcaptain. He lowered his voice and said in a conspiratorial tone, "Yes, but why are the Koretians incapable of ruling themselves? That is the important question. The people of this land are intelligent and brave and hard-working – any fool who has been stationed here more than a year can see that. And there is no truth to the idea that the Koretians are too violent and lawless to keep civil war from breaking out if we left. That may have been the case in the past, but they have learned since then how to rule their passions through use of the law. If the Emorians disappeared tomorrow, the Koretians would still be clamoring to use the courts."

"So what is the problem?" I asked, leaning over the table so that I could hear better Gladius's low voice.

"Who would be High Judge? That is the real problem." Gladius leaned back, satisfied at having brought the first part of his argument to a close. I could imagine him as a court official, carefully delineating the sections of a trial.

Raising his voice to be heard over the clatter of carts making their way home from the closing market, Gladius said, "Let me tell you what happened at Valouse. After that Koretian was murdered a couple of weeks ago – you know all about that, of course? – we had near-riots for three nights in a row, what with Koretians fighting one another over what had happened. We kept having to arrest people, and the town court was clogged with prisoners – not to mention the fact that many soldiers were wounded while making the arrests. Finally, my captain, who is a very wise man, went to the town councilmen and told them that either the Koretians could arrest and try their own prisoners, or the next time a riot occurred, he would treat it as an act of war and would have his troops cut down the offenders on the spot. So what do you think the Koretians did?"

"Leapt with excitement at the chance to have their own court system, I should think," I said, seeing that this was the answer expected of me.

"Of course they did! This is what they have been claiming all along, that they could rule themselves better than we could. Naturally, if that had been true, we would have let them do so long ago. The Koretian courts ought really to be run by Koretians, the Koretian army by Koretians, and so on – that is how the Chara usually rules his dominions. But every time the governor starts making appointments like that, some trouble arises: a Koretian captain refuses to fight in battle unless his units are given a god's blessing, or a Koretian judge transfers a case over to a priest, of all people. Religion always destroys the Koretians' chance to govern themselves."

The sun was beginning to draw its light away from the window. I shifted myself so as to remain in its warmth. "Is that what happened in Valouse?"

Gladius shook his head. "No, we were plagued with a different problem there. Everyone knows of the Koretians' odd ideas about religion, but nobody has thought about the fact that the Koretians have not ruled themselves for fifteen years. They have no knowledge of what it means to rule rather than be ruled. They—"

He checked himself, looked over at Ursula, who was wiping some dishes clean, and lowered his voice again. "Here is what happened in Valouse. First, the town council appointed one of the town dwellers to be the Koretians' town judge. By a miracle, they picked a good man: a ground-poor peasant, but one who had been a Koretian council lord in the old days. These days, he lives by begging, as far as I can tell. I asked him once what happened to his fortune, and he laughed and said that he gave it all away because he did not want the governor thinking he was one of the Jackal's thieves. He is full of odd statements like that, but is otherwise a sound man, and he made a wise judge. But then he had to leave town after several days on business, so the town council appointed a new judge. That one lasted two days, and then he quit. The next one lasted three days, and he quit. Meanwhile, matters were growing worse and worse in town, until the riots finally came, and the captain did as he promised, and now every Koretian says that we are to blame for what happened."

The floor beneath us was beginning to turn ruby-colored under the evening sun. For the first time I noticed that the soldier's dusky tunic had been gashed around his midriff and then sewn up again. A stubborn black stain remained around the edge of this gash, and the tunic bulged with the outlines of what I guessed to be a hidden bandage.

"Why did the Koretian judges quit?" I asked.

"Have you ever been a judge? I have – I was judge of the army court at Valouse, and I had to hand judgment down upon my own men on more than one occasion. Until you have held an appointment like that, you have no idea how hard it is to try your own people and endure their hatred and ridicule if you decide that they deserve punishment. It is easy enough for the Koretians to say that they could do better than the Emorian judges, but once they were given the opportunity, they could not bear the burden that it entails."

An image drifted into my mind of Peter, standing under flickering torchlight with dark circles under his eyes, struggling to retain the dispassionate face of the Chara and judge me without favor. And I remembered how I had been sick with cold loathing at what he was doing and had refused to help him in his lonely task.

"It is a hard role to play," I murmured.

"It is a very hard role, especially that of High Judge. Have you ever read the passage in the law books on the burdens of the Chara? It is enough to make you weep. But someone has to take on the duty, and not a single man in this land exists who has the courage to do so, except maybe—"

He stopped. Those who have worked in the courts know how to use a dramatic pause to their advantage. I noticed that Ursula had been wiping the same plate for several minutes. As for myself, I was quite content to offer the requested prompt. "Who, then?"

The subcaptain suddenly grinned again. "This is the point at which that trader Brendon laughed, and I cannot blame him. I would have laughed too if any Emorian had suggested this to me. But I have thought this through a lot, and I believe that the only man in this land who knows how to be High Judge is the Jackal."

Ursula began moving again, placing the dishes back into a pile, perhaps because it was growing too dim to see them well. I said, "Yes, I imagine your suggestion would cause great mirth among the soldiers. What made you decide this?"

"Well . . ." Gladius leaned forward and lowered his voice again. "I and a few other army officials in Valouse were granted access to a report about how the Jackal's murder took place. I am not permitted to tell you what the report said, but it is a lot like the other stories that have circulated about how the Jackal kills his victims. You have undoubtedly heard a few of those – we all have. Most of my fellow soldiers have no idea what to make of the strange ritual that the Jackal does through whenever he kills a man. The most common explanation is that it is some sort of forbidden religious rite. But what it sounds like to me is a trial."

"A trial . . ." I said slowly, my thoughts going back beyond the episode at Valouse to an incident in my childhood. "You mean a trial by Emorian law, I take it."

Gladius nodded enthusiastically. "You have the judge, the witnesses' evidence for both sides, everything that you would find in an Emorian court. I cannot imagine what gave the Jackal the idea of trying his prisoners in the Emorian manner, but it says something about the man that, even in running a rebellion, he would try to give his enemies some sort of justice. And it says even more, I think, that he would judge one of his own people, as he evidently did in Valouse. It means that he is willing to bear the burden of punishing those who are under his care. That is the sort of man who should be Koretia's High Judge."

Having reached the climax of his argument, he stopped uncertainly as Ursula appeared at his side and placed a cup of wine before him. He looked from the cup to her smiling face and said, in very bad Koretian, "Thank you, madam."

"You are welcome, sir," Ursula replied in equally bad Emorian. "Would like you food also? Are hungry?"

The watchman's call drifted in through the window. Gladius shook his head and drained his cup before rising. "I need to get back to my men," he said to me in Emorian. "I am trying to keep them busy in order to keep them from wandering out into the city and pick fights with the city dwellers. Tell me, sir – do you live in the city, or are you just here on business?"

"I am here on business; my home is Emor."

"Well, then . . ." Gladius, reaching the door I had opened for him, looked over his shoulder at Ursula, who was taking the cup to the back of the room. Looking back at me, he said, "If this trader John is your blood brother, then I suppose that you consider blood-kin ties to be as important as any Koretian does. I am indebted to you for listening to me spout out my theories; now I will be able to keep my mind clear for my work. If your blood brother and his wife should need anything—" He stopped, and then said in a lower voice, "I cannot promise anything, but if there should be a riot, they can go to the army headquarters and use my name to receive entrance. That might save them from the worst."

I leaned against the door. "Subcaptain, if more men like you were stationed in Koretia, I doubt there would be any riots."

Gladius smiled, but said seriously, "I am not as sure about that as you. These Koretians have their own ways of doing things, and I am beginning to doubt that we will ever be able to civilize them to Emorian ways, not in any complete manner. To continue trying to do so might be as unwise as trying to tame a wild dog."

"Or a wild jackal?" I said.

Gladius laughed. "I have never heard of a tame jackal. I respect the rebel-leader, but on my honor as a free-man, each time I hear a new tale about the Jackal, I have to go read a few Emorian laws to purge myself of this land's savage ways. I suppose that only someone who grew up in Koretia could ever be completely at home here." Then he took a second look at me, stopped in confusion, began to give me the free-man's greeting in farewell, stopped again, and finally turned and walked rapidly away.

I leaned against the doorway, feeling the warmth of the evening lulling me to sleep.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was not fire this time. It was darkness deeper than I had ever known. The silence beckoned to me like the whisper of a lover; the blackness caressed me with its hands. No fire here, no blood, no pain – just a serene peace with no price. No price at all except—

It entered the edge of the darkness like a ripple spreading over dark water. At first I tried to ignore it, to concentrate my thoughts on the stillness of the remaining dark. Then I identified the sound: a young woman was crying.

Painfully, like a swimmer rising from the depths, I pulled myself out of my utter-black shelter and lay for a moment, remembering where I was. Then I rose from the bed and pulled back the curtain to the alcove.

The house was now dark with night, but a hearth-fire still scattered a red glow upon the main room. Ursula was standing in front of that fire with her hand stretched forward to touch a mask. She was speaking softly to the mask, and there were sparks of light on her face where the tears had travelled.

She saw me immediately and jerked away, so that the mask fell to the floor, nearly landing in the fire. I walked over and picked up the Jackal's mask, replacing it on its hook as Ursula watched silently.

"I didn't mean to interrupt you," I said. "I suppose that you and John aren't the only ones in this land praying for peace tonight."

"I suppose not," Ursula said in an unsteady voice, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. I wondered whether she expected me to take her into my arms and comfort her.

I turned away and walked over to the window. Pulling back the shutter a crack, I stared out at the street. It was lamp-lit under the shine of the war moon, which was high in the sky.

"What time is it?" I asked. "I didn't mean to sleep so long."

"The watchman called the midnight a little while ago," Ursula replied, going over to pull a twig broom from the corner. "Do you see anything?"

I shook my head and barred the window-shutter once more against intruders. "The city gates will have closed by now. John must have decided to spend the night at the priests' house."

"John is like that," Ursula said, pausing in her sweeping to lean her cheek against the handle of the tall broom. "One time he went to the priests' house for what he said would be an hour, and he ended up spending a week there. I'm used to being alone anyway, since his work takes him away so often."

"He doesn't want you left alone tonight." I considered Ursula as she guided a small pile of dirt toward the edge of the room. We had spent the evening discussing the Chara's palace, and Ursula had plied me with questions about life at my home. I had told her of the inner garden, the Chara sitting in the Court of Judgment, the slave-quarters, the lords who lived in the palace, the Map Room and Council Chamber, and the tiny windows. I was surprised to realize how much I knew about my adopted home, and even more surprised to discover that my memories had a distant feel to them, as though I were describing a foreign land I had once visited.

"Ursula, I'm going to have to take you to the governor's palace tonight," I said. "The Chara is expecting me to return, and we'll be safer in the palace in any case. I'll leave a letter for John in case he arrives back here before we do."

Ursula looked for a moment as though she were going to argue. Then she swallowed her protest. "John has his paper and quill in that box over there. I'll pack some of my things."

I sat on the windowseat, my cheek brushing the shutters, and scribed my letter to John. As I finished, I looked up and found Ursula beside me, a small pack slung over her shoulder. Her face was in shadow to the firelight, and she said nothing. Suddenly, she seated herself next to me and put her hand over mine. "Andrew, there is something I must tell you, now, while John is away."

I quickly extracted my hand from hers and rose. She remained on the windowseat, staring up at me through her dark eyes set in a moon-bright face.

"I don't keep secrets from John," I said. Then I added, "I didn't know that you kept secrets from him."

"Andrew, we all have secrets we cannot tell those we love. John rarely tells me what the gods say to him when he goes to the priests' house, and this is something I could not tell you if John were here. I am one of the Jackal's thieves."

I looked at the delicate creature before me and felt an impulse to smile. But she was watching me soberly, so I said, "Ursula, the Chara is my master. You ought not to have told me this."

"My own master bid me to. The Jackal wishes me to take you to see him tonight. He has a message for the Chara."

I felt the blood suddenly thump through my body in a slow, sickly manner. I said tersely, "The last man who visited the Jackal was murdered."

She smiled then, her pale skin easing back into its usual lines of laughter. "Andrew, I don't even have to ask the Jackal to know that he means you no harm. He wouldn't kill the messenger when he needs so badly to send the message. He sees as well as the Chara does that things cannot continue as they have, with the Jackal fighting the governor, and the governor trying to root the Jackal from his lair. The Jackal won't speak to the governor, but he'll speak to the Chara because he knows that the Chara would rather have peace than war. You are the only way that the Jackal can tell the Chara who he is and what he wants."

I said slowly, "The god would reveal his human face to the Chara?"

"He has said that he will. But he must meet the Chara in order to do so, and you are to arrange the meeting. Will you come with me?"

She was sitting weaponless in front of me, but so strange were the words she was speaking that I felt compelled to ask, "Do I have any choice?"

"The Jackal said that you were not to be brought by force, that you must come willingly. Andrew, I can't bring you on any night but tonight, while John is away. Will you come?"

I walked over to the hearth then and touched the mask of the Jackal. I could go to the Jackal now without asking the Chara's permission, and perhaps bring peace and perhaps bring greater trouble to Peter. Or I could go back to the Chara, leaving Ursula unprotected. Or I could take her with me by force to the governor, and then watch as she was arrested so that she could be tortured into revealing the Jackal's whereabouts. Or I could lie to Peter.

Ursula was waiting, and as I glanced her way I saw that her eyes were filled with uncertainty. A curse rose in my mind against the Jackal, so cold and dispassionate a god that he would put a young woman in danger's way. Yet the same god had said that he would reveal himself to the Chara, and I remembered Peter's questions through the last few days – to John, to Lord Alan, to me. All of those questions had been aimed at discovering what sort of man the Jackal was.

Finally I said, "The Jackal ought to have arranged that I could ask the Chara first what I should do. But the Chara told me today that he wanted me to be his ambassador to the Jackal, so I will take that as his permission, and hope for the best."

Ursula came over to my side and placed her hand on my arm. "You won't regret it, Andrew, I promise you. The god's ways often seem harsh, but he is always right in what he does, and he brings not only peace to this land but also peace to the heart of those who know him. I have found that, no matter how much I suffer in following his commands, it is worth it all to have heard the voice of a god."

o—o—o

A short time later, any gods looking down upon us could have located us winding our way through the dark streets of Koretia's capital.

Ursula guided us faultlessly around the patrols of the city watchman and the governor's soldiers. As a slave I had been taught to move quietly and unobtrusively, but Ursula flowed from one doorway to the next as though she were a night shadow, and my spine began to prickle as I realized that I was indeed in the presence of one of the Jackal's legendary thieves, a creature who could enter locked houses, steal past guarded doors, and murder a nobleman in his chambers while his servants slept nearby.

She still wore no weapon, and I found myself wondering what she would do if we were sighted. Then I started to round a corner before she did. The next moment she had slammed me back into the shadows, hissed, "Stay!" and walked around the same corner herself, singing lightly under her breath.

Startled by the strength of her shove, I stayed in the shadows as I heard a man say, "Ursula, my dear, what are you doing out at this hour? Where is your husband?"

I ventured to peer round the corner and saw Ursula standing with her hands on her hips, merrily looking up into the face of the city watchman. "And where would any man be at this hour, Druce? I have come to drag John away from the Flower and Flame to the bed where he belongs."

The watchman gave a hearty laugh. "At work all day and up all night? That sounds like John the trader to me. I have never seen him when he did not look weary to the death. Here, I will escort you to the tavern, as I think that John is unwise to leave his pretty wife alone when other men may sneak into his bed while he is gone."

Ursula made no protest, but took the arm that the watchman proffered and disappeared into the tavern I had visited that noonday. After a minute the watchman left, and after several minutes Ursula slid out of the doorway and slipped, quick as moonlight, back to where I stood.

"That was lucky," she said under her breath. "The tavern-keeper's daughter there is one of us; she listens in on the conversation of traders like John so that she can obtain information for the Jackal. She told the watchman that John was in the back room."

John's name rose to my lips, but I whispered instead, "How did you learn to lie so well?"

"It isn't easy for me," she replied. "But whenever I'm working for the Jackal it seems as though he's with me, guiding what I do."

She said no more, for we were still in the open street. I silently followed Ursula, taking care not to outpace her again. As we went, I found myself wishing that John were here with us. As Brendon had told the subcaptain, it was John who could best judge what sort of man the Jackal was.

Was the Jackal really a god, as I had always thought? Or was he just a man who used trickery to convince his thieves that he had divine powers? John had heard the gods' voices in his visions and would know in an instant whether the Jackal actually held the god's powers, but what proof should I ask of the rebel-leader?

The tavern was not far from the city wall, and there we stopped, sliding our way down into the ditch. A prickling in my back began once more as Ursula guided me to the shallow hole under the wall. This time I was being mastered, not by fear, but by memory.

The hole had grown smaller since last I encountered it, or so it seemed to me, but I could still wriggle my way through. Ursula caught hold of my hand as we emerged into the shadowed side of the mountain. I followed her as she ducked her way across the governor's flower bed and through the trees, until we had reached the clearing in front of the cave entrance.

She stopped then, sat down abruptly on a flat rock in the clearing, and said in a low but relaxed voice, "We must wait until I see the signal that the Jackal has arrived in his lair."

I glanced at the cave entrance, and then looked back down at the wall we had just emerged from. "I've been through that tunnel before."

"I know. John told me how you used it when you were boys, so I searched it out, and now all of the thieves travel by it when they can't come in through the city gates."

I set aside an unpleasant vision of the thieves shoving a dead body through the tunnel and turned my gaze back to the dark hollow before us. It was the cave, I realized – the Jackal had made his lair in the cave where the Chara Nicholas had hidden his soldiers. The cave was close to the city but not within the regular patrolling ground of the mountainside soldiers – at least, not if the governor's subcommander ordered the patterns of patrolling I had known as a child. So unless the thieves did something to attract the attention of the border guards within the cave, they would not be found.

I asked, "How is it that you've been able to keep your thieves' work from John?"

"If you mean, how do I keep him from suspecting, that's easy enough, for the Jackal only gives me work when John is away on business. But if you mean, how can I stand to keep such a secret from the one I love . . ." She drew up one knee against her body and placed her chin on it. Her eyes were fixed, not on the cave, but on the mountain slopes above. "It was one of John's trader friends who came and told me that the god wished to see me. The Jackal has many traders among his thieves because traders learn what happens in Koretia before anyone else does. John's friend told me that the Jackal had already called John to be one of his thieves, but that John had refused. So, since the Jackal could not have John, he sent his summons to me."

Ursula's eyes remained fixed on the mountain but she hugged the knee closer, as though trying to shut out some pain. "It took me three days to decide. I couldn't imagine lying to John, yet I couldn't imagine refusing the god. Finally I told the trader that I couldn't be sure of what to do until I spoke to the god himself, and the Jackal accepted me into his presence on that condition."

"And is he a god?" I said, finally putting the question to voice.

"I knew that he would be, but if I had had any hidden doubts, they were destroyed when I first saw the Jackal. He was standing there staring at me through his yellow eyes and smiling at me with his terrible teeth, and I knew that it was just a man wearing a mask, but I knew too that it was the god's mask, and that the god himself was there in the room with me. I could feel his power, and it was the power of the Jackal who kills his enemies without mercy and suffers wounds for his servants. I knew at that moment that I was right to come, so I pledged my loyalty to him, and I will always be his thief, in life or beyond death."

My breath hit the back of my throat as I watched her staring outwards, as I had seen John stare many times before, his eyes filled with visions of the gods. But Ursula, I knew, was not the type to see hidden visions. She believed she had seen the god in human form, and soon I would see this man too. For a moment, I lost all thought of the Chara.

Ursula added, "Later I realized that, by serving one of the gods whom John loved so much, I was really remaining loyal to John. It surprised me—" At Ursula's sudden silence, I looked up toward the mountain just in time to see a faint flicker of light, gone at once like a star falling from the sky. Ursula stood and said, "They're waiting for us."

She took my hand and we began travelling, not toward the cave, but toward where the light had flickered. The ground was black with shadows, and once again I lost our track and gave myself over blindly to Ursula's guidance. We wove in and out of trees and bushes, and between rocks, and I stumbled so often that I began to keep my eyes on the ground, seeing only my own feet and Ursula's. After a long while, she stopped. I looked up and saw a door.

My back began to sting again as Ursula opened the door of the gods' house. As we walked into the dark corridor, I caught a glimpse of some figures standing at the other end of the house. Their faces were in shadow, but the moonlight trapped itself on metal that one of the figures was holding. The blade shone for a moment like a piece of the sun.

Ursula tugged at my hand, and she began guiding me through the corridor I would have forgotten long before but for my dream. She reached a door, then hesitated and touched my hand before saying, "He is here."

I stepped into the room alone and heard the door close behind me. My mind was still filled with the vision that Ursula had just given me of her god, but my first impression, as I entered, was that I was here with no god but just an ordinary man. He was sitting on the windowseat, with his legs drawn up and his left arm hanging down loosely by his side. His head was turned to face the view. He looked in every respect like any man whom I had seen in Koretia, but dangling from the fingers of his left hand was the god's mask, with its fierce promise of death or deliverance. I stared a moment at the bright paint on the black cloth. Then my gaze rose from the golden hunting eyes of the thief god to the dark, dispassionate eyes of John.

Blood Vow 6

THE GOD'S LAND

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I suppose that what I ought to have felt was anger and doubt: anger that I had been deceived, and grave doubt that the Jackal was anything more than the human rebel-leader that the Emorians had always thought him to be. For a moment, indeed, unidentified emotions twisted about in me, striving for mastery of my will. I stared at John, sitting quietly on the windowseat, his face as blank of expression as the mask of the Unknowable God. He was watching me steadily through his black eyes which, I told myself, were no god's eyes, but only the eyes of the blood brother with whom I had grown up.

He did not move. And yet, as I watched, his face changed, taking upon itself the mask of the Jackal: the sharp teeth that chewed on the flesh of the dying and dead, the sensitive whiskers, and the hunting god's eyes. John's own eyes were still there, calm and unknowably black, the eyes that had never changed no matter what roles he played in life: the vengeful eyes of the warrior as he prepared to kill the soldier, the loving eyes of the priest as he sought peace from the gods, the watchful eyes of the trader as he listened and weighed in his mind what to do. Now, though, they were surrounded by the golden eyes of the Jackal: the eyes of the God of Vengeance, the eyes of the God of Mercy, and the eyes of the God of Judgment. And I knew in that moment that John's eyes had always been those of the god.

The power Ursula had said she felt was too strong for me to bear. As the mask faded away, leaving only John's face, I addressed not the god but my blood brother: "I knew that you weren't the sort to break a blood vow."

The tremor of a smile passed over John's face and was gone again, as quickly as the wind in a Koretian summer. His eyes remained serious. He gestured with his hand, and as I had done fifteen years before, I came and joined him at the windowseat. He was wearing the same Jackal-black tunic he had worn earlier, and he still bore no weapon.

"Some vows deserve to be broken," he said, "but I have always tried to obey the will of the gods. So when the god summoned me to become his thief, I obeyed; and when the man whose form the Jackal had taken died of old age, the god called to me again and bid me to wear his mask and speak his words. And since then the man named John has been united with the god, and through both my human powers and my godly ones I have striven to bring vengeance or mercy to this land, as is needed."

His voice was as quiet as it had always been, but it sounded through the room like the whispering edge of a wind that can bring down forests. My throat tightened, and I searched John's face, uncertain now of what creature I was seated beside. "I don't understand," I said. "Are you John, or are you the god?"

For a moment he was silent, and through the window came the faint sound of a jackal's howl, nearly lost in the camouflage of the cicadas' chatter. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. "That isn't a question I can answer in words. If you wish, I can show you through the manner in which I speak. Or if you prefer, I can do for you what I do for most people I meet: I can submerge my powers deep within me so that I am nothing more than a man. If all that you want from me is the blood brother you once knew, I can give you that. You need never see the god in me."

The moonlight fell carelessly upon us, and then spilled onto the floor of the sanctuary, broken only by the black outlines of our bodies, falling like death shadows before us. I stared at the floor of the gods' house, remembering a scene two days before, when John had seen my face take on a hard mask he had never known. He had accepted me then for what I had become. I said in a low voice, "I would never ask you to be anything other than what you are, John. Even as a child, you were different. The Chara asked me what kind of man the Jackal was. If only I had thought more clearly, I could have told him."

"I tried to tell him myself, when we spoke." John's gaze drifted back to the still mountainside and the city and the country beyond. "I tried to make him see what danger this land faces, but some things John the trader could not tell him, because these things are known only to the Jackal and the governor and a handful of others. War will come here in days, not weeks or months, and when it comes, every man and woman in this land will either kill or die. I have done my best in the past to allow the people's rage to be channelled into my small thieveries, but now, through my murders, I have brought about a state of fear and hatred so great that every Koretian must choose whether to be loyal to me or to betray me. For my people seek blood, and I have chosen to give it to them."

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as John spoke the words that, a few hours before, he had ascribed to the god whom he could not understand. He turned his head back toward me, and his gentle eyes had not changed, any more than they had changed when he tried to kill the soldier. But as I watched, the black eyes burst into golden flames like those of the Jackal's fire that had once eaten the city.

This, then, was what John had offered to hide from me: this terrible union of godly certainty and strength with human doubts and weakness, a union which had always existed potentially within him and which had now reached its full power.

It is no small terror to find oneself in the company of the hunting god. The only fate worse is to find him embodied in one's childhood friend. I remembered John staring with dark vision at the dagger that had nearly killed the Chara's son, and I said hoarsely, "Jackal, what do you want with the Chara?"

The flames faded, and as they did so, I felt the power that accompanied them disappear from the room like smoke from an absent fire. The Jackal had reined in his powers, the god was now deep inside, and all that sat next to me was a young man who said quietly, "Not his death, I hope. I'm bound by my vow to bring peace to Koretia, but if I can do this without killing the Chara, I will. He is your wine-friend, and even if he weren't, it's better that Koretia should live in harmony with Emor than that we should gain our freedom through bloodshed. That's why I wish to meet with the Chara: so that I can convince him to free this land."

"John," I said tentatively, feeling it easier to address the man than the god, "you're asking me to act as ambassador for the Chara, but you must know that when I return to the Chara, I'll tell him who you are before he ever sees you, and then he may or may not choose to use that information against you. Why have you appeared to me unmasked?"

I waited apprehensively to see whether the weaponless peacemaker I had known would speak further of blood. But he must have decided that his earlier words had been demonstration enough of what he now was, for he said simply, "Andrew, you are my blood brother. I could have appeared to you in the god's mask, as I appeared to Ursula when I wanted to be sure that she would become a thief out of more than love for John the trader. But it seems to me that the time for secrets between us is over. I won't hide any more from you what I am, nor will I command an Emorian in the voice of a Koretian god. I give you the god's command through the request of your blood brother: that you hand the Chara over to me."

A heartbeat's pause followed before I said firmly, "I cannot do that."

"I don't see how you can," he replied. He looked back again at the land outside, grey as ash after a fire. "I can't ask you to choose between your friendship to the Chara and your friendship to me, and yet you must make your choice, for there is no other way that I can meet with the Chara as the Jackal."

"Come with me to the palace," I said. "Come with me and tell the Chara who you are in private. He'll listen to what you have to say."

"And if he doesn't agree to what I want, what then? Will you give witness for me at my trial for my murders? Will you stay beside me as they slowly break my body for my treasonous acts?"

Out on the mountainside, the howl of the hunting jackal cut off abruptly at the same moment that my breath did. I opened my mouth to reply, but already John was saying, "I'm sorry. It's not you I'm angry with, but the Emorians, for infecting this land with their brutal and godless ways. That spy I killed had been too long around the Emorians and refused to believe I held the god's powers – and without some small portion of belief in him, he could not deem that what he saw came from the god. The Chara won't believe in my godly powers either, not unless he is a man very different than I take him to be. And if I am not a god-man, then I am no more than a murderous rebel, a man whom no ruler of any sense would negotiate with. He won't negotiate with me if I come with you, and he won't come to me if you tell him who I am."

I sat with my back stiff against the window jamb. "You misjudge him, John. He may come."

"I can't take the chance, Andrew." Something new and hard had entered into the tone of John's voice. It reminded me of how Peter spoke when he was in judgment. "If you leave here tonight and tell the Chara who I am, and he has me arrested rather than talk with me, then war will come. And when war comes there can be only two ends: either we will kill the Emorians and gain our freedom, or the Emorians will kill the Jackal, and his people will be put to the sword. I can risk my own death, but not the death of this land."

I placed my hands over my face, as I had every morning after dreaming of the death of this city. Then something about John's stillness made me look up. He was watching me carefully, and for the first time his eyes were guarded. I put my mind to what he had said, pursued the unspoken words, and said slowly, "The Jackal won't allow me to leave here and betray him."

"No, I will not. If you cannot serve me, then you must be my captive." He paused and searched my face again, as I had seen the palace slave-keeper search mine before he beat me, in order to decide how much punishment I could bear. Then, in the dispassionate voice of a judge pronouncing sentence, he said, "Ursula knows that you are my blood brother, so she did not think of one thing when she brought you here. The Jackal is always in danger when he makes his lair, either in caves or in taverns or in the empty house of a trader who has gone away on business. But I and my thieves are in greatest danger here, close to the city. The governor is so eager to find the Jackal's lair now that we will not be able to stay here more than a day or two longer, lest the soldiers find us, and when we leave, we will be on the move from then on, for war is close at hand. When we leave, we will take only what we can carry, and when we leave, we will not be able to take prisoners with us."

He turned his head then, and I somehow knew that this time he was not staring out at the land, but escaping the look in my eyes as he spoke his final words.

Had he spoken those words the previous day, I would have felt deathly sickness in my spirit. But since that time I had spoken to the subcaptain, and he had brought together images in my mind that had been separate until then. Now, as I looked at John, I could think only of the Chara as he judged me under the flickering torchlight and spoke the words that cut deeper into him than into me.

When John finally turned back to me with his steady gaze, I said, "That's why you went to the priests' house today."

Something flickered in John's eyes, and the shallow guard he had placed against my next words disappeared, as though he had expected any statement but this. "You told me to trust the god," he said simply. "So I went to the priests' house and spoke to the Unknowable God who had refused to tell me why I must fulfill my blood vow to him by luring and perhaps killing my blood brother. I told him that I would do as he wished, without any questions. And then he gave me the understanding I had sought before. If needs must, I will kill you to save my land, and you will die rather than betray your own land. In doing so, neither of us will break the vows we made to each other. I still love you, and we will always be blood brothers, beyond betrayal and beyond death."

The night was very quiet. Outside the door I could hear a rustle that might have been the thieves, awaiting the results of their master's interview as they had waited the night before and two weeks before that. Down the slope of the mountain I heard the low, muffled boom of the priests' bell as it called the hour. And at the foot of the mountain, past the wild-berry bushes and the golden cave, I could almost hear in my mind the light chatter of Koretians in the city market and tavern.

I said, the words bitter on my tongue, "You are right when you say that I cannot choose between you and Peter, between the Jackal and the Chara. I love you both and will always love you, whatever I do to you or you do to me. But one thing you have said falsely tonight: that I love Emor. I have never loved Emor, only its Chara, and so I will betray the Chara because it will save my land."

Then I hung my head, and for a long while there were no words between us, only John's hand on my arm.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Some time later, I sat in a windowless cell, resting on a thin pallet upon a stone bed. A wooden, candle-lit table stood next to the bed, holding the dinner which had been brought to me but which I had not touched. As I stared blankly at the wall, seeing nothing but darkness ahead of me, a soft knock came at the door. I mumbled something unintelligible. The door opened a crack, and I caught sight of pale skin and dark hair.

I beckoned, and Ursula entered, shutting the door behind her. She seated herself beside me, bit her lip, and then burst out, "I'm so sorry, Andrew."

I looked at her, and some tenderness that she seemed to bring out in me caused me to force a smile and say, "At least I once again know how I love this land, and that's something that I hid from myself for too long. It's good to be home again. I've missed the smell of wild-berries."

Ursula looked at me, and then at my abandoned dinner plate. Without a word, she reached past me to take it and hand it to me.

I bowed my head to her in obedience and forced myself to eat the food. She did not speak until I was finished, when she said, "John and the others have gone into the city to spread word among the thieves there of what will happen. John believes that kidnapping the Chara may itself provoke the war we expect, and he wants his followers to be prepared. He said that you wouldn't be leaving until the morning."

I placed the tin dish back upon the table. "John told me that it would be better to carry this plan out by daylight, when the Chara would be less likely to suspect danger. And I told him that, though I was known in the Chara's palace for my discretion and impenetrable thoughts, I doubted I could deceive the Chara for an entire evening. Peter was my only friend for many years, and he knows me too well."

Ursula sat with her arms hugging her legs. "I wouldn't have wanted to be you, having to choose between blood brother and friend. It's a choice that would have driven some men mad."

"Perhaps it would have, if I'd been forced to make it as a boy." I stared at the corner of the cell where a bit of candlelight had become caught in a spiderweb. "I owe Peter the gift of teaching me to love when it is painful, but I owe this much to my previous slave-master: he taught me to do everything else when it is painful. I feel as though I've been dropped into a bottomless pit, but I felt that during my time as Lord Carle's slave, and I knew then how to do my duty." I closed my eyes; little changed from the darkness I had seen before. I added quietly, "All these years, I've been troubled at night by a dream of the day when I left Koretia. I watch my mother die and my blood brother die, and I lose all my blood kin. Since then, Peter has been my kin, and I may have to watch him die as well. . . . I don't think I'll ever dream my old dream again, but I think this will be a sleepless night in any case."

I felt Ursula stir beside me. Fearing that my words were bringing her pain as well, I opened my eyes and tried to look at her in a reassuring manner. Her usual quick movements were stilled, as they had been during our first exchange, as though she were controlling some deep emotion inside her. She looked quite young, and I reached out to touch her, placing my hand on hers.

She spoke then, very softly. "Andrew, I've had bad dreams about my mother too for many years. Mine are about the manner in which I was begotten, though of course I didn't see it happen. When I wake from these dreams, it has always been a comfort to me to find myself beside John and know that he is there and that I can hold him until I stop being afraid. Would you like me to stay with you tonight?"

She intended to say more, but I jerked my hand away from her at these words and turned to face her on the bed. Startled, she did not speak as I said stiffly, "Ursula, I do not know what you are offering me when you say that. If you are telling me that I may sleep with you tonight as a brother sleeps with his sister, then I thank you. But if that is not what you mean—" She tried then to speak, and I held up my hand to stop her. "If you mean that I should sleep with you as a man sleeps with his lover, then you should know three things. One is that I have come to see you as a friend. The second is that I would not break my blood vow to John by making love to his wife. And the third thing— The third thing is that I could not if I wished to. I am—" I stumbled, looking for the words I would have prepared before, if I had not blinded myself to the necessity of this moment. "I am not capable of loving a woman as a man ought to. That power was taken from me when I was sold into slavery."

I thought at first that I had been too subtle and that I would have to explain further. Then she swallowed hard, and her eyes dropped. I waited, my heart beating, to see what her expression would be when she raised her eyes again. When she looked up, her gaze was as firm as John's, and her voice was gentle.

"Andrew," she said, "you know that the love of a man and his lover isn't the only strong love in this world. You love John, and you love the Chara – they are both your friends, beyond death. Why should you think that it would be any different for women? I have fallen in love and wished to be kissed and to be taken to a marriage-bed. But that isn't how I love you, and the love I have is no less powerful because of this."

I could not speak for a minute. Then I said, "Is it because John is my blood brother that you care for me?"

"Partly." Ursula bowed her head, and her hair fell down so that her face was hidden. She said, "Is it so hard for you to understand? I don't suppose many men can feel friendship toward a woman, but women often feel that way toward a man, whether the man knows it or not. What I feel for you is no different from what you feel for your blood brother."

I reached out and pushed back her dark hair from her eyes. She looked up silently. I asked her, "Is there such a thing as a blood sister?"

A smile trembled on her lips. "I've never heard of such a thing. In any case, I'm afraid of blades."

"Blood vows don't need blood to take place. I like the thought of gaining you as a sister, and if you'd like this as well, I could be your blood brother."

She moved suddenly, as though the great emotion she had been controlling was suddenly released, and her hands flung open in an eager gesture. "Andrew," she said breathlessly, "you've never asked me how I met John."

I waited, wondering what revelation would appear next. Her body swayed to and fro on the bed as she said, "I never knew my father, nor have I ever wanted to meet him, because he raped my mother during the Border Wars. After I was conceived, John found my mother and arranged for her to be cared for by the priests at their house. John cared for her as well, treating her as though she was his own mother. Then, when she died after I was born, he took me under his care, and I was like a younger sister to him. That has never changed." She paused, but I did not say anything, and so she continued, "Since we aren't truly brother and sister, we decided, when he first brought me to live with him in the city, that we must pretend to other people that we were married. So I've played the role of John's wife during this past year, though I've never loved him in that way, nor he me. I—" She hesitated, as though she were entering into dangerous ground, and then said carefully, "I'm capable of love of that sort, but I'm not sure that John is. He's like the priests, who never marry but dedicate their lives to the gods. I think also that his friendships are too powerful to allow him ever to form any other type of bond – especially his friendship with you. He told me several years ago that it was hard for him, not being able to help you when he cared for you so much. He told me—" Her movements stilled gradually, as though she were a fluttering bird that had come to rest on a branch. She said softly, "He said that was his first reason for taking care of me – that since he couldn't help you, he could at least help your sister."

I stared at her as she waited in silence for my reply. My training in silence overruled my voice, and I asked no questions but sat mutely, trying to understand what she had said. Into my mind drifted the image she had just given me, of John reaching out to help Ursula's mother, who had been left half-dead by a soldier. And beside it came a second image that had haunted me for so many years: John lying still next to the body of my mother, who had just been raped.

"She was alive," I whispered. "The soldier tried to kill her, but she lived. The soldier—"

I stopped abruptly. Ursula was once more hugging her knees. She stared at me silently with dark eyes, her pale face fringed with black hair. It was, I saw now, the face of my mother. But it was also the face of the Emorian soldier who had enslaved me.

I realized then why Ursula had not told me before.

I reached forward. As if I had had great practice in holding women, I slipped my arm around her waist and drew her head onto my shoulder. As she relaxed against my body, I whispered softly into her hair, "Sister, I will need courage tomorrow, and since the body supports the spirit, for courage I need sleep. I do not know what time we have left together in this dying land, but tonight, at least, I would like to spend with you."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"You're sure that you know how to do it?" John asked.

The next morning had arrived. Leaving Ursula still sleeping, I had risen from my bed and wandered the corridor until I happened across the outside door. At that moment, a man entered, his eyes narrow and yellow, his face black, his teeth bared in a ferocious grin. Then his hand removed the mask, and I saw the tired face of John, returning at dawn from his night-prowl.

"Have no worries for me," I said, slipping back with no effort into my cold composure. "It has been a while now since I kept my thoughts from Peter, but not so long that I have forgotten how to be his equivocal servant. I know how to tell lies with the truth, and Peter trusts me enough that he will not guess what I am doing. He will not know what is afoot."

John smiled, a tired and somber smile. He slipped his mask into the trader's satchel where he kept it hidden by day. I paused at the threshold to the doorway, and then said quietly, "Thank you for taking care of Ursula for me."

John nodded. "I was wondering when she would get the courage to tell you. I'd tried to convince her that you wouldn't care if her father was a god-cursed demon, but you can see how she's treated in this land. It was hard for her to believe that you would love her despite her beginnings."

"She should not have feared," I said. "I know as well as she does what it is to be half Koretian and half Emorian. As long as the two lands remain at war with each other, those of us who have ties to both lands will always suffer. So we must see whether we can do anything to change that." With no further word, I turned and made my way down the mountainside toward the governor's palace.

o—o—o

I found the Chara alone on the balcony of his room, his eyes on the land before him. The morning sun was bringing sweat to his face and neck, and he had taken off his emblem brooch, perhaps in order to open his tunic to a slight breeze that had slid its way into the city. As I came to stand beside him, he said, "Do you remember when we looked out of Lord Carle's window and talked of the black border mountains? It's odd to see them from the other side and to know that our homeland lies back there." I said nothing, and after a moment Peter's eyes slid over toward me. He said easily, "I couldn't find you last night. I assumed that you must be staying overnight with John."

"John was away on business all last night," I said. "I was with Ursula."

Peter's eyes were suddenly guarded, for no reason that I could understand. But all that he said was, "I suppose I don't have to worry that you were causing trouble in this land by bedding your blood brother's wife."

That he should raise this topic puzzled me, but I knew better than to treat this as the insult it would have been if such words had come from Lord Carle. Deciding that it would be difficult to answer Peter's comment in any honest way, I said directly, "Chara, Ursula took me last night to see an old friend of mine who told me that he had information concerning the Jackal. He declined to send a message to you by me, saying that he must give the information to you himself. He asked me to bring you to see him, but alone and without anyone knowing where we are going."

Peter took this statement in, and then said, in a matter-of-fact manner, "Andrew, I know that you are skilled in diplomacy rather than military matters, but even you must know that such an arrangement usually leads to a trap."

"Chara . . ." My words failed. Then, gripping my courage as though I were plunging a dagger into my own heart, I said with sincerity, "This man was a close friend of mine, and I trust what he says. He explained enough to me that I know why it is he needs secrecy to give you the information you want. I cannot tell you what he said, but I can say this: on my oath as an Emorian, talking to him will not bring you to any harm, and I believe that it will be of help to Emor."

Peter looked once more toward the mountains, as though he were wishing he was back home. After a minute, he said, "Well, I trust you." He spoke the words casually, as though they need hardly be said. Then he added, "But I will wear two daggers, one openly and one in my thigh-pocket, in the manner of spies. You're a good judge of men, but even friends can betray, and I don't trust your old friend not to betray you."

I kept my eyes fixed on the mountainscape at the horizon as I said, "Can you come now? I have made arrangements for him to meet us."

"Yes, now is the appropriate time. The only reason I'm taking this risk – other than because you believe that the risk is worth it – is that I have desperate need of information. I haven't found here what I wish to know, and perhaps this friend of yours will be able to supply me with the information I'm seeking. But let me go first and see whether I can find Lord Carle. Don't worry," he added as I made a slight movement. "I'll say nothing to him of this. I want to make sure that he'll be safely hidden away with the governor this morning and won't notice our absence."

He left me, and I returned to the Chara's room. I found Peter's bony dagger first and set it aside. Then I brought out his leather thigh-pocket, which is hidden by being strapped to the leg under the tunic. I slid my fingers into the narrow confines of his thigh-pocket. The pocket was empty.

I kept the pocket covered with my hand as Peter returned. He paused and said with a smile, "This is like the old days, seeing you bring out my clothes again. My brooch must be around here somewhere. . . . Well, leave it for now. Did you find my thigh-dagger?"

"I have everything ready. Did you speak with Lord Carle?"

Peter shook his head and allowed me to lace on the thigh-pocket without bothering to check it himself. "He is nowhere to be found, but it's of no importance. If we can find the information I need, it won't matter how Lord Carle spends his morning. Thank you," he added, as I clipped his bony dagger to his belt. "You ought to wear a weapon yourself, this once."

"I have little experience in using a blade," I replied. "If we find ourselves in danger, I will borrow one of your daggers."

"And will suddenly learn how to fight, in that case," Peter said. "Fear and love are the two things I know that force a man to learn new skills. Well, lead the way – whether we are going to meet a friend, or an enemy who wishes our deaths, at least we will be together."

I stepped into the corridor, beyond Peter's sight, and used the few seconds before he joined me to control my expression.

o—o—o

When we reached the gods' house, Ursula awaited us outside. Looking only at me, she said, "He's waiting for you in the sanctuary." Then she turned to lead, but Peter stopped her, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. As she looked up, he asked in quiet puzzlement, "How is it that you come to be involved in this matter, Ursula? I wouldn't want to see you harmed. Perhaps you should wait for us in the city."

Ursula made no reply. I hastened to say, "Wait for us at the other end of the house, at least. Then, if we walk into danger, you will have time to take care for yourself."

Ursula met my eyes as she touched my hand briefly before turning to walk to the end of the house where the Jackal's other thieves were hiding.

I took one final look at Peter. He smiled at me with love and reassurance. Then I ushered him in to where John awaited.

John was standing in the middle of the sanctuary, wearing the mask of the Jackal. As Peter saw this, he halted, unsheathing his dagger. I took several steps forward to bring us beyond reach of the doorway; Peter, his eyes on the Jackal, had no choice but to follow. Then I reached out and took the Chara's dagger.

He did not resist my move; he was still watching John. I knew that the only reason he had not yet attacked was because he saw that the Jackal was unarmed. Other men might be in the house, though, and the Chara would know that he must imprison the Jackal before their arrival. As I walked over to the wall next to us, Peter moved his hand to his thigh.

Perplexity crossed his face as he felt the empty pocket. Even then he did not look at me. His gaze fixed on the dangerous man before us, he began to move slowly sideways to aid his friend who had so little experience in wielding a blade.

At that moment, the Jackal spoke softly under his sinister mask: "I am the Jackal. The Chara has said that we could not speak together until I was his prisoner or he was mine. It is for that reason that I have had you brought here."

A soft sound behind us caused Peter to whirl round. In the corridor was a cluster of armed thieves. One of the thieves was in the process of closing the sanctuary door. As he did so, a single figure slipped into the sanctuary. For a moment, Peter's gaze lingered upon Ursula. Then he turned to see what she was watching.

The Jackal stepped forward to me at the wall. I looked at John, watching me silently through the eyeholes of his mask, and handed him the Chara's dagger. Then I looked over at the Chara.

For a moment still, his look of trustfulness lingered, as though he expected me to explain this peculiar behavior. But as the Jackal turned away, he reached up to the mask with no flourish and pulled it away to reveal his face. Peter's gaze travelled from John to me and then, within blinks of the eye, his face grew cold and formal, as it did when he wore the Pendant of Judgment.

He kept his gaze fixed on me for a moment longer as his face returned to normal. John went over to the window and laid the mask and dagger there. Then, dismissing me from his look as though I were of no importance, Peter turned to John and said dispassionately, "Andrew learned in his years with me to serve as a mediator between myself and those who wished to communicate with me. Whatever his motives for bringing me here or the constraints placed upon me by this meeting, he has done me one final service by allowing me the opportunity to speak with the Jackal. He said that you had information for me. If he spoke truly, then I would be interested in hearing it."

Ursula walked over to stand beside me. I placed my arm around her shoulders and pulled her back against my chest.

Neither the Chara nor the Jackal took notice of us. They were standing straight and motionless, as though issuing a challenge to each other. John said, in the same neutral voice that Peter had used, "Most of the Koretian people blame the Chara for all the troubles of this land, but those of us who have had many encounters with Lord Alan know that the governor is as much a trickster as the Jackal. For fifteen years now, Lord Alan has profited through the deaths of men: he arrests Koretian noblemen on slim pretexts, and then he tortures them into offering false confessions that they are my thieves. Once the noblemen have confessed to their supposed crimes, Lord Alan is free to execute them and confiscate their land and goods for his own use."

John paused for a second to sweep the hair back from his eyes. That one small gesture seemed to contain all the proof that the Chara would need that he was dealing with a man rather than a god. Having seen John as both, I could sense how, even at this moment, John's godly powers lay simmering below the surface like a hidden fire. But the Chara had not seen that side of John, and I remembered what the Jackal had said about the Emorians' inability to recognize the god. John was left with only his human wit with which to fight his enemy.

The Jackal concluded, "The governor's brutality and the Chara's outlawing of the gods' law, as well as my own activities, have brought this land to a point of explosion. You can no longer continue to hold this dominion as you have in the past. War will be here at any moment."

The Chara was silent for a while. Ursula had turned her face from what was happening; she rested her head on my chest, her eyes closed. I held her softly against me, my eyes still on the men.

"When Andrew was with me," Peter said slowly, "he may have thought he was privy to all of my thoughts, but he was not. Some facts I kept from him, not out of distrustfulness, but in an effort to protect him. I know the information you have just given me, both the governor's activities and the imminence of war. They are the reasons I travelled here myself, rather than send an ambassador. No time existed to send messengers back and forth; I needed to be here on the spot to find a solution to both problems."

"Give us our freedom," said John succinctly. "That will solve the problems."

"Will it?" Peter continued to stand as motionless as he did when he was sitting in judgment; his face, though, had not returned to stone. I had asked Peter once what he felt when he took on the look of the Chara. He had been quiet a long while. Then he had said, "As though I become someone else." That was all that he had offered, and I had not pressed him further on the matter. I knew better than to prise secrets from him, though I had believed that his secrets from me were few.

Now Peter said, "Will it solve Koretia's problems to return it to the state it was in when Koretia attacked Emor twenty-seven years ago? Koretia had no strong central government; it had been torn apart by civil war; its people had no law courts to turn to in order to settle their grievances peacefully. Many people believe that my father fought against the Koretians for twelve years purely in order to exact vengeance for the destruction of the borderland villages. In fact, many more Emorians died in the Border Wars than were killed in the villages. That incident alone was not reason enough to fight. My father continued to fight because he believed that it was the only way to bring peace, not only to Emor, but to Koretia as well. That peace I am sworn to uphold."

John's hand rested lightly upon his empty belt. With his back to the window, his face was mainly in shadow. "Peace is something we both want, Chara," he said quietly. "But you cannot buy peace by enslaving a land." He hesitated. I remembered him sometimes stopping in childhood as though he were drawing upon his visions of the gods to know what to say. Through the window came the everlasting song of the cicadas, growing louder as the heat of the day grew greater.

John continued, "If you had talked to the Koretians during your visit rather than staying in the governor's palace most of the time, you would know that my people appreciate the benefits of Emorian law. The great strength of Emorian law is that it is rigid and unchanging; the great strength of the gods' law is that it is flexible. The two complement each other – I know that you do not agree with his, for you do not worship the gods and see the benefits of their manner of judgment. But you will never convince the Koretians to live as Emorians. The best you can do for the Koretians is to free us and allow us to retain what is good about Emor, while bringing back what is good about Koretia. Free us, Chara, and you will have true peace in this land."

"It is not that simple," replied Peter. He paused, and I remembered the pauses he would make during dinner conversations and council meetings and other times when he must subtly assess the man speaking in order to determine whether he was a friend or enemy. He continued in his carefully courteous manner, "You say that Koretia can take over her own affairs without dissolving into civil war. As I have said before, that would require a ruler who could work with both Emor and Koretia, and I have not yet found a man in this land whom I would entrust with that task. That is one difficulty."

His eyes slid over toward me, binding me momentarily, so that I lost all awareness of the woman in my arms and felt only the Chara's cold, pitiless scrutiny. Then his gaze travelled back to John. "The other difficulty is one that Andrew may have mentioned – or would have, if his mind had not perhaps been on other matters. I know, from the questions he asked me at the time, that he was researching this matter immediately before we left Emor . . . out of service to me."

Again, that brief, cold look, and then the Chara returned his attention to the Jackal. "I am not entirely a free-man," he said. "I am bound by the law of my people. I may be a tyrant, as you say, but my tyranny is placed under careful restraints by the rules of my land. If this were fifteen years ago, and Koretia had no governor, I could do as I wished in this land. But Koretia has a governor, who receives his orders from the Great Council rather than me. The governor's appointment is for life, and I may not remove him from office except with the council's consent. As long as Koretia is ruled by its governor, I am powerless to make great changes in this land without permission from the Emorian council. And the council will not give me the power to free Koretia. I know, because I asked it to do so."

Ursula suddenly lifted her head to stare at the Chara. John's face did not change; it was as solid as a mask. He said in a detached voice, "You are saying that you want to free Koretia?"

"I wanted the power to do so. Whether I did so depended on whether I could overcome that other difficulty I mentioned. But the council's word is final in this matter. I cannot overrule it without truly becoming the tyrant I am supposed to be."

"Then, since you could not free the Koretians, you came here to find a way to break their will," said John flatly.

"Yes. Or to find another way to free them." As I watched, Peter came to some sort of judgment about John. His expression softened somewhat, and his voice, already courteous, became cordial. "Before deciding to come here, I asked Andrew what he could tell me about his land. He confirmed what I had learned from one of my spies, that the governor is stealing from the Koretians. I knew that if I could uncover evidence that the governor was defying the Chara's orders to treat the people here with mercy, and if I could also show that he had been stealing goods that rightfully belonged to the dominion, then I would be able to have him sentenced to the high doom for disobedience. With his death certain, I would have the power to decide Koretia's fate. So I came here to get that evidence."

"And did you find it?" asked John.

Peter shook his head, and his hand went briefly up to finger his neck-flap. Then, discovering that his emblem brooch was not there, he let his hand fall once more. "No. If he is indeed breaking my commands, he has covered his tracks well. You notice that I did not ask you whether you had the evidence I need. I know that such evidence is in the palace somewhere, in places where even your thieves cannot go. So if you wish to see Koretia free, I can suggest only two solutions: my freedom or my death. Since I have no heir, my death will plunge Emor into civil war, and the Emorian soldiers will have no time to hold Koretia. My freedom may allow me to obtain the information I need to free Koretia – if that is what I decide to do."

John wore a slight smile as he listened to the Chara's candid words. Then his smile faded. "I cannot risk letting you go. I do not trust you enough to be sure that you will free Koretia if you gain the power to do so. As for your death, I have no wish for that to occur. But by tomorrow, the governor and the Koretians will know that you have been kidnapped, and the war here will have begun. We will have to leave here when that happens. And as I already explained to Andrew, we cannot take prisoners with us."

The Chara stood motionless. His expression did not change. In a voice much colder than before, he said, "Then you and I will have to do much thinking this day to find a solution. It is not only my own life that hangs in balance here."

The Jackal nodded. His command, spoken in a softly raised voice, brought two of the thieves into the sanctuary to take the Chara away. As he walked out, Peter passed me without a word; I was still cradling Ursula against me. Peter reached the door, and then hesitated a moment, looking back at us, before allowing himself to be led away.

CHAPTER TWENTY

John waited until Peter and the thieves had left, closing the door behind them. Then he turned, walked rapidly to the window, and laid his palms down on the windowseat, leaning forward as far as he could without falling. Ursula lifted her head again and slipped out of my arms to come over and place her hand on his back. He looked up at her touch and asked, "Will you let me speak with Andrew alone?"

Ursula nodded and left the room, her gaze switching from John to me, as though unsure which brother she should be aiding first. When she was gone, John turned, picked up the Chara's dagger from the windowseat where he had laid it, and stared at it. He said meditatively, "I often think it would be better to be the one under the sentence of death than to be the one doing the sentencing."

"The Chara said something like that to me once," I murmured.

John looked at me silently. Since he made no reply, I asked in a flat voice, "What next?"

"I asked Ursula to leave because I have one more task I wish you to take on." John moved forward to me, the dagger still cradled gently in his hand. "This task is more dangerous than the previous one and may yield no help at all, so feel free to refuse me on this. I'd like you to go back to the palace and take all of the papers you can find that belong to the Chara. They may be of use to us. If you meet anyone, you'll have to devise a tale to explain why the Chara is missing and you are there. It's possible that you'll be arrested."

I smiled humorlessly and shook my head. "As to that, I've been arrested before. I've also been enslaved, beaten, and seen the eyes of the friend I love when he discovered what I'd done to him. At this point, nothing matters except finding a way to free Koretia. If these papers might help, I'll fetch them."

John touched my arm and said with quiet intensity, "Do not give way to despair. I have had to do many times what you have done for the first time today, lure a trusting man to his death. Do not allow the numbness you now feel to conceal from you any dangers. I still have need of your help, and I have no wish to lose a blood brother again."

"I'll be careful," I promised.

o—o—o

Perhaps I would have been, if I had not met Lord Carle.

He came upon me as I was sorting through the small pile of papers in Peter's chamber. The council lord entered the room waving his hand, trying to bat away a Koretian blood-fly that had taken a fancy to him. His face was red and perspiring, and as the blood-fly landed on his neck for a fourth time, he cried out, "If the dog-people who live in this place do not destroy themselves soon, then I pray to the Koretian gods that this land be burnt to the ground! No civilized man should have to live in such a place, where even the Emorian soldiers have acquired so thick a barbarian accent that I suspect their brains have been melted by the heat. It took me five minutes to make myself understood to the guards at this door, though no doubt they let you in immediately, since you appear so at home in this land."

I did not look up. I had found under one of the papers the Chara's emblem brooch. Without thinking why I was doing so, I slipped it into the satchel John had loaned me. In a cool voice I asked, "May I help you, Lord Carle?"

"No, I do not need to talk to the Chara's servant, I need the Chara himself. Fetch your master to me."

"The Chara spoke of walking about the city this morning, but no doubt he will return soon. You may wish to check the governor's library to see whether he is there."

"I have just been with the governor in his library, and I would like the Chara's opinion on the subject we discussed. Why are you not with your master?"

Three weeks before he had asked me the same question, and I had reacted with fury. Now I simply said, "He asked me to sort through his papers while he was gone. If you wish, you may leave a message for him here, where he will see it."

"So that the Jackal's thieves can read through it at their leisure? Do not act the fool, Andrew. Koretian dog though you may be, you are at least loyal to your master and would not do anything that betrayed the Chara to the gutter-washed, mud-eating blood-worms who inhabit this land."

I could blame the heat, which seemed ten times hotter now than it had been in my youth. Whatever the cause, at this mild insult from Lord Carle, which was almost the greatest compliment he had ever paid me, I found myself snatching up the Chara's pen from his desk, clutching it in my hand as though it were a dagger, and shouting, "Koretian dog though I am, I would rather face the high doom against murderers than hear you tell me again what you think of my land!"

The Chara's guards appeared at the doorway, having heard my cry even through the thick corridor door of Peter's chamber. Seeing that I held nothing more dangerous than a pen, they quickly retreated, closing the door behind them. Lord Carle was regarding me with a sideways smile, and at his look, I suddenly felt cold amidst the heat.

"Your land . . ." he said slowly. "Now, this is interesting. I seem to recall that only three days ago you were defending to the death your right to be considered an Emorian, and now you are speaking of this as your land and admitting that you are Koretian. I wonder what this sudden change of loyalties means."

I said nothing, since I could think of nothing that would explain myself. Lord Carle took two steps forward and said in a voice as quiet and deadly as the whisper of a cutting blade, "I find it intriguing that the Chara gives you the right to look through his papers while he is gone, though he has told me on several occasions that he does not wish to inform you of all that he is doing here. But of course he is conveniently missing at the moment, so I cannot ask him about this. Are you sure you do not know where he is?"

"Yes."

Lord Carle's smile broadened. He took another step forward to where I stood paralyzed in my tracks, like a bird confronted by a snake. "I never thought the day would come when you would lie poorly, but your natural talent for deception seems to have abandoned you. Will you tell me where the Chara is, or shall I send you to the governor's dungeon to await your master's return? Or, if the Chara is for some reason delayed, do you wish to tell me the truth of your own free will, or should I ask the governor to have his soldiers demonstrate to you their methods of inquiry? I understand that the torturers here have had much practice on the local population."

I opened my lips to tell some lie, which would no doubt be as transparent a falsehood as my previous one. As I did, I thought suddenly of Peter's look in the moments after John had told him that he must die. And it seemed to me then that if the Chara could face his death with such calm, I could face whatever came from betraying him.

I said to Lord Carle firmly, "I will not tell you where the Chara is. I am Koretian, and I have taken a blood vow."

Lord Carle's smile disappeared like a shaft of sunlight that has been covered by dark clouds. As I saw his rage rise, I wondered whether he would hand me over to the torturers or have his own revenge upon me in this very room. Then he moved, snatching the Chara's pen from me and turning his back on me to lean over the Chara's desk.

I watched with puzzlement as he scribbled words on a piece of paper, then folded it and sealed the wax with his ring. When he turned back with the paper in hand, he had a look on his face that I had not seen for many years: that of a soldier who has met a hated and respected enemy.

He said, "On one of the many occasions in which I was commanded to appear in the Chara's quarters to be rebuked by him for my behavior toward you, the Chara told me that you could not be mastered through fear but only through love. He was kind enough not to add what we both knew: that I have battled with you many times and that you have won every battle, from the moment we met. I would lose this battle if I waged it. With your stubbornness in the face of pain, I doubt that the most skilled of the governor's torturers could wring from you any fact you had determined to remain hidden. So, since the Chara has often told me that he is willing to trust his life to you, I will try his own methods. This letter contains information that may be of great help to the Chara. If you love him, you will deliver it to him."

I reached out slowly and took the paper from him. Lord Carle handed it to me with a jerk, as though throwing food to an unclean animal, and then turned and left me alone with the Chara's papers.

o—o—o

When I returned to the lair of the Jackal, I found him sitting on the floor in the ancient dormitory, holding over a fire an iron basket filled with blackroot nuts, the staple of any Koretian commoner's diet.

I made my way past a handful of thieves, who were munching on nuts and bread; I recognized all of them from the meeting at the tavern. The farmer I had spoken with there was crouched next to John. As I came near, I heard him say in a low voice, "I could try to find him now."

"I need you here."

John's voice was quiet but unbending; he did not look up from the fire. The farmer glanced up at me. Perhaps feeling inhibited by my presence, he replied only, "Well, keep your hands away from the fire. You'll need them as well." He nodded at me as he rose, and then went over to speak with one of the other thieves.

I sat down next to John, dropping the satchel I had carried back with me from the palace. John handed me a bowl of nuts and a cup of ale that were sitting beside him. My eyes travelled from the cooking flame up to the open hole where the smoke was drifting out. "Is that safe?"

"It's very dangerous," John replied. "The smoke can be seen from the city. But it's more dangerous to allow my thieves to go a third day without a warm meal. I sensed the beginnings of a rebellion."

I was silent for a moment before saying, "And you needed a sacrificial fire?"

"Not today." John pulled himself closer to the fire. "I can't afford to make any sacrifices now. It's an aid to prayer only – my most trusted thief has gone missing in the city. I've been praying for his safety."

I pulled my thoughts away from the image of a burning city in order to look at John. He was bowed over the nuts, the heat from the fire bringing sweat to his forehead and causing his dark hair to clamp with moisture. By his feet was the Jackal's mask, and he was still wearing his black tunic, but now on the left side of his belt I could see hanging a sheath and hilt made of gold and bloodstone. The dagger was curved like a crescent moon or a priest's blade.

I said, "John, how can you offer prayer and sacrifice to the god when you're the Jackal? I thought that you were both man and god, joined together."

John pulled the nuts from the basket, hissing softly as he burned his fingers in the process. "You might go further and ask other questions," he said. "Am I still a man, with a man's will, or was my will lost when I took on the god's powers? Why do I fear for my thieves' lives, as well as my own, if I am joined with the Unknowable God who knows all things? Why do I not know how this struggle with the Chara will end?"

I watched John hand the nuts he had cooked to a thief walking by. "What is the answer?"

John picked up a cup beside him and sipped on the ale. The fire-smoke, tingling at my nose, rose to the ceiling, placing a dark haze between us. Drifting through the open windows around us I could smell the scents of a Koretian summer: the sweet-sour wild-berries, the onion-like grass, the sandstone dust. As yet, I could not smell fire from the city.

After a while, John said, "It isn't easy to explain, so let me tell a story instead. There once was a very great master, a master who could see everything that occurred on his estate, and for whom the past and the present and the future were but a single moment. This master had a large number of servants – all free-servants, for the master refused to own slaves.

"One day, the servants fell to quarreling, and they would not listen to the master when he commanded them to be at peace with one another. The master could have punished them all by making them slaves, but because he loved his servants, he decided instead to help them by making a sacrifice. He went to one of the servants – a servant no better than the rest, except that he had tried to be loyal to his master – and he asked whether he could join himself with the servant, so that the master would be part servant and the servant would be part master. In this way, the master could leave the servants free to run their lives as they wished, but at the same time, in his new form he could help to guide the disobedient servants back to peace.

"The servant to whom the master spoke was very afraid. He said to the master, 'What does it mean that we will be joined together? Am I the only servant who is to become a slave? Will I have no choice in what I do because my will is bound to yours?'

"'No,' said the master. 'There will be times when our wills are bound together and you have no choice in what to do, but most of the time you will be just an ordinary servant, and you will have no more powers than any other servant. At such times, you can obey me freely if you wish, and you can disobey me if you wish.'

"And so the servant consented to be joined in this way to the master, and together the master and servant worked to bring peace to the quarreling servants.

"Then, one day, one of the servants disobeyed the master—"

John stopped; his gaze was fixed on the fire before him. Behind us, the thieves spoke quietly with one another as they ate the meal that John had cooked for them.

I said, "Which servant? The one who was joined to the master, or one of the other servants?"

"It doesn't matter." John sipped from his cup without raising his eyes. "It could be any of the servants, but since I'm telling the story, let's say that it was the first servant. Once, while his will was separate from that of the master, the servant disobeyed the direct command of his master and brought about evil. Then the master asked, 'What shall I do? My servant has done great evil, and I do not know how I can join myself with the servant again, for it was his loyalty to me which allowed me to join us in the beginning. Yet if we are disunited, and I take back what I have given him, the servant may fall into despair and die.'

"Now, it so happened that there lived another servant who was friend to the first. This second servant was not aware of what had happened, but he wished to assist his friend in any way that he could. So he spoke to the master and said, 'If my friend is ever in need, take whatever you wish from me so that my friend can be helped.'

"The second servant made this promise at another time than all this was taking place, but the master, for whom past and future are one, saw how he could help the disobedient servant. He warned the second servant, 'The only sacrifice which will help your friend is for you to give up that which is dearest to you.'

"'That does not matter,' said the second servant. 'I will give anything I have to help my friend.'

"And so the master took what was dearest to the second servant and used that sacrifice to help the first servant remain joined to him. And so great was the second servant's sacrifice that the master was also able to use it to help other servants throughout his estate. Thus one servant's sacrifice was used to counterbalance the evil done by many other servants."

John put down his cup as he finished his story, and for a moment I saw the blackness on his left palm. Then John pushed himself back slightly from the fire. His whole face was now covered with sweat.

"Is that a true story?" I asked.

Still, John did not look up. "Yes," he said very softly. "But even if it weren't, it had the potential for truth in the moment that the master chose to allow his servants freedom. There are different versions to the story – perhaps the master used the sacrifice of several servants to help the disobedient servant, just as he used each single sacrifice to help many servants. But the story always begins and ends the same way: with one servant doing evil, and another servant making a sacrifice to counter that evil. And the greatest sacrifice is made by the master, in joining himself to his limited servant."

We were sitting in the midst of the dormitory. Stone foundations for pallets lay along the walls under two windows, one facing north toward the city and one facing south toward the mountainside. Noonday light spilled through both windows, overlapping at the center of the room where John sat. He looked up at me finally, his serious gaze meeting mine. "Perhaps I was wrong when I said that I could not afford to make any more sacrifices. The god has commanded me to keep myself and my thieves safe, but it is hard to say what he will ask of me before this is over. I may need to make another sacrifice before the end."

The farmer stepped past me into the corridor and walked down to where the market-seller stood before a doorway, offering him a cup of ale. As the market-seller took the cup, the farmer turned to face the door, his hand alert on his dagger in case the cell's inhabitant should try to escape.

I asked, "And what about when the master and servant are joined? What is that like?"

When I looked back toward John, I found that he was smiling. "It's hard to describe," he said. "It is a binding, yet in many ways it makes me feel as though I have been given greater freedom than I had before. I lose myself, yet when I return to my own will, I find more of myself than when I left. It makes it easier for me to do hard things."

"How so?" My gaze drifted over to the corridor, where all of the doors remained shut. Then a whisper of metal pulled my attention back to John. He had pulled his curved dagger from its sheath and was holding it before him. Reflections of yellow-red fire danced on the silver blade, which was etched with black jagged lines that looked like the teeth on the Jackal's mask.

Sober-faced, John said, "If it comes about that I must kill the Chara, then it will not be done casually, in the manner of an alley murder. He will be brought to me unbound at first, to signify what is in fact true, that he came to me of his own free will. Then his hands will be bound, and his crimes against the god will be recited. One thief will explain why he must die, while another thief will explain why he must live. And I will be silent all the while. I will be holding this blade, which is the Jackal's blade and can never be used for self-defense, but is used only to execute the enemies of the god. On my heart I will wear the badge of the Unknowable God, who has taken my body and combined master and servant into one, so that I am neither wholly god nor wholly man but simply the Jackal. The Jackal's eyes will look out from the mask and judge, and if the God's Decision is given for death, the Jackal's hand will take the blade and strike the Chara through the heart."

Vaguely I was aware that the other thieves were still speaking around us, taking no notice of our conversation. For a moment longer, John stared at the blade. Then the look in his eyes faded, and he quietly sheathed the dagger, glanced at me, and said, "That makes it easier. Otherwise I would find my role unbearable."

His words were barely finished when a cloth flew into his face. With a splutter and a smile, John pulled the cloth down, saying, "Mind you, some of my thieves are determined that I should always remember the human side of me. What news do you bring, Brendon?"

Grinning, Brendon knelt down on his haunches beside John. "Wipe your face; you look as though you've been dipped in a well." His expression sobered. "None of my news is good, I'm sorry to say. Word of the Chara's disappearance has not yet leaked out to the soldiers, but the governor has ordered his divisions placed in readiness, and we may expect that some time soon they will be sent in search of the Chara. They will be swarming over this mountain before we know it."

"We will know beforehand; you will tell us. It's more likely that the soldiers will search the city first, but that is just as bad, for their search will spark the riots we have feared."

"The Chara hasn't spoken to you again?" said Brendon.

"No, though I've sent word to him that he may speak to me at any time. So, since there seems to be no hope from that quarter, let's see what Andrew here was able to find at the palace." John held out his hand, and I pulled the papers from the satchel, handing him all but one.

John flipped through the papers. "Did any of these appear useful?"

"I didn't have time to read through them completely, but I noticed nothing that might help."

John continued to skim the documents. Without looking up, he said, "And the one you're holding?"

I handed it to him. Placing the other papers to the side, John balanced the folded paper in his hand, looking down at it. "Lord Carle," he said.

"You know his seal?"

"One of the tedious tasks I have is to keep in memory great mountains of trivial information that usually turn out to be of no use at all. Was this with the other papers?"

"Lord Carle gave it to me himself."

John's eyes flicked up. "Did he ask you where the Chara was?"

"Yes. After listening to my lies, he concluded I had betrayed the Chara."

Brendon was motionless beside us. John, his thumb rubbing the surface of the seal with a rhythmic motion, said, "Yet he let you go."

"He said he knew that I wouldn't tell him where the Chara was if I was tortured. He seemed to think it was important that I deliver this message to Peter. He said it would help the Chara."

John looked away from me momentarily. "Brendon," he said.

"I'll alert the lookout," Brendon replied and slipped from his side. A moment later, though I could not see how the word was spread, the thieves had disappeared from the room. John reached back behind him and picked up a dagger. It was the Chara's.

"I hope that you weren't followed," said John, "but I'd intended to give this to you anyway, as it's possible that, some time today, unfriendly visitors will arrive here without warning."

I did not reach out to take the dagger. "I would rather fight with my hands," I said.

"You'll die if you try that. Not all Emorian soldiers are as gentle as the one who enslaved you. And I won't repeat the mistake I made as a boy by leaving you weaponless."

I continued to stare at the dagger. John said softly, "I thought we had already discussed this matter. You are under my care, and you did not break faith with me the last time I gave you a weapon."

"That was your dagger. This one is the Chara's, and before that it was mine. It's the blade with which I tried to kill Lord Carle."

Through John's silence, I could hear no sound from the thieves outside, nor even from the man guarding the Chara's door. Finally John said, "Then this is the true test of your loyalty to the Jackal. I know that you don't trust yourself after what you did to the Chara today. But I trust you, and I will be trusting you with my life if you wear this. I must carry the Jackal's blade throughout today in case I have little time in which to use it. It is forbidden that I carry another weapon at the same time, but I cannot use my dagger to defend myself in battle – it is the god's blade. So I may need your help to stay alive."

I took the Chara's dagger then, stuck it unsheathed under my belt, and looked back at John expectantly. He nodded his thanks, said, "Now to this letter," and broke the seal.

Over the years, I had seen many of Lord Carle's letters. Like Lord Alan, the council lord wrote with great formality. The letter that John read silently and then passed to me was very different.

To the Chara:

I have them.

Carle, Lord

"I would rather he'd written this in code than in plain Emorian," said John. "We'd have a better chance of knowing what he meant."

"'I have them.' Who does he mean – the Jackal's thieves?"

"It would be bold of him to say so in a letter he expected to be read by the Jackal," said John. He looked at me and added, "I'm waiting for you to suggest that Lord Carle has the information the Chara is trying to find."

"I wish I could suggest that," I said, "but you don't know Lord Carle. Peter told me that he hadn't discussed his work here with Lord Dean. He would hardly ask the help of Lord Carle, who wants nothing better than to see all Koretians bound into slavery. When I last met him, Lord Carle was praying to the gods for this land's destruction."

"Even if you're wrong, we can't know for sure what the letter means," said John, and he let the paper fall into the flames.

Brendon appeared at our side, as quietly as though he had slipped through the rocks of the wall. "He doesn't appear to have been followed," he told John, "but it will do no harm for us to stay on alert, now that the Chara has been missed. Shall I keep the others posted?"

"Don't wear them out so much that they tire when the real danger comes. But yes, be ready for the soldiers." John turned his attention to me as Brendon left. My gaze was still on the paper, turning black in the fire.

"Andrew." I looked up at my blood brother's soft word, as though he had lifted my chin with his hand. Looking at me with a fixed gaze, he said, "Andrew, we cannot deliver that message to the Chara. It may be harmless; it may be the way to Koretia's freedom. But it may mean our deaths as well. It may be a way to signal the Chara's rescue. If it were my life alone, I'd brave the chance, but I can't let the others die from my foolishness."

"Yes, of course," I said, my voice neutral, my face without expression. "It is too great a danger. I see that too."

John looked at me a moment longer, his fingers reaching forward to toy with the strap on his mask. Then he said, "You are my blood brother, but you are also now the god's servant. Since you have been in Emor all these years, I think perhaps I should use such words as will be most familiar to you. . . . Let me be clear. The Jackal commands you not to deliver Lord Carle's message to the Chara. Do you understand?"

I allowed my gaze to drop back toward the fire. Finally looking up, I said, "Thank you. That makes it easier."

"I guessed it would," said John, then rose and began collecting the empty bowls.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

That night, I stood with Ursula by the window in the dormitory, looking down upon the city and watching for the first signs of riots.

The war moon cast a blanket of whiteness onto the quiet city streets. The room was lit only by the moonlight since the thieves dared not attract attention to the hideout. Ursula hooked her arm through mine, rested her cheek against my arm, and said abruptly, "I went to see the Chara this afternoon."

I inclined my head to the side so that I could see her face. "Did John ask you to do that?"

"Oh, John is so worried right now that I haven't wanted to bother him. I knew that he wouldn't mind if I visited the Chara. I didn't want to talk about Koretia or Emor with him. I just—" She sighed and started again. "I know that John is hurt by all this, because he respects the Chara and he doesn't wish to grieve you by killing your friend. But he has always been able to pray to the god and ask him for his peace, and that makes it easier for him to master what he feels. It isn't like that for me. I've learned a little from him about keeping inside what I feel, or else I never could have become a thief. But it hurt me too much to think about the Chara sitting in his cell all day, waiting for John to kill him. So I went to the Chara to apologize and to ask him whether I could do anything for him."

The night was warm – unbearably hot, by Emorian standards – but she hugged her arms around herself as though she were cold. I reached over, pulled the blanket off the nearby bed, and draped it over her. My arm lingered on her shoulders as she said, "At first, when I began to talk, I couldn't tell what he was thinking. But by the time that I finished he had a look in his eyes – I can't describe it. It was as though I were to step out of this window and find myself falling into a night sky so black that it had no stars. And when I stopped talking he said nothing except, 'Please leave.' Just like that, very quiet, not at all angry, but almost as though he were afraid. I couldn't figure out what I'd said to frighten him, so I left." She pulled the blanket closer. "How late do you suppose it is?"

"Midnight, perhaps. I think I heard the bell from the priests' house."

"Do you see anything in the city?"

"No. I would expect to see fire first – at least, that is the way it happened last time." My gaze drifted toward the mountainside below us, and I wondered whether any of the trees and bushes were hiding soldiers on their way to kill us. I said, "John ought to have sent you away from here."

"To the city? I'd be no safer there."

"To the priests' house, then, where he and our mother took refuge last time."

"John doesn't believe the priests will be safe this time. He thought it best to keep me by his side."

A small noise startled me. I turned to see that John had slipped into the room and was standing nearby, looking down at the city. One of his hands held the mask, and the other was resting on his dagger hilt, as though he expected something to happen at any moment. But his eyes, when they met mine, were as quiet as ever.

"You look tired," said Ursula. "Trading all day, working with the thieves all night – I've never understood how you do it. You ought to get some rest."

John's eyes drifted back to the city, and I wondered whether he was worrying about his missing thief. But his voice was composed as he said, "Sound advice for the both of you. We will be on the move in a few hours, and our heads will need to be clear after that."

I felt Ursula start against me; then she controlled her first movement and asked in a tremulous voice, "There is news, then?"

John passed his hand over his weary eyes and nodded. "Brendon returned from the palace again. The soldiers have been given orders to set out at dawn. We will have to leave by then."

I put my arm around Ursula, holding her tight. She whispered, "Has the Chara sent word to you?"

"I just went to see the Chara." His eyes slid from Ursula to me. "I told the Chara when we would be leaving. He told me he had nothing new to suggest."

Ursula broke away from me, sat down on the bed, and buried her face in her hands. I could hear no sound from her; she was as still as a hidden bird. John gestured to me with his head, and we went to the far end of the room where Ursula could not hear us.

He waited for me to speak first. Finally I said, "John, when the god fails to speak to you, how do you decide what to say in the Jackal's name?"

John stood in an easy pose, his fingers twirling the mask on its strap. "I step into blackness, as though I were on a night-covered slope of the mountain," he replied, "and then I suffer the consequences if I have taken the wrong step. Whether I'm right or wrong, the thieves trust me because they know that I care for them. There is nothing more that we can demand of each other than love and trust."

I said nothing. After a minute, John added, "I'd like you to stay with Ursula again tonight. I don't expect trouble before we leave, but it's best to be safe. And after we leave, I'd like you to keep her by your side and defend her. I know that you have no great skill with your dagger, but the other thieves are assigned specific tasks, and my duties won't allow me to look after any one thief, no matter how precious she is to me."

"What of yourself?" I asked. "You told me that you couldn't hold another weapon while you wore the Jackal's blade, and that you were depending on me to defend you."

John continued to swing the mask, but his hand shifted on his hilt somewhat, and his eyes drifted past me to Ursula before fixing themselves once more on me.

"When we leave here," he said, "I will no longer be wearing the Jackal's blade."

He left the room. I went and sat on the bed by Ursula, who was looking with dry eyes out on the view. After a minute I touched her and said, "Put your head on my lap. See whether you can get some sleep."

Without looking at me, she followed my suggestion. I sat for a while with my back against the wall and my arm cradled around Ursula's body. Her breathing slowed, and the lines in her face began to ease.

I shifted my arm slightly because it was beginning to stick to her body from the heat's moisture. Ursula murmured in her sleep, and I froze; then, without moving my arms, I leaned my head to the side and wiped my damp cheek against my shrugged-up sleeve. At the moment I did so, I remembered a scene from three months before.

Peter and I had been sitting on the floor by the hearth in his sitting chamber, drinking from a single cup the wall-vine wine I had never learned to like. The evening was still early, but I had built a fire to stave off the chill of the springtime air. Peter leaned back against the reclining couch, tossing his beloved emblem brooch from hand to hand, and describing how Lord Dean had set out on another of his conspiracies to steal power from the Chara. There were, Peter remarked dryly, one or two council lords who took their oaths of loyalty seriously; the rest engaged in periodic sly attacks against the Chara.

In a muffled undertone to Peter's remarks, I heard the High Lord passing in the corridor outside. Ordinarily, I could hear no noise through the thick corridor door, but on this day Lord Dean and Lord Carle were shouting at each other at the top of their lungs. Forcing my thoughts away from Peter's predatory council lords, I reached for my cloak to shield myself from the cold – and at the same moment Peter reached up to wipe the sweat off his forehead. We caught sight of each other's movements and burst into laughter. Then Peter bent forward to stoke up the fire for me while I went over to the shuttered window and opened it wide in order to let in the cool night air. A breeze had been blowing, as it always did in Emor, and I had shivered in the northern air.

Now, as though on cue, I felt a gentle wind enter the room, bringing relief to my sweating body. For a moment, I did nothing except lean my head back against the wall, enjoying the steady breeze. Then the whistle of the wind began to lull my senses, and only a small part of me remained alert enough to recognize the implications of the wind.

Fire weather was over. Koretia's air no longer remained in the stillness that would keep fires from stretching far. The land had fallen captive to the dangerous death wind that could spread fire for miles.

o—o—o

I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew I was no longer in the dormitory but in the sanctuary at the other end of the house. Beside me stood the Jackal, masked and with dagger in hand. He was looking with calm eyes at Peter, who stood before him, unarmed and unmasked but for a mist that prevented me from seeing through to his eyes. Then the Jackal spoke one quiet word, and Peter flinched. The Jackal raised his blade to strike, and in that moment Peter's eyes were uncovered, and I could see the fear in them.

The scene shifted. I was in the Court of Judgment now, looking down from the balcony upon Henry. The Chara sat on his throne, his face cold and rigid; he had just placed his prisoner under the high doom. I saw Henry's head, which he had held erect throughout the trial, slowly bow, as though he were showing either fear or obedience or simply had already died. Then the guards came forward to escort him out, and as he turned I saw that the prisoner was not Henry but John, naked-faced. At that moment he looked up toward me, and I saw his eyes: they were filled with pain.

Once again the scene shifted, and I knew that the Jackal had died. I was standing near the tavern, watching the flames as they came closer to my mother and the Emorian soldier. But the soldier was not the soldier who had enslaved me but the subcaptain I had spoken to the day before, and he was dying as he tried to save Ursula from the flames. And I realized that I was not in Koretia but in Emor, for I heard Lord Dean's voice say in my ear: "If the Chara dies, this land will erupt into a war as terrible as those in Koretia."

Then I was in darkness. I longed to stay there, shielded from the images I had just seen, but I heard words whispering to me: Peter saying, "I can find nothing that will help me to bring peace to that land." John, making the same oath to the Jackal that the god himself had made, "I vow to bring peace to this land." Peter saying, "This is the Chara's oath, sworn to those who receive my peace." And finally, John saying, his voice filled with human pain, "I suppose that the gods always bring peace to those who pray to them, but their ways are mysterious . . ."

Then only silence remained, and the silence seemed to form itself into something tangible in the blackness around me: It was John, quietly judging before he pronounced the words of the Jackal. It was Peter, sitting silently on the Chara's throne of judgment. And a voice spoke, and I knew that it was neither of these men, but someone or something I had never known and would never know, but who knew me. The voice said, "Bring to my servants the mercy of peace."

As his quiet command faded in my mind, I was left with the image I had seen first: Peter, raising his head to look at the upraised dagger of the Jackal.

I knew I had not lifted my eyelids, but I found myself where I had been before, sitting upright in the bed beside Ursula. She still slept, and I could tell that the moon had not moved since I saw it last. Carefully I moved Ursula's head from my lap. She murmured again but did not wake. I left the room, the final words of my vision still echoing in my head.

They were holding him in the windowless cell where Ursula and I had spent the previous night. The thief guarding the cell let me in without any questions, and I stood near the door for a moment, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the candlelight. The Chara stood with his back to me. His forearm was pressed horizontally against the wall, and his head was resting upon his arm, as though he were looking out a window at a view. As the door closed, I saw his spine stiffen, but still he did not move. Finally he turned and leaned back against the wall, folding his arms against his chest. His eyes were guarded, and they seemed in the dim light as dark as my own.

He said in a deceptively light tone, "I have spent today counting spiderwebs. I have not yet come to agree with Lord Carle that Koretia is a maggot-infested land, but there are certainly many spiders here. I counted twenty-four webs."

I made no reply. He added, "I also watched the spiders eating their food, and learned quite a lot about how they trap their victims. I could not think of any other sports to occupy myself with after that. How was your day?"

I walked over to the table and placed on it the emblem brooch. Peter glanced at it, and then turned his gaze back toward me.

"I went to the palace today," I said. Peter remained silent, so I added, "John sent me there to fetch your papers."

"Then I hope that John learned more from them than I did."

I waited, realized that I would once more be forced to speak, and said, "I met Lord Carle."

Something passed over Peter's face then, but he merely said, "Poor Lord Carle. Did you take the opportunity at your final meeting to tell him what you thought of him?"

"He gave me a letter to deliver to you."

Peter smiled then, but it was not the smile I expected to see on his face. His smile was a cold, dark one that brought back the chill of memory to me, though I could not recall where I had seen the smile last. "Knowing Carle," said Peter, "I expect that he wrote something very cryptic that no one except myself would understand. And though I have had little time to get to know your Jackal, he does not strike me as the type of man to routinely pass on letters to prisoners. Moreover, I see that you are holding no letter."

"John burnt it. He said that you must not know the contents."

Peter tilted his head back against the wall, gazing at me with narrowed eyes. "Much as my opinion of you has been forced to change during the past few hours, I find it hard to believe that you have come here for the purpose of placing me under torture of the spirit. Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I wish to give you Lord Carle's message."

Peter's smile faded. His eyes grew darker. He said tersely, "I do not believe I wish to hear the message."

"He said that it might help you."

"Then I can be certain that it would. It might even save my life. If I were under normal conditions, I would consider it my duty as Chara to hear the message, no matter who the messenger was. But just now I am not being rational, and I do not particularly care to hear Carle's message if it is to be delivered by a man who has betrayed his old land and his old master and who now demonstrates that he plans to betray his new land and his new master."

I could not reply; my throat was clogged and my mouth dry. Peter pushed himself off of the wall, balanced himself delicately with one hand against the table, and said, in the same detached, frigid tone, "I had respect for you after you betrayed me. I told myself that this was your native land and that John was your blood brother and that you had a blood vow to fulfill. All of these things came before you ever met me, and I could respect you for returning to your first loyalties. But now I wonder whether loyalty is something you actually understand. You betray me, and then you come here to help me against the orders of the Jackal. I am not sure what you will do next. I see that you have the dagger I gave you – do you plan to kill me? I suppose that John gave the dagger into your keeping – will you kill him? I have reached the conclusion during the past few minutes that you are exactly what Carle told me you were on the day I came to beg him to sell you to me. He said that you were a dog, and worse than his own dog, who at least knew how to love one master. You, he said, were not capable of that type of love; you would lick a hand and then bite it, and do the same with the next master you served and the next. You were, he said – and you will appreciate the depths of his statement – more treacherous even than the Koretians."

I felt myself shaking inwardly, though my body gave no sign of this. I walked blindly back to the door and took hold of the door frame, half turned toward the door, half turned toward Peter, who watched me with unchanging expression. Finally I said, my voice low, "What Lord Carle said is right. I cannot understand what I do – it makes no sense, and it is more barbaric than anything he ever did to me. I heard a voice I thought was the god, telling me to do this. But the gods reward loyalty, not treachery, and so the voice must have been a base and evil demon who was wearing the mask of a god. Still, since I have already lost your friendship and will lose the friendship of John when he learns why I came here, it will do me no further harm to obey that voice and tell you Lord Carle's message, whether you wish to hear it from me or not. Lord Carle said: I have them."

Peter did not move. His voice revealed no thoughts as he said, "I would like to see the Jackal, if I may." Then he turned his back upon me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I found the Jackal in the sanctuary, standing by the window in conversation with Brendon. I waited by the door for a minute, trying to still my inner trembling, until John looked up and said, "I thought I asked you to stay with Ursula."

I walked over to him until I reached the patch of moonlight stretching out from the window. "I went to see the Chara," I said. "He wishes to speak to you."

John held my eyes for a moment. Then he picked up the mask he had laid on the windowseat and said to Brendon quietly, "Please go look after Ursula in her room. And on your way, see that the Chara is brought here to me."

Brendon nodded and left, and I was left alone with the Jackal, his mask now steady in his hands.

He said, "You told him."

"Yes." Though I had not defended myself to Peter, I found myself saying, "John—"

He brushed away my words with a gesture, then laid his hand on my shoulder and said, "I am to blame. It was too much to ask of you – I should have ordered the others to keep you from his cell. There is no need for us to say any more about this."

My eyes fell to the mask. "It was the god I betrayed."

John stepped back and began swinging the mask lightly in his hand. After a while he said, "Perhaps. But I spoke to you unmasked, as the Jackal's servant rather than through the god's own voice; it may be that I was wrong. We will see. In any case, I know that you must have had your reasons for doing what you did, and I doubt it was due to sentimentality or some other weakness."

"I don't know what it was," I replied wearily. "Peter said I was simply treacherous. All I know is that something spoke to me that seemed to care nothing about blood brothers or lands or any other loyalties. It demanded obedience from me."

For the first time, an expression I could not identify passed over John's face. But he had no chance to say anything more, because the door opened and the Chara appeared, escorted by two thieves. John waited until Peter had come to stand near the window and the thieves had left before saying, "What does the message mean?"

"It means," said Peter in his neutral voice, "that Lord Carle has discovered the papers I asked him to find, the papers which prove that the governor was disobeying my orders."

John glanced at me before saying, with no note of accusation in his voice, "That does not sound like something Lord Carle would do, if I have understood rightly what Andrew reports. He said that Lord Carle hates the Koretians more than anything else."

Peter looked over at me and gave a cold smile. In the moonlight, his face looked as grey as the funeral bindings of a corpse or the tunic of one of the Living Dead. "Andrew would hardly know, would he? He has not been witness to my friendship with Carle."

I am not sure what my face revealed at that moment. All I knew was that John looked at me sharply. Relentlessly, Peter continued, with his gaze fixed on me, "Neither Andrew nor any other Koretian is ever likely to encounter Lord Carle's better qualities, and for this reason I have never spoken to Andrew of my friendship with Carle. I intensely dislike Carle's manner of speech, and I am much angered by his behavior toward those whom he considers his inferiors. But he is my most loyal subject and is now the only man whom I trust completely."

The small word "now" was like the slice of a dagger-thigh into my life's blood. I saw, stretched across my memory, the subtle, secret war that Lord Carle had been waging against me all these years. He had finally won.

For a moment more, the Chara continued to smile his council lord's smile – Peter had had many opportunities over the years to learn that smile, I now recognized. Then he looked back at John, and his expression grew serious as he said, "That is why I asked Lord Carle to accompany me on this trip. He shares the governor's opinion of the inhabitants of this land, and he therefore has gained the governor's confidence and received access to parts of the palace where I could not go. But one thing Lord Carle hates more than the Koretians, and that is anyone who disobeys the Chara. For this reason, he has been as eager as I have been to uncover evidence of the governor's treachery, no matter what benefits this might bring to Koretia. Lord Carle has already told me that he will enter a charge against Lord Alan, and that in doing so, he will take the governor out of the council's care and place him under my judgment. He plans to charge the governor with disobedience to the Chara so that I may place Lord Alan under the high doom. I now have the power to free Koretia."

The night was very quiet. Even the soldiers who patrolled the city streets below could not be heard. The wind, still making its deadly way down the mountain and over the city, gently rocked the mask that John held. He said, "And will you?"

"That," said Peter, "is a difficult question for me to answer right now." He turned away, as though he were among friends rather than his captors, and leaned against the window jamb, staring down the mountainside. He said quietly, "I am your prisoner, and you have told me that you intend to kill me soon unless I free Koretia. It is possible that I might go against my true judgment and give you the answer you want so that I could escape execution. As long as I am in your power, neither you nor I nor anyone else can be sure that the answer I give you will be the one the Chara would give or simply something that I, Peter, would say to save my life."

He turned his head slightly so that it faced John. "You have said that you cannot trust me. But unless you trust me enough to free me, I cannot give you my answer."

He turned his attention back to the view. I could no longer see his face.

"Trust . . ." murmured John. He raised his mask slightly, and I wondered whether he would consult the god. Then he let his hand drop, and he said, "I trust Andrew, and Andrew knows whether you are to be trusted. I will leave it to my blood brother to decide."

Peter did not face my way. He continued to stare out the window – not at the city, I now realized, but at the mountains beyond. I said, my voice shaking with emotion and exhaustion, "No doubt the Chara will continue to believe that I am being treacherous, no matter what my answer. So I will not try to determine here to whom I should be loyal, as I have been struggling to do for the past day."

I paused, but Peter remained motionless. John was standing close to me; I kept my gaze focussed away from him and instead stared into the darkness of the sanctuary. "What I think is this," I said, my voice turning flat with dispassion. "The first time Peter spoke to me, I was a Koretian slave, and he spoke to me in friendship. I have never seen him show less care toward the Koretians than he does toward the Emorians. I do not know whether he will free our land, but I trust that he will make the decision he does from love, and you told me—" I turned to John and said, "You told me that there is nothing more that you and your thieves can demand of each other than love and trust. The Chara has shown that he loves this land by risking his life to come to Koretia. I think that you must match his sacrifice by giving him your trust." I looked back at Peter.

Barely audible over the whisper of the wind, John said, "You have heard Andrew. You are free to leave when you wish."

For a moment, Peter did not move. Then, as though he had been bodily released, he slid down the wall and sat with a thump on the windowseat, leaning his head back against the wall. The mask upon his face dissolved, and I saw the tears of my dream.

o—o—o

He said nothing for several minutes, but breathed raggedly, trying to swallow his tears. John and I waited. In the end, Peter's breathing calmed, and he turned his head toward John. "Now I can tell you what I was thinking in my cell in between counting those twenty-four cursed spiderwebs. I was thinking about the other difficulty I mentioned, of finding a Koretian ruler. I told you I knew no one whom I could trust to work with both me and the Koretians, no man who would be loyal to the Koretians' best interests rather than to some narrow view of Koretian independence. That was true until I met the Jackal today. Will the Jackal take over the government so that I can free Koretia?"

My breath catching, I turned my gaze toward John. I saw for a moment a look of shock in his eyes that matched my own. Then his eyes grew quiet again, and he scanned Peter's face, as though looking for something he had not seen before. For the first time that evening, a smile travelled onto John's face, one of his old smiles that transformed his serious expression. Without a word, he turned and walked beyond the patch of moonlight into the darkness of the sanctuary.

When he turned again, it was as though he had been swallowed up by the darkness. All that I could see were three lights: a red light burning from the god-mask badge above his heart, a silver light shining from his dagger, and a gold light glowing from his eyes.

"Oddly enough," he said, "I too have spent the day thinking about this question, because of a conversation Andrew reported to me – a conversation he held with one of the governor's subcaptains. But as I told you not long ago, Chara, it is the god who must answer your question." And he put on the mask.

My eyes were fixed on the Jackal, but I heard the swift intake of Peter's breath as he rose to his feet. The god's power was all around us, surrounding us in its smoky fold, feeding upon us and transforming us through that feeding into something new. Fifteen years before, something had brought forth this power as I stood in the cave looking at Peter. Now it was John's eyes that captured my thoughts.

Then the Jackal reached up and pulled away his mask, as though he had only placed it there to give us warning of his approach. He spoke to us through the body of John, but his voice was that of the god in my vision.

"Place the Koretian people under my care, Chara Peter," he said in a voice more soft than a whisper but more pronounced than a shout. "For the people must be taught one last lesson in how to wear the Pendant of Judgment, and that lesson they must learn from the servant who wears this mask, not the Chara. Thirty-five years ago, as men count time, I took the first steps to give my people into the care of the Chara, that they might learn through his vengeance and mercy what it means to judge. Yet, for to keep the Koretians from enslaving themselves and losing the courage to break their bonds, I have hunted my own people and commanded that brother shall shed the blood of brother. Thus have I suffered for my people and taught them to suffer, for there can be no judgment without sacrifice. And as they have been taught what it is to judge, I have taught you today what it is to be judged, that you need never again wear my pendant in fear."

I heard the Chara breathing heavily beside me. He spoke in a voice low but firm: "Take your people, then, for you are their master."

"I am indeed their master, and they are my servants," said the god with his low, thundering voice. "They are my servants, as you are my servant, wearing my mask and speaking in my voice the laws which I gave to the Emorian people. For I care nothing for blood vows or blade vows to brothers or lands; these I gave to my people only that they might understand the meaning of sacrifice. To mortals who have the eyes to see, there are neither Emorians nor Koretians, but only those who receive peace by being servants of the god."

He was silent again, and we watched and waited, but I did not see the moment when the power left John, for his eyes remained the same.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

John spoke finally in his own voice, saying, "But I will need your help, Chara, for while the god may be all-knowing, his servant John is not, and you will have to teach me what I must do, as a man teaches his younger brother. I thank you for entrusting me with this duty."

Peter gave a sigh like an explosion. His face had gone from grey to moonlight white, and his hand was shaking as he raised it to steady himself against the window jamb. But as I watched, there appeared for the briefest moment the rigid expression I had seen on his face for ten years and had never recognized for what it was. Then the god-mask was gone, and Peter whispered, "Yes," and I knew that he had recognized the truth of the god's words.

He took another deep breath before saying to John, "I could not ask you while you still held me in your power."

There was a pause before John replied. As I looked over at him, I saw that a cautious look had entered his face, and I realized that he too had previously been shielded by the god from the knowledge of what Peter was. Then he smiled and said, "And I could not have accepted your offer had you made it then, so I am glad that I asked Andrew's judgment in this matter. My own would have been different. That is twice I have been wrong and Andrew has been right, and I am beginning to wonder whether the god has been speaking through another man today. But I will go now and let the thieves know what has happened here. Andrew can escort you back to the palace when you are ready."

Peter waited until John was at the door, and then said, in a low voice that barely carried to the end of the hall, "Before I leave, I would like to pay my respects to your wife."

John's smile turned light. "She is not my wife. But I am sure that she will be glad to see you." He closed the door.

Peter stared at me, and I waited to see what he would say, whether he would doom me with further recriminations or give me the mercy of forgiveness. But what he said was, "What did he mean, that she is not his wife?"

"Ursula is not married to John. They have lived as husband and wife to the world, but she is like a sister to him."

"And what is she to you?" Peter asked abruptly.

I stared at him, wondering whether he had guessed who her mother was. Peter went on, his voice turned harsh, "I saw how you held her in this very chamber. I know that you cannot love her in a normal way, but if you have found some way of – of showing love to her and making her love you, then I wish to know this."

It seemed to me that my life could grow no darker than this, that Peter would hate me so much that he would not bother to speak of my betrayal, even to condemn me, but would rebuke me for some small matter. And yet the darkness I found myself in was still the darkness of my vision, so I said to him calmly, with no anger or pain, "She is my sister. Her mother was my mother, and her father was the Emorian soldier who enslaved me. Chara—"

He turned abruptly, looking at the door. He stood very still as he gazed at it, and I sensed that he had forgotten I was there. After a moment, without looking my way, he walked out of the sanctuary.

I remained in the shadows, remembering the darkness that had enclosed me in the vision. Somewhere beyond the darkness, I knew, was severe pain, the pain that I had betrayed the Chara and that he had not forgiven me. If I left this sanctuary, I knew somehow that the darkness would be gone, and I would feel the pain.

I walked over to the window and sat down, then took the Chara's dagger from my belt and held it over my wrist, crossways from the white scar I had made for John so long ago. The dagger tingled in my hand, as it had when I had tried to kill the soldier and Lord Carle and the Koretian in the market. All of these events, I realized, had just been death shadows of the temptation that lay before me. I was tempted, as I had been three times before in my life, to stay in the shadow of the god and share his painless existence. This time I would not be called back from the darkness by Peter's voice speaking to his father in anger or John's voice speaking to me with judgment or Ursula's voice praying to her god for mercy. The only voice that could still send me back from the darkness was the god's, and I listened for his command.

I thought of how I had betrayed the Chara and betrayed the Jackal, of how I had betrayed Emor and betrayed Koretia; I thought of all the pain that awaited me if I once more left this room and faced the light. I waited for the god to explain why he had commanded me to do these things; I waited for him to explain why I should undergo further pain. And then I remembered John's voice as he spoke the god's words, and I knew that the Unknowable God had no need to speak to me, because he had told me all that I desired to know in his final words in this room.

So I went in search of the Chara.

As I slipped into the corridor, I found myself in a maelstrom of excitement as the thieves received the news of their land's freedom. Too well trained to shout, they contented themselves with pounding each other on their backs and throwing their weapons into a silver pile in the corner. John was at the far end of the corridor, talking to Brendon. I walked toward him, and as I passed the main door, I caught a glimpse of the farmer as he disappeared down the mountainside. I could guess that he had finally been given permission to search for the missing thief.

Unnoticed by the joyful thieves, I paused at each cell to look inside. In the background of the thieves' low voices, I could hear John still talking to Brendon – I caught the word "Chara" and then, a little later, "Ursula." Catching sight of me, John gestured with his head toward the closed dormitory door as he pulled Brendon further down the corridor to where the other thieves were waiting, eager to question the Jackal.

I opened the door to the dormitory, and there I found Peter, kissing my sister.

I stood there for a moment, my mind whirling with yet more images from the past few weeks: Peter sitting on his bed next to me, saying, "I want to remove my mask"; Ursula sitting on my bed next to me, saying, "I have fallen in love." Then the lovers looked over and saw me. Ursula glanced back at Peter and read something in his face. Without saying anything to him, she left the room, glancing uncertainly at me as she passed. Peter waited, and it was though I was seeing through his eyes what he must have seen the night he had me brought to him for judgment.

I said, "You did not tell me you loved her."

He replied, in the casual manner he would have in the old days, "I didn't know that she loved me or that she was free to love me. Do I have your consent to marry her?"

I walked over to where he stood, framed against the window facing north. Behind him were the black border mountains, untouched by the moonlight that spilled like snowfall onto the ground. I took too long to reply, for Peter asked, "Do you hate me that much?"

"Hate you?" I stared at Peter.

"For betraying you."

I shook my head, incredulous. "It was I who betrayed you."

A look came into Peter's eyes, the look that had been in his eyes after the Unknowable God spoke to us. He said in a low voice, "I don't know how I could tell anyone of what happened tonight. I don't fully understand what took place. If anything is clear to me, it's that the Power I heard in that sanctuary has commanded me to give him my service, not through the performance of religious rites, but through my proclamation and enforcement of the laws of Emor. This is something I can understand. Therefore, I won't say, as John said, that you were speaking today with the voice of the god, but I will say that you were following a law that is unknown even to the Chara."

Peter reached over and touched me lightly on the arm as he added softly, "You betrayed John and you betrayed me, but you did not betray this higher law – and I never believed that you did. I only said otherwise because I was terrified of dying and even more terrified that I would betray my duty as the Chara to avoid dying. So, to avoid this fear, I hurt my wine-friend. Please forgive me."

I felt as though the hard bonds of diplomacy and silence that I had forged for myself during my years in Emor were breaking around me, and that I would never again be able to hold my heart completely in hiding. "It makes no sense for you to ask my forgiveness, after what I did."

"No. Nor did it make any sense for you to do what you did. But because of you, I am free and Koretia is free and we are able to be friends once more. Whatever this voice of yours is, it is not something that follows logic."

I tried to understand this, gave up, and silently handed the Chara his dagger.

"Thank you," he said as he sheathed it. "And now . . . I have, by some miracle, faced death all this day without sliding to my knees and begging the Jackal for my life, but I swear, Andrew, you will find me kneeling at your feet in the next moment if you don't tell me whether I may marry your sister."

A smile slid easily onto my face, as though it were returning home. "Of course. You are lucky to find each other. But what will the council lords say?"

"The council lords," said Peter dryly, "are apt to be busy picking me apart over my decision to free Koretia. But in any case, they know that I wouldn't enter into any marriage that went against my duties as the Chara. It may take them time to understand how Emor could be benefitted by a common half-Koretian girl, but they will see in the end."

Noise attracted my attention. As I looked out the window, I saw the thieves pouring out of the gods' house, smiling and chatting in voices no longer kept low in fear. Brendon hushed them with his hand, as though to indicate that their work was not yet done. Glancing back, he caught sight of me and waved a farewell at me with his blade. It was an Emorian soldier's sword, John had told me that afternoon – a relic from Brendon's years in the governor's army, which he had joined during the years when he was still seeking his true master.

"Will you take her with you to live in Emor?" I asked.

"She wants to live there – which is fortunate, as I have no choice but to return there. She says that she would like to stay in the palace where you lived for so many years." He paused, and then added, "She knows what your friendship means to me, and so she assumes you'll be returning with us. But I won't ask you to do so, because I know what your answer must be."

I kept my eyes focussed on the dark land beyond the window. "I didn't know what my answer would be until you spoke just now. When did you guess?"

"Twelve years ago, when I first saw you staring at those mountains. I knew then that you would one day return to your homeland. I was grateful to you for staying with me as long as you did."

I turned back to Peter. He was looking at me with the same somber eyes and slight smile he had shown on that day when he learned that I wished to be his friend, when he learned that I was willing to stay with him for a little while more. He said, "There is a Koretian custom – I seem to have heard of it somewhere – that when two friends must be parted, they mix their blood, so that if ever they meet again, they will know each other. Is this a custom that an Emorian may practice?" He unsheathed his dagger and held it out to me.

I shook my head. "We have shared wine already. You have been as close to me as a blood brother for many years. As for our blood, it is neither Emorian nor Koretian, but simply the blood of friends. And soon my sister will be your wife, and I think that we can expect that some day nobody will be asking each other which land they are loyal to, but simply what they are loyal to."

He nodded, letting his dagger-hand drop. His gaze drifted to the door, as though my mention of Ursula had been her voice calling him. "Go to her," I said. "When you're ready, she and I will escort you back to the governor's palace."

Peter shook his head. "I still have work to do before it will be safe to take Ursula there. The governor won't give up his power easily; I may need Carle's help in seeing to Lord Alan's arrest." He began to turn, but paused when he saw me looking at the brooch near his throat, the one I had always thought his father had given him. I felt pressing in the back of my mind a memory I could not identify.

Peter followed the direction of my gaze. "Carle gave it to me the night you and I first talked – one of the few times he has been able to unbend far enough to treat me as something other than his master. I had actually sneaked out of my chamber to go see him, something I'd never done before. Well, I was disappointed in what he had to say, as you know. But I wasn't disappointed in what he was, not since that first evening when he had the courage to defend me to my father."

"You never told me."

"I never told you because I didn't want you to be as envious of him as he is of you."

It was a shock as great as any I had received that night, yet it came, like the others, with a sense of recognition, as though I had always known. I stood there motionless, remembering my talk with Lord Carle that day, and how, even at the moment that I confirmed his dark suspicions by betraying the Chara, he still spoke to me in the words of a defeated soldier. "Why does he envy me?" I asked.

"Because you can treat me as your equal, and he cannot." Peter touched the brooch lightly. "Do you remember how, on that first night, we talked of slave-masks? I fear that Carle will never be able to remove the mask of obedience he has forced himself to wear."

I felt a breeze brush my face as though my own slave-mask had been, if not removed, turned into something I could bear wearing. "Perhaps," I said. "But perhaps Lord Carle can transform his slave-mask into a god-mask. I'll do my part by apologizing to him for my behavior toward him."

"He doesn't deserve an apology," said Peter. "Not after the way he treated you."

"I still feel it's something I should do. Didn't your father say once that you must use the Heart of Mercy on those you hate?"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "And the Jackal demands sacrifices from his servants. Well, as you have said, the ways of the gods are mysterious. Besides" – he gave a quick grin – "to see you apologize to Carle would almost be worth all I have suffered this past night." And the Chara raised his dagger to me in a salute before leaving the room.

But I remained where I was for some time, thinking of the Unknowable God and of his fire that brings both pain and mercy.

o—o—o

When I returned to the sanctuary, I found John sitting where I had seen him fifteen years before, on the day that we were parted. The mask dangled from his fingers. As I sat down opposite him, he said quietly, "I'm glad you're here – I was about to leave. The Jackal must make his final night-prowl to bring the good news to his thieves . . . and to help the Chara bring the governor to justice."

"I was with Peter," I said. "He has forgiven me, and he wishes to marry Ursula."

"I saw Ursula, and she told me both pieces of news. Did you give your consent?"

"Naturally. Though he ought to have asked you. You were the one who raised her."

John smiled and leaned back easily against the window jamb. "I hope their marriage will be good for them. I know that it will be good for our lands." He continued to smile, but something in his eyes made me listen to his words carefully. He said, "Ursula told me that she and the Chara and you are going home soon. If the peace holds, I know that the Chara will be unable to visit here again. Do you think that you ever will?"

I looked toward the city, still peaceful, which would now remain peaceful under the Jackal's rule. Further down the mountainside was the priests' house, where my sister was born and John had sought his god. Below that was the cave where I had first seen Peter, where John and I had become blood brothers, and where, unperceived to me, the Unknowable God had placed me under his care.

"John," I said, "do you think that, amidst your duties as the Jackal, you might have time to help me change the gods' house into a house for us?"

John stayed wordless for a while. Then he said, "I doubt I will be able to spare the time." I looked back at him, and he added, "But the god will no doubt understand if I neglect somewhat my duties toward the land for love of my blood brother. I made a blood vow once for peace, and you have shown me the way to that peace."

I said nothing more; the peace in my heart could find no words.

o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Re-creation ===

RE-CREATION

"Well," said Peter uncertainly, "it looks a bit like a Balance of Judgment."

He glanced over at his new slave-servant to see whether he agreed. Andrew was kneeling on the floor, carefully rolling bits of clay and attaching clay crossbars to them so that they held a vague resemblance to the Sword of Vengeance.

For a moment, Peter thought Andrew would not reply. It was becoming increasingly hard to tell which comments the other boy would reply to. If asked a direct question, Andrew would of course respond; that was part of his training. But slaves were also trained not to speak to free-men unless spoken to, and Peter had not yet figured out a way to convey that he wanted to hold ordinary conversations with his slave.

Could any conversation be ordinary, when the other person had no choice but to speak if bidden to?

Andrew said, without looking up, "I suppose that we'd need an Arpeshian to tell us."

Peter laughed. "And I don't know any Arpeshians. Do you?"

"A couple. They were young children when your grandfather, the Chara Anthony, suppressed the first rebellion in the dominion of Arpesh."

Peter started to make some light-hearted remark about Andrew being well-versed in Emorian history; then he bit his lip. No doubt all of the inhabitants of the palace slave-quarters were well-versed in the parts of Emorian history that related to wars in which the Emorians had taken slaves. Andrew could almost certainly give a detailed account of the Border Wars between Emor and Koretia.

To cover his chagrin, Peter said, "The Balance is hard enough to make." He gave another doubtful look at the object in his hand, made up of scrap bits of metal joined together by sticky sap. "I don't know how we'll manage to make the Book."

"You needn't worry about that." Andrew reached over to gather a bit of clay, and as he did so, his back came into sight. He was wearing a slave's tunic, of course, which meant his back was bare . . . except for the bandages there. "I know how to make books."

"You do?" Peter asked, surprised. He had turned his eyes away; he still could not stand to look at Andrew's back, even though the bandages hid what Lord Carle had done to him, barely a week before.

If Peter had been beaten nearly to death, he thought he would have spent the next six months moaning in his bed. Instead, Andrew seemed determined to rise from his sickbed. Peter wondered whether Andrew believed that he would be sold back to Lord Carle if he did not immediately show his worth to his new master.

Peter would have as soon impaled himself on the Sword of Judgment as give Andrew back to the master who had ordered an eleven-year-old boy to be beaten so harshly. Lord Carle had meant well, no doubt, but Peter still could not imagine why the council lord had found it necessary to go to such measures. As far as Peter could tell, Andrew was an extremely obedient servant.

Perhaps too much so. Peter looked down once more at the pathetic little object in his hand that purported to be the Balance of Judgment. Judgment weighing vengeance and mercy.

"We've forgotten about the Heart of Mercy," he said suddenly.

"I know how to make that too," Andrew replied, inspecting the tip of the clay sword in his hand.

"You're a wonder," Peter said, setting the lopsided Balance aside and rolling over onto his stomach. They were in his chamber, of course, which meant that the only places to sit were some stiff-backed chairs, the bed, and the floor. Andrew seemed to prefer the floor, though Peter had invited him onto the bed each day since the younger boy became his slave. Peter supposed this was due to some Koretian custom; he resolved inwardly to ask Andrew about that. After all, Peter's ostensible reason for having Andrew as his slave was to familiarize himself with his empire's southern dominion of Koretia. Peter's father – who was legally Andrew's owner – had said that mastering Andrew would help Peter learn how to rule his subjects.

"How did you learn to make crafts?" he asked Andrew.

"From a friend."

Peter waited, but no further details emerged. Finally Peter said, "Was he a craftsman?"

"He was a boy. But he lived with the priests, and they trained him at artisan work, in case he should need such work when he grew up and—" Andrew shut his lips tightly. He bowed his head, as though concentrating all his thoughts on the clay he was flattening with his fingers.

Peter felt then that he deserved the beating Andrew had received. A friend. A boy whom Andrew had known in the Koretian capital. Probably the boy had been enslaved during the final battle there, if not killed outright. And Andrew had been forced to speak of him.

To Peter, Chara To Be, son of the ruler who had conquered Andrew's native land.

Peter said the first thing he could think of. "Did you make New Year ornaments in Koretia?"

"No." Andrew looked aside to the blades he had created. "In Koretia, we don't celebrate the giving of the Chara's law."

Peter stopped himself just in time from saying that they did now, in the three years since Koretia became a dominion of the Empire of Emor. Instead he replied, "But you have the same calendar as we do. Your New Year begins when ours does, just after midwinter. Don't you celebrate the New Year in any way?"

"Of course." Andrew carefully ordered the blades on the floor. "We celebrate the creation of the gods' law."

"Oh?" Peter wriggled forward on his belly in order to see Andrew better. The window shutters were closed, since the first snow of the season had arrived overnight. A hearth-fire burned cheerfully in the corner of the room, sending off the spicy smell of sap. Candles, scented with wall-vine juice, burned on the mantelpiece and on the small tables scattered throughout the chamber. Peter had placed a lantern close to the bed where he worked, and another lantern next to Andrew. He supposed that he really should have ordered Andrew to move the lanterns, but Andrew's hands had been full at the time with the materials they needed in order to make their New Year crafts, and it had seemed easier to Peter to move the lanterns himself.

Peter sometimes wondered whether he would ever be a proper noble-boy. It was not that he minded having servants. Different people had to be trained to do different types of work; he accepted that. But at age fourteen, he was just as likely as he had been as a small boy to jump up and help an overburdened servant who was carrying too many objects. His father's patience was close to reaching its limits, he knew. Peter just did not seem to be able to manage the trick of acting in the formal manner of the Chara's heir.

He emitted a little sigh, which Andrew seemed not to notice, for the slave spoke suddenly. He had been staring, all this while, at the shuttered windows, and his eye remained on them as he said, "We bring the outdoors indoors."

Peter looked at him blankly a moment before he retraced their conversation. "Flowers, you mean?"

"And leaves. Leaves and twigs and moss and vines and nuts and bark and berries and earth. We place them in a basket and make a little landscape out of them, using twigs as trees and moss as shrubs. We're creating a tiny Koretia, because the gods created Koretia on the day they gave us their law. Then we place the creation baskets on a table and sing songs. We throw nuts into the fire and make wishes, and then we have our feast."

"You feast on blackroot nuts?" said Peter, scraping his memory for long-ago lessons about the food that commoner Koretians ate.

"Oh, more than that on New Year. We eat meat on that day. My father used to go hunting—" Andrew stopped abruptly, his hand freezing upon the clay blade he was stroking. After a moment, he took his hand away.

"Yes?" prompted Peter. He was practically hanging off the bed now in his eagerness to hear the tale. Andrew was rarely so loquacious.

Andrew darted him a brief look that Peter could not read, then dropped his gaze. "That was before I was born. We never could afford meat when I was growing up. I went hunting one New Year on Capital Mountain with Joh— With another boy. But it started raining heavily, so I came home empty-handed."

Peter thought about this as the wind blew against the shutters, causing the candles to flicker. He knew that a vast feast awaited him tomorrow. His father would take him to the quarters of the Great Council; the council, appropriately enough, was in charge of the festivities on the day celebrating the giving of the law. He would eat suckling pig, roast crane with chicken's claws, hare boiled in raisin wine, baked pheasant, stuffed dormice, hazelnut custard, and (at Peter's request, which the High Lord had indulged for his own, devious reasons) honey cakes.

He wondered suddenly what Andrew would eat. "Do you have New Year celebrations in the slave-quarters?" he asked.

Andrew flicked another of his brief looks at Peter. "I think so."

"You think so? Don't you know?"

"I've never been invited to them."

Peter rested his chin onto the backs of his hands, watching as Andrew painstakingly rolled the remaining clay into a ball. Peter had gathered, from something Lord Carle's free-servant had said, that Andrew was not popular with the other slaves, but Peter had not realized that Andrew's isolation extended as far as ostracism. It seemed intolerable that Andrew should be exiled from his native land, only to find himself exiled from his fellow slaves as well.

"Well, then," said Peter, "we'll have our feast here."

Andrew's gaze flew up and stayed up, fastened upon Peter's face. Peter felt that strange mixture of joy and thrill he always felt when Andrew looked straight at him. It was forbidden for slaves to look directly at free-men. That Andrew was willing to break his training – was willing to trust Peter not to punish him – after he had been so badly punished by his last master . . .

Now fully immersed in the excitement of the moment, Peter said, "We'll do everything. We'll bring the outdoors indoors. We'll make baskets full of Koretia, and we'll toss nuts into the fire, and we'll sing, and we'll have a feast. We'll have a better celebration than they're having in the slave-quarters or the Great Council."

Andrew was breathing deeply now, his gaze still fastened on Peter. After a while he said, "I don't want to sing."

"All right," said Peter, puzzled but agreeable, "we don't have to sing. But the rest . . ."

He looked at the shuttered windows, and his spirits faded. He could not leave this room without his father's permission. And he could not imagine going to his father and saying, "Please let me go gather moss so that my slave can have a proper New Year for once."

But Andrew, it seemed, had already jumped ahead in his thoughts. He pulled himself up into a crouch, saying, "I'll get the materials. I can take them from the inner garden. With your permission," he added belatedly.

"And I'll get the basket and the meat." Peter had no idea how one obtained a basket in the palace, but no doubt his father's free-servant would know. And the meat could be easily obtained; Peter ate meat daily.

Andrew was already on his feet, wiping off the seat of his winter breeches with his hand, and reaching down to tuck his breeches into his winter boots. He had left the floor all a-mess with clay and tiny blades, which Peter supposed he ought to reprimand the slave for. But not for all the law books in the empire would he have destroyed Andrew's apparent eagerness to prepare their private festivities.

Andrew turned toward the door. He ought to have bowed before leaving. He ought to have bowed and asked permission to depart and awaited Peter's word of permission. "Andrew!" cried Peter.

Andrew stopped dead, as though a blade had plunged into his back. He turned. Peter caught a brief glimpse of the fierce, dark expression in his eyes before the slave lowered them. "Lord Peter?" he said formally; his voice was toneless.

"Here." Rising, Peter snatched what he needed off the hook next to his bed. He offered it to Andrew, who looked up. His eyes were now startled. "It's cold outside," Peter said softly.

Andrew reached out slowly, as though in a dream, and took Peter's cloak in his hand. For a moment, it seemed as though he would speak. Then he lowered his eyes, bowed, and left the chamber silently.

o—o—o

Meat, it turned out, was not so easy to obtain that day as Peter had anticipated.

His father's free-servant, upon being consulted, had coldly informed Peter that the cooking servants were busy preparing meals for the following day. But they would, of course, stop their work at once if the Chara's son asked them to. . . . Drogo's voice grew still colder.

"No, of course not," Peter said hastily as the free-servant refilled his water pitcher. "I will wait for supper. What is the dish today?" He could, he supposed, divide his meal with Andrew; he had done that more than once when Andrew was still bedridden from his beating.

"Date salad," said Drogo, snuffing out Peter's hopes. "Unless, of course, the Chara's son would prefer another dish? In between my duties to the Chara, I would be glad to make a special effort to—"

"No, not at all." Peter turned away before Drogo should give another of his self-sacrificial speeches. If it were Andrew, Peter could have asked the favor of him, but Andrew only had access to the slaves' kitchen, and slaves were not permitted meat except on feast-days. By tomorrow, it would be too late; Peter would be busy with his own duties as Chara To Be.

For a while after Drogo left, Peter sat on his bed, contemplating the situation. The only other person he could think to consult was his father, but his father had been busy talking all afternoon to Lord Carle, and now the two men had left together to visit the Map Room. Peter had hoped that Lord Carle would stop by to give his greetings, but the council lord had evidently been too busy for that. The council lord would not even be attending the New Year festivities of the Great Council tomorrow, the Chara had told Peter; Lord Carle was going to his country home for several days of rest before he resumed his onerous duties.

Peter frowned as he stared at his law books, which he had abandoned on the writing table when Andrew had brought in the scraps of metal and clay and asked, in his abrupt manner, whether Peter wanted to make New Year ornaments. Peter was used to free-servants giving him New Year gifts they bought with their small savings: winter flowers and dried tree-fruit and once, from Lord Carle's free-servant, an expensive bag of Daxion nuts, which Peter suspected had been paid for by Lord Carle himself. Peter was not used to a servant bringing him materials with which he was expected to make ornaments of his own, in the manner of the most lowly slave in the palace.

It was the best gift he had ever received in his life. It had taken all his effort to remember that Andrew's back was still healing from his beating; otherwise, Peter would have embraced him on the spot.

No doubt Peter would receive a reprimand from his father tomorrow or the day after, for neglecting his studies today. What worried Peter more was that he had no gift to give Andrew.

What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing? Traditionally, the Chara's gift to the palace servants at New Year was a day off from work, for the festivity celebrations were handled by specially hired free-servants. The palace servants also received permission to organize their own celebrations, using previously authorized food from the kitchens.

That was the Chara's gift, but the Chara's son had nothing to give his slave. Food, yes, time off from work, yes – but Peter was already giving as much of that to Andrew as he could possibly hope to hide from his father. And whatever he gave would be trifling compared to what Andrew had given him: a chance to act like a normal boy for an entire day.

He fingered the misshapen Balance in his lap. Something he had created with his own hands, without a servant at his elbow, offering to do the work for him. Andrew had not even passed him the sap until he asked for it. Peter was as proud of the handcrafted Balance as if it were his first proclamation as Chara.

He stood up, walked over to the hearth, and spent the next few minutes arranging the Balance and the clay blades on the mantelpiece. He had forgotten to ask Andrew how to make the Heart of Mercy, as well as miniature versions of the books in which the Chara's law was scribed. It was of no matter. The Balance and the Sword would do for now. And he had more to anticipate.

Grasping the tapestry on the wall in order to pull himself up, he stood upon a chair, opened one of the shutters, and gasped as the cold wind slapped against his face, accompanied by flakes of snow that stung and numbed his cheeks. The windows were near the ceiling, and were narrow in height, in order to prevent intruders from entering, but Peter could see into the inner garden through the murky afternoon light of the snow-laden sky.

The inner garden was a bare lawn, with shrubs and flowerbeds now heavy with snow. It was easy to sight Andrew in his black cloak; he was the only person in the chilly garden, other than the guards at the doorways leading from the garden to the rest of the palace. Andrew was on his knees, scraping away at the snow with his bare hand. Peter realized, with a stab of guilt, that he had sent his servant out to gather moss and twigs in a snowstorm.

There was nothing he could do, though; Andrew was too far away to hear if Peter shouted. Peter closed the shutter, climbed down from the chair, and returned his mind to his half of the tasks.

Meat . . . Perhaps Andrew could find a solution to that. The basket was another problem. Drogo had greeted Peter's enquiry by raising his eyebrow and saying that there were no doubt baskets somewhere in the palace "if the Chara's son should wish me to search for them." Peter had resisted an impulse to throw the water pitcher at Drogo. Instead, he now began searching his room, trying to find something that could be used as a basket. There was the water basin, of course, but it was made of silver, and silver came from deep in the mines. He needed something that was made of a material that could be found outdoors. Wood, perhaps? The chairs were made of solid wood, too thick to tear apart, and in any case, he could just imagine what the Chara would say if he found Peter dismembering a valuable chair.

His eye fell on the pieces of paper sitting next to the books on the table, where he had been scribing notes to himself.

It took him until the final trumpet of daylight to finish making the creation basket, partly because it had occurred to him that the basket would be more beautiful if it were decorated. So he had taken up his pen, dipped it in ink, and drawn a decoration that he hoped resembled the swirly vine patterns he had seen on the tunics of visiting lords from Koretia. At the last moment, on impulse, he had added masks on the borders of the paper. He and Andrew had held a conversation about masks just a few days before, at midwinter's eve, when he had happened across Andrew staring out a window that faced south. Peter seemed to recall that masks were connected in some way with the Koretian religion. He had no idea what Koretian masks looked like, so he inked them all in as solid black. Then he set about trying to paste the papers together with sap in such a way that they formed a basket.

He was not very successful. Part of the problem was that he had no blade with which to cut strips of paper. His father had promised that the Chara's heir would begin his lessons in bladeplay as soon as the weather grew warm, which would be not long after Peter's fifteenth birthday. But not until his coming of age at his sixteenth birthday, he knew, would he be permitted to actually own a free-man's blade. Every man in the palace wore a blade on ceremonial occasions, except for the slave-men and, of course, the eunuchs. But the eunuchs were not men at all – rather, they were half man, half woman. Peter avoided them as much as possible, not knowing what to say to such oddly mixed creatures.

His craftwork looked more like a very fat ship than a basket. It had a pointy bow and a long, flat stern. It looked utterly unseaworthy. Peter put his chin on his fist and contemplated the results. He supposed that, if he had more practice at this sort of thing, he would be better at it, but that did not change the fact that the basket looked ugly.

Not at all a decent present to give to Andrew. Peter sighed.

His head jerked up as he heard a sound in the corridor, but it was only his father, returning from the Map Room. His father paused to speak briefly to the guards outside the Chara's living quarters, and Peter waited, half hopeful and half dreading, to see whether the Chara would stop next door to check on his son. But a moment later came a familiar thud as the door to the Chara's living quarters closed.

Peter sighed again. There were times – many times – when he wished he had not been born as heir to an empire. If he had been any other boy, he could be spending this festal eve playing with children his age, rather than sitting alone in his chamber, feeling guilty because he had not read a law book in three hours. He looked again at the basket and wondered whether he should tear it up before Andrew arrived back.

The decision was taken from him as Andrew slid silently into the chamber. Peter was never quite sure how Andrew managed to get past the guards, who were supposed to challenge anyone entering Peter's quarters, even if only for form's sake. The guards were just a couple of spear-lengths away, guarding his father's quarters next door, so they ought to see anyone who approached Peter's chamber. Yet somehow, Andrew always managed to slip in, unheralded by even a knock.

Now he was holding something under the cloak. He produced it silently: a wooden bucket full of objects. Peter looked at the bucket, feeling his throat ache. A bucket – of course, he should have asked Drogo for a bucket made of wood. Why had he wasted his time making a useless, ugly basket out of paper?

Stepping to the side, in hopes that Andrew would not see the mess on the table, he asked, "How did you manage to find anything out there? Everything is buried under snow."

"In Emor, anything worth getting is buried." Andrew walked past Peter before Peter had the wits to realize that Andrew had just made a joke. He so rarely did that; his jokes would blossom unexpectedly like bright flowers in an otherwise arid desert.

"Like you," Peter said, trying to return the joke.

Andrew turned and gave him a look that was deeper than a well. "Like me," he agreed. "Buried, cold . . . dead."

Peter felt a shiver crawl over him, like wet slime. "Not dead," he responded in a voice that was almost an entreaty. "Alive and whole."

Andrew's gaze lingered on him for a moment; then the slave turned away. Kneeling down, Andrew began to inspect the contents of the bucket, asking, "Did you find a basket?"

Peter said hesitantly, "That bucket won't do?"

"It's too deep. We need something more shallow."

Peter looked again at his efforts. The basket was certainly shallow. It was falling to pieces, but it was shallow. He cleared his throat. "I have something we could use. It's not very good, though. It will probably crumple the moment we pour in the earth . . ."

His voice faded. Andrew had risen and turned and was staring at the basket. He walked slowly forward and gazed down at it. Peter tried to think of an apology he could make that would not sound like a plea for pity.

Andrew asked softly, "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That the baskets are made of paper. That they're made the same shape as Koretia."

Now it was Peter's turn to stare at the basket. The basket sat there, waiting for him to notice the obvious. Not the shape of a fat ship, no – the basket was in the shape of the dominion of Koretia. The shape of a triangular mask.

"The baskets are made of paper?" he said finally.

"Yes, the ones made by the rich. If you're a commoner, you make the baskets of whatever is available: twigs, roots, grass, leaves . . . But the rich make their baskets from paper. I always wondered what the paper baskets looked like." He reached out, as though to touch the basket, then hastily drew his hand back. "Would you like me to make your creation basket, Lord Peter, or would you prefer to make it yourself?"

"You do it. I'll watch, so that I know how to do it next time." He tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. For a moment there, he had thought he had finally found the right gift for Andrew. But Andrew evidently believed that the basket could not be for him, since it was made of paper, and in a certain sense he was right. Whatever the basket was made of, it would have to stay in Peter's chamber, for Andrew would not be allowed to keep belongings in the slave-quarters.

No, Peter could not give Andrew an object for a gift. But if not an object, then what?

o—o—o

It was Andrew who found the solution to the problem of the paper falling apart, of course. He dug into the chest in which Peter kept all his most special treasures, and which even Drogo was not permitted to open. Peter had shown the contents of the chest to Andrew on the first day of his service in this chamber: Peter's copy of The Law-Structure and the Division of Powers, given to him by his much-beloved aunt before she and his not-so-agreeable uncle and cousin moved to the Central Provinces of Emor; a portrait of his mother, whom he had never known, because she had died when he was born; the royal emblem brooch that Lord Carle had given him just that month; and a glass bowl that one of Peter's ancestors, the Chara Lionel, had had commissioned hundreds of years before, after the Battle of Mountain Heights.

Peter had explained the origins of his treasures to Andrew – all except the brooch, which Andrew would not have understood, since he had not been there when Lord Carle had spoken so tenderly of his love for the Chara's law. It had not mattered; Andrew had been most interested, not in the brooch, but in the bowl, which Peter's father had once described as "one of the greatest treasures of the empire."

The craftsman who had created it had been a master at glass-blowing. There was scarcely a single air-bubble within the glass, and the bowl was smooth to the touch. What wavering occurred in the glass, right at the brim, captured colors from the air and trapped them. The colors shifted when you looked at the brim from different angles.

Carefully now, Andrew placed the paper basket within the bowl. The basket just fit, with the masked border running alongside the colorful brim of the bowl. Together they poured in the winter-hard earth that Andrew had managed to dig out of the garden, and which they had warmed and softened next to the fire. The fragile basket split its seams almost immediately, but the earth settled into the bowl, like mud at the bottom of an iridescent lake.

Andrew stared down at the remainder of what he had brought, his eyes fierce with concentration. He had a bit of dirt across his cheek, but it looked merely like a different tone of brown on his skin. Peter liked Andrew's dark skin, in the same way that he liked Andrew's dark hair and eyes, his soft vowels and slow consonants, and the way his hands moved when he grew excited while speaking. Peter's own hair was very ordinary yellow, and his skin was chalky white, just like the skin of most of the people he had met in his life. Andrew was far more interesting to look at.

"The twigs are too long," Andrew said finally. "I'll have to break them to the right size."

"I'll do that," said Peter quickly. "You just tell me what to do."

It was fun and amusing to be the servant for once, following Andrew's exacting instructions on the proper way to snap the twigs. Peter sat on the floor, which was made of cold marble, and set to work at the task, while Andrew stood next to the table, carefully arranging the other objects in the bowl.

After a while, it ceased to be fun and amusing to sit on a cold floor, snapping twigs, and Peter would have stood up to see how the younger boy was progressing if it had not occurred to him that Andrew and the other slave-servants did this sort of dull work all the time. So Peter stayed on the floor, and thought about the division of labor, so necessary to keep the empire running, but so very tedious for the men and women and children who were given the lower jobs.

After Peter had reached the end of his task, he sighed and began to stretch out his weary legs, but at that moment Andrew dumped a pile of moss next to him and told him that the moss needed to be cleaned of dirt.

Peter looked at the moss. There was a great deal of it to clean. He looked up at Andrew and asked, "How do you keep from screaming with boredom and running from the task?"

Andrew did not pretend to misunderstand. He never pretended to misunderstand. He said, "If you know that you're going to be beaten if you don't finish the job, that helps."

Peter felt heat flood into his cheeks. "Oh," was all he said, and turned his attention back to the moss.

Outside the corridor, the Chara's guards murmured to each other, the shaft-tips of their spears scraping against the floor as they shifted position. The scribes to the Chara's clerk, let free from work early on this special evening, emerged from the clerk's quarters, laughing and chattering. Peter could only recognize the voice of the newest scribe, who stammered badly; Peter had never been given the opportunity to speak more than a few words to the boys who worked daily across the corridor from himself. Nor had he spoken much with the noble-boys and noble-girls in the palace. He had only the one cousin, living far away from him, and all of the other boys and girls he met were very formal and respectful to him. It made him want to throw things at the wall sometimes.

It had occurred to him, more than once, that a boy who was training to be High Judge of a land and three dominions ought to be allowed to spend more time with the people he would be duty-bound to judge in court, should they commit crimes or offer witness. Of course, everything would change in just over a year. His law studies would reach their end, and he would emerge from his quarters, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. From that point forward, he would spend most of his time visiting the various portions of the palace, and the tents of the army headquarters nearby, and even journeying into faraway portions of the empire. He had taken one trip already, south to Koretia – but he was forbidden to return there by the Chara, because Peter had nearly been assassinated on that trip.

Peter tilted his head to look up at Andrew, who was moving a broken pebble with great concentration onto a pile of smooth pebbles. It remained a wonder to Peter that he had first met Andrew in Koretia, when Andrew was still free. Of course, he knew that such a thing was not impossible. Many of the Koretians who had been captured during the Emorians' conquest of the Koretian capital had been sent as slaves to the Chara's palace. Hundreds of slaves were needed to run the palace. But that Andrew should have been sold to a council lord, of all people, and that Peter should have happened to see Andrew in Lord Carle's quarters . . . Somehow, Peter was quite sure that they were meant to meet each other. Perhaps it was only so that the Chara To Be could become more familiar with the lives of his ordinary subjects.

But it was more than that; he knew that in his heart.

"I need the moss now," said Andrew, breaking into Peter's reverie.

Peter looked down. "It's only half done. I was daydreaming."

Andrew said nothing. Looking up, Peter saw that the slave had a darkly ironic look in his eye which he hid by ducking his head to stare down at the creation basket.

Peter felt suddenly sick. "What kind of beating would you have received if you didn't finish your work in time?" he asked.

"From Lord Carle? None at all. He would have lashed me with his tongue, which is far worse."

Peter nodded slowly. He had witnessed Lord Carle berating Andrew on the day that the council lord had sentenced his slave to a prolonged beating. Both the cutting words and the beating still puzzled Peter. He could not imagine how a man who so manifestly loved the Chara's law, and who acted with such generosity toward the Chara's son, could be needlessly strict with his slaves. Perhaps Andrew had simply allowed his temper to get the best of him in Lord Carle's presence. He had a temper; Peter knew that much about him, though the slave was still a stranger to Peter in many ways.

Andrew had come over to gather the moss; Peter quickly brushed the dirt off the rest, saying, "Can I see the basket now?"

"Not yet," replied Andrew imperturbably. Peter grinned. It was so very hard to find servants who would say no to him – even Drogo said yes when he really meant no.

"What else do we do besides make the creation basket?" asked Peter. "You said there were songs— No, I forgot, we're not singing songs. Nuts in the fire, you said? I have some shelled Daxion nuts by my bed."

He looked hopefully at the pile of nuts on the sideboard, but Andrew shook his head. "It has to be nuts still in their shells. The shells have to crack as they're tossed into the fire."

"Oh." Peter frowned. He was unlikely to receive nuts with his dinner; Daxion nuts were expensive and reserved for special treats. And if he asked Drogo for nuts that still had shells . . .

"Is there anything else you do?" he asked.

Andrew seemed at first not to hear him. Then he said, "There are vows."

"What kind of vows?"

Again, Andrew hesitated. Finally he said, "Blood vows."

Immediately, Peter regretted asking the question. He understood now why Andrew had been reluctant to reply. Blood vows . . . The Koretians vowed their blood on all sorts of matters, but the most common type of blood vow, before the arrival of the Emorians, had been blood vows to kill.

Peter stared down at the moss, brushing it lightly with his finger. It was soft and springy and looked surprisingly green for a winter plant. Koretia was green year-round. It was a hot land, filled with people with hot tempers, who had created the gods' law. Lord Carle had once described the gods' law as "a way to murder and be praised for it afterwards." Peter's father, not surprisingly, had abolished the gods' law once he had brought Koretia under the protection of the Chara's law, though he had been careful to point out that he was not forbidding the practice of the Koretian religion. The Koretians could still worship their gods, just as the people in Emor's northern dominions did; they simply would not be permitted to murder each other in the names of their gods.

Peter became suddenly aware, as he supposed he ought to have been aware before, that he was helping Andrew celebrate the founding of a bloody system of justice that the Chara had outlawed. He told himself he was being silly. Tossing nuts into a fire had nothing to do with creeping up on innocent strangers and slitting their throats in order to continue a blood feud. Nor was there any harm in a creation basket, a sign of life rather than death. Probably all these customs had existed long before the gods' law took shape, and no doubt they continued to exist now that the gods' law was abolished. He was quite sure that his father, who had courteously attended a service for the dead held by the Koretian priests after the battle at the Koretian capital, would not mind Peter cleaning a few bits of moss in order to make his homesick slave happy.

"There's drinking too," said Andrew unexpectedly.

"Oh? What kind of drinking?"

"Wild-berry wine," Andrew said firmly. He had very decided opinions on wine; he had established that on his first day of service, when Peter had made the mistake of inviting him to pour a cup of Emorian wall-vine wine for himself.

Now Peter was prepared. He leapt up and went over to the corner where he had stored the bottle of wild-berry wine he had asked his father for, as a New Year gift. His father, somewhat dubious of Peter's new, exotic tastes, had ordered a bottle from the vintners who sold wine to the palace.

"The version with honey added," the Chara had said when he presented the bottle to Peter. "You wouldn't like wild-berry wine in its native form, I assure you."

Now Peter struggled with the cork, wondering how the slaves, who were forbidden to touch anything that might be used as a weapon, managed to get wine bottles open. Andrew, after one curious glance, had gone back to arranging the basket. Beyond him, in the corridor, a woman giggled. A man responded, and Peter realized that the "woman" was actually Lord Sutton's latest slave-servant, Eugene.

Peter made a face. Eugene was a eunuch. All of Lord Sutton's slave-servants were eunuchs. Peter had been puzzled by this until he had overheard Drogo gossiping with another free-servant about Lord Sutton's taste. The conversation would not have meant much to Peter the previous year, but just this year, the Chara had decided that it was time that Peter understood his "marital duties." And so, with the air of a time-pressed man who must nonetheless clear his schedule for an important talk that only he can deliver, the Chara had explained what sort of duties Peter would be required to undertake when he married.

It had been an interesting talk. Peter's father and mother had loved each other very much, and so they had spent a good deal of the Chara's leisure hours undertaking these "duties." Peter was quite sure, by the end of the talk, that he would make a good showing on his wedding night, however far in the future that might be. The Chara had not married until he was nineteen; it was unlikely that Peter would marry earlier than that, since he was not yet Chara himself and therefore had no pressing need to beget heirs.

He had been shocked, though, when he had grasped what it was that Lord Sutton did with his eunuch servants. Of course, Peter knew that some of the unmarried lords made use of their female slaves in such a way, and he also had known, from a very early age, that eunuchs were not men. That was made clear in the Law of Inheritance, which forbade eunuchs from inheriting property and titles that were assigned only to men.

But Eugene looked like a man, even if he did not sound like one. The idea of Lord Sutton taking someone who looked like a man into bed with him . . . The thought made Peter's stomach churn, and he felt even more sick when Drogo suggested, with a laugh, that Lord Sutton was the sort of man who would sleep with true men if the law permitted it.

Peter had felt sorry for Eugene after that. Neither man nor woman, dressed as a man, yet forced to be used as a woman . . . Peter had resolved that the first thing he would do when he became Chara would be to forbid the bedding of eunuchs against their will. He had puzzled for some time as to how eunuchs could be willingly bedded, since they could not sleep with women. Perhaps, he thought, they could sleep with each other, and would not mind that.

It would provide them with companionship, at any rate. He remembered a long-ago dinner conversation with Lord Carle, in which his father's friend had told him that commoners usually slept on pallets rather than beds, and sometimes the commoners could not even afford pallets for everyone in the family, so the family members slept together.

"That sounds uncomfortable," Peter had said doubtfully.

Lord Carle had given him his quirk of a smile. "It has its benefits. When I was young – oh, older than you are now, but I was not so well off as I am today – I shared a pallet with a friend when we were staying in an inn. It was . . . companionable. Yes, that is the word." He stared off into the distance, his smile fading, and then, with an abruptness that was almost rude, he had turned the conversation.

Peter thought now of the pallets that the slaves slept on. The basement where the slave-quarters was located was very cold; the floor must be colder than in Peter's chamber. And punished slaves were not even permitted a pallet.

Peter frowned as he remembered the shock he had felt when he had found that Lord Carle's heavily beaten slave was lying naked on the floor of the punishment chamber. Andrew's legs had been modestly drawn up to hide his groin, so the slave had not been displayed in a shameless fashion. But the room had been winter-cold; it was amazing that Andrew had not died from the chill alone.

As Peter placed the still-corked bottle of Koretian wine on the sideboard next to his bed, he sighed, so heavily that Andrew looked up and stared enquiringly at him. Peter explained, "I have so much to do once I become Chara. It's hard to know where to start. There are so many injustices to right. It frustrates me."

"That," said Andrew, "is why you will be a good Chara. —Come see."

For a moment, Peter stayed motionless by the table, his heart thudding rapidly like a war-horse at full gallop. This was the first time Andrew had given any indication whatsoever that he respected the Chara's son, though Peter supposed the fact that Andrew trusted his new master not to punish him should be indication enough of his respect. Finally, picking up the bottle again, Peter came over to look at the finished basket.

It looked like Koretia. That was Peter's first thought as he stared down at it. Perhaps the resemblance came partly because of the shape of the basket, but mainly it was because of the trees. There were dozens of them: little bare twigs sticking up, as though the autumn leaves had fallen from them. Peter had never seen autumn tree-leaves himself, but he had looked at pictures of what Emor was like in the olden days, when the Charas were first given the law. The tiny trees were everywhere in the little creation basket: atop bright green moss that looked like meadowland, between cracks of pebble mountains, along trailing paths composed of vine tendrils, over hazelnut hills, next to bridges composed of bits of bark, surrounding blue-black berries that Peter supposed must represent houses, and around the earthen border surrounding a large leaf.

"What's that?" Peter asked, pointing at the leaf.

"A lake. It doesn't look much like a lake, I suppose. I've never seen lakes, only the moat around the capital, which was always muddy. But there are small lakes in Central Koretia, so I thought I should include one."

Peter stared at the brown leaf, trying to envision lake-water, but seeing only dry leaf. "It looks as though the lake has dried up in its bed."

"I suppose so."

Andrew's voice had turned toneless. Peter glanced at him. The younger boy was expressionless, as he had been when he spoke of his burial.

"Wait!" Putting down the wine bottle next to the basket, Peter hurried over to the sideboard and picked up the pitcher there. It was still full of the water that Drogo had delivered. Nearly spilling the heavy pitcher in his haste, he brought it over to the basket, then cautiously tipped it. A few drops landed where he had aimed them, upon the leaf. He set the pitcher aside, and he and Andrew leaned forward to look.

The water was as iridescent as the bowl, capturing the colors around it: brown and green and black and the undyed cream color of Andrew's slave-tunic. As Peter leaned further forward, the lake turned suddenly golden, as though sunlight had fallen upon it. It took Peter a moment to realize that it was reflecting the royal emblem brooch, which he had decided to wear today.

He straightened up and looked over at Andrew and then realized, startled, that Andrew was smiling faintly at him. That did not happen very often. In fact, it had happened only once: on midwinter's eve, shortly before Lord Carle had Andrew beaten for three days.

Peter smiled back. "It's very good. I like the trees."

Andrew turned his gaze back to the basket, his smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. "You don't have many trees near the palace, do you?"

Peter was surprised until he realized that, of course, Andrew would only have seen the small stretch of Emorian land between the black border mountains and the palace. "We don't have any trees in Emor," he replied. "Only in the dominions. It's fields here in Southern Emor, and then there are mountains with shrubs on them, and then come the plains of the Central Provinces of Emor. After that come the northern dominions, but the trees there are all evergreens. Or so my father said," he amended. "He saw them when he was young, before he became Chara."

"No broad-leafed trees?" Andrew's smile had sunk away during the speech. "But you have fruit trees, don't you?"

It was on the tip of Peter's tongue to say no. Then he remembered Lord Carle's orchard, on his country estate. Of course – Andrew must have assumed that, since Lord Carle had trees on his estate, trees were common in Emor.

"No," he replied. "There's only one orchard in Southern Emor. We have some vineyards, though, in the borderland," he added. Too late, he remembered that the vineyards grew wall-vine grapes.

"No trees," murmured Andrew, staring down at the tree-filled landscape he had created. The iridescent water was beginning to sink away, absorbed into the winter leaf.

Peter touched his arm. "Let's have the wine now," he said.

Andrew, without glancing at the label of the bottle, reached over, uncorked it with a practiced twist of the hand, and poured wine into one of the gold goblets at the end of the table. Peter's gaze had wandered past him to the fire. The logs there were burning fiercely; more logs were stacked nearby, placed there by Andrew the previous day. Peter wondered suddenly why his chamber had always been heated by wood, if trees were so scarce in Emor. Surely logs must be expensive, if they had to be carried all the way from the dominions?

He looked around his chamber again, seeing it with new eyes. Gilded furniture, an expensive tapestry on the wall, a bed . . . Andrew had probably never slept on a bed, even before he became a slave.

And a glass bowl. The most beautiful glass bowl in the world, and Peter could afford to fill it with earth. What must Andrew think of a boy who was spoiled with such riches?

He became aware that Andrew was holding out the goblet. Or rather, he was holding a gold tray, with the goblet upon it. It was not the first time he had served Peter this way, but for the first time Peter realized that Andrew would not serve himself unless Peter urged him to.

Of course he would not. He was Peter's slave.

Peter nearly choked on the wine, though it tasted very good: sweet, like cider. His father had said, over and over, that the gap between nobleman and servant was too wide to be bridged by friendship. Lord Carle had said the same. And Andrew . . . what did he think behind those inscrutable eyes, behind those carefully trained motions of service?

What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing? What would tell Andrew that Peter wanted more than service from him?

"Here." He thrust out his goblet suddenly, in Andrew's direction.

He had offered the gift impulsively, without thinking whether Andrew would even understand, but from the widening of Andrew's eyes, Peter guessed that the slave had this much familiarity with Emorian custom. Andrew stared at the goblet. Slowly he reached out to take the half-filled goblet in his hand. For a moment he stood there, as though he were a balance weighing the wine. Then he turned, refilled the goblet, and handed it back to Peter.

This time Peter could not even taste the wine; the bitterness in his mouth was too great. He could not tell whether Andrew had rejected the wine of friendship, or had misunderstood what Peter was offering, or simply was too cautious a servant to make assumptions. And not knowing, Peter could not ask.

"You can drink the wine too," he told Andrew.

Andrew silently poured some wine into one of the plainer cups, sipped from it, and began coughing. Peter remembered just in time not to pound him on the back. "What's wrong?" he asked the slave.

"It's sweet." From the way Andrew spoke, it was clear that he considered sweetness to be the greatest crime a vintage could commit. "What is it made of, some sort of Daxion fruit?"

Sighing inwardly at his continued inability to select the right gift, Peter was still composing a reply when a knock sounded on the door. Peter spun around, trying to figure out where to hide the creation basket from Drogo.

It was too late; following some previously given training, the servant opened the door. Andrew – seeing that the servant was overladen with a silver tray holding a serving platter, two plates, and eating knives – hurried forward to hold the door open. His gaze lingered on the servant.

So did Peter's. The food was quietly placed on the sideboard; then the servant carefully backed away. Head down, hands clasped together at the front, eyes looking up through thick lashes, waiting.

Peter managed to clear his throat. "Thank you, Laura. That will be all."

A shy, pleased smile; eyes lively with curiosity under the lashes; then the milkweed-pale hair shimmered as the servant ducked her head further and curtsied. She left the room without a word.

Peter went to the door, ostensibly to see that it was shut, but actually to watch as Laura went over to a handcart and began pushing it down the corridor, her hips swaying as she walked. After a few minutes, the girl turned the corner and disappeared from view.

As he slowly closed the door, Peter turned to see that Andrew's gaze was focussed, not on the Chara's son or on the chamber they stood in, but on the northern wall, as though he could see through it to watch Laura's progress. His eyes turned to meet Peter's.

Peter bit his lip. Smiling slightly, he said, almost apologetically, "She's very pretty."

Andrew gave a slight nod.

Peter took a deep breath and moved away from the door. "My father brought her into service this year; she was part of a shipment of slaves from the latest troubles up in Arpesh. The Chara told me that her father was involved in plots of rebellion . . . but she had been in free-service already, so the Chara decided she was trained well enough to serve his quarters. She usually cleans his sitting chamber . . . but sometimes, when all of my slaves are busy, she comes over and cleans my chamber." He kneaded the back of his neck, as though a pain were developing there. "It's rather hard to study when she's here."

"I imagine so."

There was no amusement in Andrew's voice, only sympathy. Peter flashed him a smile, relieved that there would be no need to explain further. "Well, you must have seen more of her than I have; you live in the same part of the slave-quarters together. Have you found that she—?"

The rest of his query was broken off as the door burst open.

Peter jumped in place as he turned to look at the door, startled by the sudden entrance. Andrew, snarling like a wildcat, skidded in front of Peter, placing his body between the Chara's son and the intruder. The intruder got no further than the threshold, though; immediately, guards were around him, pulling him back. Peter heard garbled voices from the struggle that followed: ". . . only want to see how he . . ." ". . . not without permission, sir. If you apply for entrance . . ." ". . . will be cold by then. Surely you would not spoil good food . . ."

Peter was still trying to peer round Andrew's body – Andrew, though three years younger, was as tall as his master – but the conversation, as much as the intruder's accent, told him who this must be. "It's all right, Emmett, Beorn," he called out. "Let him through."

The guards, with a doubtful look at Peter, let go the intruder. He shook his clothes into a semblance of order, glared at them, and immediately turned and beamed at the Chara's son. Then his gaze moved, and his face fell.

"Oh, it has been delivered already!" he cried, his palms embracing his face with dismay as he stepped forward and the guards unobtrusively closed the door. "I had hoped to see your expression upon its arrival!"

Peter turned to look at the platter. Amidst his concerns over its manner of delivery, he had not taken in what lay on the platter, next to the date salad: a piece of meat, bird-shaped, but far too small to be poultry.

"I thought we weren't having meat for dinner," he said blankly.

"Oh, so I am in time – thank the Song Spirit!" The cook flung his arms up in the general direction of the sky. "It is beautiful, is it not? It is the finest dish I have prepared in my twenty years of serving the Charas! It is my summary, it is my essence of all that I have done—"

Peter barely managed to stem the flow of words. "It looks appetizing. It will, er, make a good New Year meal."

The cook beamed again. "You understand! It is a meal fit to be served to the Spirit herself, should she come down to care for her children. And it took so little time to make: a roasting over the fire, with the drippings saved, and then the drippings were mixed with flour and goat's milk and just a touch of honey, and then I poured over it the dried apples I had saved from the harvest—"

Peter had seen Andrew flinch at the word "apples"; he hastily said, "It looks delicious. I'm sure I'm quite fortunate to have had you prepare it."

The cook clapped his hands together and held them to his breast, as though only manful effort kept his heart from springing forward. "Ah, but when I have such ingredients, how can I go wrong? Apples from the orchard of Lord Carle, goat's milk from your father's nearest estate, flour grown and milled in the finest farming country in the world – the Central Provinces – and then, as the crowning touch of it all, a songbird from the Chara's very own garden!"

Peter stared at the tiny little bird on the platter; then his gaze moved over to Andrew. The slave had ducked his head, and he was toeing the floor.

Peter cleared his throat. "Well, we don't want such a splendid meal to go cold."

These were, perhaps, the only words he could have spoken that would have persuaded the effusive cook to leave. "Of course, of course!" the cook said, bowing as he backed up. "And you will tell me, afterwards, if it was to your liking?"

"Certainly," said Peter firmly. "But I have no doubts that it will be a meal for . . . Well, a meal fit for the Chara To Be."

The cook kissed his palms and then turned the palms outward, as though flinging his kiss to the entire world. "It will be, Lord Peter, I promise you! Such ingredients! And on such a special day!"

"Do you celebrate the New Year in Daxis?" Peter asked, curious, as Andrew opened the door to let the cook out.

"But indeed!" The cook's smile shone brighter than the many candles in the room. "This is the day on which the Song Spirit sung her first lullaby to the Daxion people. May you and your servant" – here he gave a little bow to Andrew, so overwhelmed by the moment as to ignore the slave-tunic – "receive all the blessings and joy that the Spirit sends you. Such ingredients!" And with that final, ultimate summary, he disappeared from view.

Andrew closed the door. He looked at Peter. Peter looked at him. Then they both smiled.

"'Such ingredients!'" repeated Peter, keeping his voice low so that it could not be heard outside the chamber. "Andrew, you are a marvel. Where did you get the bird?"

Still smiling, Andrew came forward and began to meticulously carve the tiny feast-bird. "In the inner garden. He told you."

"But how? You didn't have time to set a trap, and you don't own a dagger."

Andrew's smile faded, and he was silent a minute, long enough for Peter to remember that Koretian boys his age had usually already received their daggers of manhood. Then the slave said, "It was trapped in a thorn bush. When I came upon it, it was fluttering its wings, trying to escape."

"And you captured and killed it?"

"Yes, of course." Andrew turned a puzzled gaze upon Peter. "What would you have done?"

"I'd have let it go free."

Andrew said nothing. He simply looked at Peter, a long look. Then he turned his attention back to carving the bird.

Peter realized then how rude his response had been. He added quickly, "But I'm too sentimental. My father often says so. He says I need to learn how to wield the Sword of Vengeance. Maybe I should take lessons from you."

"I didn't use a blade." Andrew kept his eye on the platter; he was moving the dried apples from the platter. "I wrung its neck."

"Oh." Peter felt faint at the words, which was foolish, for every day he ate meat that had been slaughtered for him. "I thought you didn't hunt when you lived in Koretia?"

"Killing poultry isn't hunting. My mother used to have me buy live pullets from the poulterer, kill them, pluck them, and resell them at a higher price to noblemen who couldn't be bothered to have their servants do the task. It brought us in a little extra money. —There." Andrew finished dividing the meat. He had placed all of the apples onto one of the plates, Peter noticed.

Peter came forward and, knowing which serving must be his, picked up the plate with the apples. "I suppose," he said, trying to keep envy out of his voice, "that you could have used a blade if you wanted. I mean, you would have been trained at bladeplay earlier than I'm being trained, wouldn't you?"

Andrew sent him an unreadable look. "Yes. But I couldn't wear a dagger of manhood now, you know, even if I were free."

"Oh?" Peter eyed him curiously, but decided not to pursue this particular line of enquiry. Andrew could get touchy sometimes, talking about what he could or could not do in the palace. "Did you own a blade once, though? And what kind of blade was it?" As he spoke, he moved over to the bed and sat down, preparing to be enlightened.

o—o—o

The discussion of blades went on for a long time; Andrew knew a good deal more about the subject than Peter did. He spoke about leaf-bladed swords, double-edged daggers, wasp-waisted blades, razor-sharp thigh-daggers . . .

Inevitably, they worked their way round to the topic of jokes about blades. And in this manner Peter was finally able to raise the subject that he had most wanted to talk about with Andrew.

"Girls," he said, "are more mysterious than a thousand Case volumes written in Railik."

He looked up and found that Andrew was giving his shadow-smile again. With much effort, Peter had managed to persuade Andrew that it would be better for them to eat on the bed than on the floor. Now Andrew was perched on the very edge of the bed, reaching forward to pick final bits of meat from his plate, while Peter, left with plenty of room, sprawled out on his stomach atop the blanket.

"I suppose it's because I never knew my mother," he said, staring down at the blanket as he ran his fingers over the yarn. "I don't remember my wet-nurse well, and I never had a dry-nurse; slave-servants looked after my needs as soon as I was old enough to be weaned. The people I've been around the most have all been men. But I give witness, I'm sure that I would have found girls mysterious even if I'd been surrounded by them all my life. I'll be talking to them, and they'll start giggling when I haven't made any jokes, and they'll get all teary-eyed when I haven't said anything sad, and they'll keep blinking, as though we were standing in sunlight—"

"They're trying to make you notice their eyelashes."

Peter looked up at his slave. "Are they?"

Andrew nodded, worldly-wise at age eleven.

"Well, then, why don't they just say, 'See what beautiful eyelashes I have'?"

Andrew laughed then. It was the first time Peter had ever heard him laugh; his chuckle was softer than the flames eating the logs nearby.

Peter smiled. "Oh, well, I suppose they couldn't say that. But girls really are like a book written in a foreign tongue. It will take me years to figure them out. The only part I'm sure about is that I'll like the mating."

Andrew suddenly stopped smiling. He looked down at his plate, picking at it with his knife, as though food remained there.

Peter hesitated, wondering whether he ought to change the subject. He knew what his father would think of him discussing this matter with a slave. But there were certain things he just couldn't ask his father – things that Andrew might know about, since he seemed to know quite a lot about different subjects.

Peter stared down at the blanket for a minute. Next to his treasures, the blanket was his favorite object in the room; it had been created by an Arpheshian weaver as a gift for the Chara To Be. The blanket showed the Chara's seal: the Balance of Judgment holding the Sword of Vengeance and the Heart of Mercy. The Heart – a fluttering bird with a bleeding breast – made Peter think of the bird that Andrew had trapped and killed. Peter traced his finger across one of the tiny, open-paged books woven around the seal, wishing that everything in life was as orderly as the Chara's law.

"Andrew," he said, "do you ever dream of girls?"

He looked up again. Andrew had abandoned his plate and was staring at the wall. After a minute, the slave said, "I used to dream of them at home."

"At home?" cried Peter, jerking up onto his elbows in astonishment. "But you were only eight then!" In his chest of treasures was the certificate of transfer of ownership for Andrew, made out to the Chara, since Peter's father was the official owner of the slave. The certificate was signed by Lord Carle, and it provided the date on which Lord Carle had bought the slave, as well as Andrew's date of birth.

Andrew looked at him sidelong. "My mother said I was precocious."

Peter laughed. After a minute, Andrew shadowed a smile. Reaching over, Peter refilled Andrew's water-cup and shoved it in his direction. "Eight years old. All I was thinking of when I was eight was whether I could be High Judge without having to memorize a dozen laws each day." He waited until Andrew had drained the cup and set it down again before adding, "I always thought you were mature for your age."

Andrew looked sidelong at him again. He said nothing. Peter tried to think of a way to get himself past the hurdle of asking the question he wanted to ask.

Andrew filled the gap by saying, his eyes now focussed once again at the wall, "The physician thought that would make a difference."

"Physician? You mean Woods? Or his assistant?" Woods was the palace physician, but he did not deign to tend the slaves; he left that work to one of his many assistants.

"No. A city physician. He never told me his name. He told me . . . he asked me questions. I didn't answer them, but he examined my body, and he seemed to know that I was old for my age. He said it was better for me. It was better that I was just beginning to mature when they did it."

Peter wondered whether his face was as blank as his mind. Glancing at him, Andrew said, "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"No." He was beginning to think that he had not paid careful enough attention to the talk his father had given him. Was Peter to be examined by a physician too, when he gave signs that he was maturing? Who were "they," and what had they done to Andrew? Would it be done to Peter as well?

Andrew wrapped his arms around his legs. His knuckles were bone-white as he gripped his hands together. Whatever it was that "they" had done, it had evidently not been pleasant. He said finally, "Suppose you own a horse."

"All right," Peter said, resigning himself to another long discussion of farmyard behavior. At the start of their conversation on marital duties, his father had spent quite a long time talking about farm animals before he had finally reached the point of his tale. Peter had been half convinced, before he figured out what the point of the conversation was, that his father was preparing to break the news that he did not consider Peter to be worthy to be his heir, so he had arranged for Peter to supervise of one of the Chara's country estates.

"And the previous owner wants to make the horse into a gelding." Andrew's gaze remained fixed on the wall.

"Yes?" Peter prompted, trying to follow the path of Andrew's thought.

"If he does it when the colt is quite young, the colt is just a gelding. The colt can't do anything. But if the owner waits till the horse is older, when the horse is starting to become a stallion, he . . . it's still a gelding. It can't mate. It can't . . . insert its blade into a mare. But it can . . . do other things. You see?"

"Oh, yes." Peter did not, in fact, have the least notion what Andrew was talking about, but it was hard to admit outright that he had paid so little attention to what the Chara had told him. Perhaps, somewhere in the law books, there was a passage that talked about colts and geldings and stallions, which would help him make sense of what Andrew had just said.

Working his way back to the last part of the conversation he had been able to understand, Peter asked, "So do you still dream about girls?"

Again that look out of the corner of the eye. "Occasionally." Then: "Quite a lot, actually."

Peter sighed as he rested his chin upon the back of his hands, which were flat against the blanket. "I only started dreaming about them this year. Do you . . ." He licked his lips in a nervous twitch before asking, "Do you dream about mating with them?"

"Sometimes." Andrew's voice was still cautious, but he was looking straight at Peter now.

"I dream about that a lot," Peter confessed. "I wondered whether anyone else did."

Andrew seemed absorbed in the conversation now; he turned his body to face Peter. "I suppose lots of people dream about things they can't have."

"Yes." Peter sighed. He would have to wait until he was married, and that might be years from now. Just getting the council's permission to marry would take him months, he had been told. "Well, at least there's the dreams. That's something. Do you ever . . . I mean, do you discover, after you've dreamt . . ." He hesitated again, and then, girding up his courage as though he were ordering his first execution, he asked the question he had not dared ask his father.

Thankfully, Andrew's reply was matter-of-fact. "No, but it doesn't signify in my case. It's different for me."

Peter nodded. He forgot sometimes that Andrew was three years younger than himself. Even being mature for his age, Andrew would not have yet reached that stage, Peter supposed. "But for me . . ." he prompted.

"For you, it means you're ready to beget children." Andrew, as always, had the information Peter needed.

"Oh." He thought about this. He had always assumed that he would not be ready to sire children until he came of age, but he supposed that was why his father had decided to hold the discussion now, rather than wait until Peter was sixteen. "I think I can manage that."

His voice must have sounded doubtful, for Andrew laughed. Peter grinned up at him. "You know what I mean. I don't mean giving my wife a child, but . . . all the rest of it. The mating part. It doesn't sound as though it would be difficult. Actually . . ." He felt his cheeks begin to grow warm. "I'm actually looking forward to it. Does that make me precocious too?"

"It makes you ready to marry." Andrew smiled at him.

"Oh, no." Peter shook his head. "No, not at all. Not till I can figure out what the pattern is to when girls giggle. I don't suppose there's a law which covers that, is there?"

Andrew laughed again, and Peter, relieved that the hard part of the conversation was over, sat up. He had other questions, but he no longer feared that Andrew would be scandalized by having the Chara To Be consult him on such matters. After all, Andrew must have thought about such matters himself, since he was a boy too. Placing both their plates onto the sideboard, Peter said, "I suppose that you'll marry as soon as you can?"

Andrew went rigid.

It was like seeing a soft clay ornament suddenly turn into the diamond-hard Sword of Vengeance. Every bone in his body, every piece of flesh, turned adamantine. All the laughter had fled from his face.

Peter remembered, too late, that slaves were not permitted to marry. "I meant . . . I didn't mean marry, of course. But I know that some of the slave-men mate with slave-women, so I thought, since you're dreaming about girls . . ."

Andrew's eyes were as dark now as a night-shadowed pit. Peter was just trying to figure out whether he had cast a slur on Andrew's honor by suggesting that the boy would sleep with a girl outside marriage when Andrew leapt up from the bed, so vigorously that the bed shook against the sideboard. Peter's goblet, still filled with the sugar-laden wild-berry wine, tipped over and spilled onto the blanket.

Peter was trying to determine where his face-cloth had gone, so that he could hastily wipe up the liquid, when he became aware that Andrew was no longer standing by the bed. The slave was backing up slowly, his eyes fastened upon Peter in the same horrified expression a man might show if faced with the Sword of Vengeance.

"Andrew!" Peter jumped up from the bed, the ruined blanket forgotten. "What's wrong?"

Andrew did not reply. He had reached the wall next to the hearth now, and he flattened himself against it, as though trying to hide from danger.

"Andrew, what—?" Peter had reached the other side of the room. On the point of stretching out to touch Andrew, he let his hand fall. His slave was staring at him, as dumb and aghast as a farmyard animal faced with some terrible fate.

"What is it?" whispered Peter.

"I thought you knew." Andrew's voice emerged faintly, as though he were being strangled.

"Knew what?"

"I'm a eunuch."

A bit of log fell, soft into the ashes, sending sparks of flame up the chimney. In the corridor, the guards talked quietly with one another. Beyond the shutters, a mockingbird trilled at the night sky.

"No," said Peter, hearing his own voice as from far away. "No, you couldn't be."

Andrew said nothing. The look of horror had gone; now his face was a mask, as blank as it had been on the evening when Peter had watched him serving Lord Carle.

"You couldn't be," Peter repeated. He looked again at Andrew, seeing nothing he had not seen before: a boy wearing a slave-tunic, dark-skinned, but otherwise no different from himself.

Still Andrew made no reply. Still the mask stayed in place, as though it had always been there.

"Who . . . ?" Peter had to stop to clear his throat. "Was it the soldier who enslaved you who did it?" They. Andrew had said they had done it. And there had been a physician from the city. From the Koretian capital?

"No. Lord Carle." Andrew's voice turned toneless.

Peter stared at him, willing away the words. Then he shouted, "No! It couldn't be! Not Lord Carle!"

Andrew said nothing. Peter tried to control the sickness that was overwhelming him. Lord Carle. . . . And he had spoken so lovingly of the Chara's law. . . . He had given Peter the brooch with the royal emblem upon it, the balance between judgment and mercy. . . .

"You could give me back."

Peter stared, trying to make sense of Andrew's words. "Give you back?"

"To Lord Carle. He would probably return all your money. You have only had use of me for a week."

The final, cold words, stiltedly formal, were like a blow. Peter asked, "Why should I want to do that?"

It took Andrew another minute to speak. Peter could see the struggle in him from the way in which his fists formed. Finally the slave said, in that same, dead voice, "Damaged goods."

"No!" Peter heard the anguish in his own voice and strove to take control of himself. "No, I don't see you that way. You're not damaged. You're . . . different. You've always been different from other people. I like you different. I . . . like you this way."

He tried tentatively to touch Andrew. Andrew flinched. Peter hastily drew his hand back. He could not think of the right thing to say. He supposed it was cruelty itself for him to have hinted that he preferred Andrew gelded. He heard Andrew's voice echoing in his head: "Buried, cold . . . dead."

Peter said, unable to think of the right way to phrase his thought, "I still want you."

Andrew made no reply. The terrible, blank mask that he always wore around other palace residents remained in place; it made him look like a complete stranger.

Feeling as though he were floundering in an ice-cold avalanche, Peter said, "'They' . . . you said they did it to you. Not Lord Carle."

"Not with his own hands." Something about the way Andrew spoke conveyed that the slave thought Lord Carle would gladly have wielded the gelding knife himself, if it had suited his fancy. "He gave me over to the dungeon torturers at the time he bought me. They brought in a city physician to advise them on how to do it."

Peter felt a cold sickness enter his stomach. The palace dungeon. An eight-year-old boy had been gelded in his own palace, and he had not even known.

He had been aware that men were sometimes gelded in the dungeon, of course. It was part of the so-called Slave's Death – the manner of execution for disobedient palace slaves and for treacherous free-men. Sometimes a pardon was given to the condemned prisoner before the full death had been exacted – hence the presence of eunuchs in the palace.

But gelding a young boy?

"What did you do?" Peter could not imagine what the crime had been. Even if Andrew had tried to kill Lord Carle, surely the lord – who was said to be the finest bladesman in the council – could easily have defended himself against a small boy.

Andrew had been looking Peter straight in the eye all this time. Now, as though recollecting his proper place, he dropped his eyes. He said in his dead voice, "I looked straight at him. I told him I was Koretian – that I did not wish to be an Emorian."

In the silence that followed, the palace trumpets called the half-hour warning before the midnight hour. Peter turned away, feeling the chill on his skin turn to clamminess. Lord Carle. Lord Carle, of all people. The man Peter had revered most, next to his father. Peter had even pleaded to his father that the council lord be assigned as his tutor.

Such a man had gelded an eight-year-old boy for a slight offense.

Peter stumbled his way over to the windows, seeking the freshness of the night air that was making its way through the cracks in the shutters. He felt a sudden urge to throw the royal emblem brooch in the fire. Lord Carle. How could Peter ever trust anything his new tutor would tell him about the Chara's law? Gripping the mantelpiece, Peter stared blindly at the misshapen Balance of Judgment.

It was some time before he realized that Andrew had left the chamber.

o—o—o

Peter sat on his bed, next to the wet spot where the wine had spilled, trying to think. He knew that he ought to be readying himself for bed; his father was quite strict about his bedtime. But images were whirling themselves too fast in his head: Lord Carle smiling as he spoke of the Chara's law. Andrew smiling at the creation basket. Andrew standing motionless against the wall, his face like that of a corpse.

A knock came at the door. Roused from his thoughts, Peter took an appalled glance at the floor. A bucket, moss, sap, bits of metal, clay . . . and worst of all, a valuable bowl filled with earth. If the Chara had come to bid his son good night, the interview would not be a pleasant one for Peter.

But it was not the Chara, Peter found when he opened the door; the man who had knocked was one of the Chara's guards, Emmett, whom Peter had always liked. "Your pardon, Lord Peter," he murmured. "Your slave-servant, Andrew, desires to know whether you wish him to complete the task you set for him, before he retires to bed."

Peter, having no idea what the "task" was, said immediately, "Yes, let him in now."

"He will need to be fetched," Emmett replied. Then, seeing Peter's frown of puzzlement, he explained, "The slave-quarters are currently being locked for the night. Lord Carle's free-servant delivered the message from your slave-servant, since Henry has just been checking on his master's own slaves, and the matter regarding your slave appeared to be urgent." There was a faintly querying note in Emmett's voice. Peter guessed that the underlying message was, "Merely say the word, and we'll have this troublesome slave beaten."

"He was quite right to deliver the message," Peter replied. "Please thank him for me. . . . And Emmett?"

"Yes, Lord Peter?"

Peter licked his lips. "I shall need Andrew for the rest of the night. Have Henry tell the slave-keeper that he may lock the quarters once he has released Andrew to my service."

An expression flicked across Emmett's face, too quick to be read. "Very well, Lord Peter. I shall see that you and your slave-servant are not disturbed."

He closed the door before Peter could think to ask what exactly Emmett envisioned he would be disturbing. Perhaps the guard had merely received a glimpse of what lay on the floor of the chamber of the Chara's son, and he envisioned a lengthy clean-up.

Peter bit his lip, wondering whether he had gone too far. His father had made clear to him that he must not interfere with how the slave-keeper handled the slaves. But Peter simply could not settle matters between Andrew and himself in the brief interval between now and the midnight trumpets.

He must find some way to make an apology. Thinking back on how he had handled the conversation, he was appalled at his cruelty. He had allowed himself to become so absorbed in worries over Lord Carle that he had turned his back on Andrew – had let the slave regard himself as dismissed from Peter's mind and heart. Andrew had been stripped of his virility, had been sold to a cruel master, had nonetheless trusted his new master enough to pull down his mask . . . and had had his new master turn against him.

What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing?

Another knock came at the door. It was Emmett, ushering in Andrew. Apparently Andrew did not even possess enough self-confidence now to enter unbidden. As the door closed, Andrew stood in the posture of an obedient slave: stiff-backed, with his eyes down. In his right hand was an iron bucket, filled with water, with rags tied to its handle. He said, "If it please the Chara's son, I would like to finish cleaning up after myself."

Peter cleared his throat. "Yes, of course. Andrew—"

But Andrew had taken his words as an order, not an invitation to conversation; he immediately fell to his knees and began scooping objects into the wooden bucket. Peter, retreating to the bed again, tried to think of what to say as Andrew cleared the clutter on the floor, took up a rag, and began cleaning the floor methodically. Peter could see the slave's bandaged back from where he sat.

He struggled to find the words he wanted, and then cried out wordlessly as Andrew, with not so much as a moment's hesitation, stood up, took the creation basket, and dumped its contents into the bucket, destroying the Koretian landscape he had created. Andrew glanced his way, then quickly lowered his eyes. "Have I failed to please the Chara To Be in some manner?"

Peter was beginning to realize why his slave had no friends in the slave-quarters; Andrew's voice was as cold and hard as a mainland ice-block. Peter made some strangled sound in his throat, which Andrew evidently read as a negative, for he turned and carried the glass bowl over to the pitcher, poured water into it, and began to carefully wash the remaining dirt from it.

"I'll help you with that," Peter said, stumbling in his eagerness to reach the sideboard.

"The Chara's son need not trouble himself."

A thigh-dagger cutting prisoners in the Marcadian ice-prisons could not have been as chillingly biting as Andrew's reply. Peter, who had just taken hold of the pitcher, stopped dead, feeling as though his life's blood had been severed. He stared at the slave, who was masked with his blank expression; then, without any conscious thought of what he was doing, Peter turned and dashed the pitcher onto the floor. "I hate being the Chara's son!" he cried, and then he fell to his knees amidst the broken pottery and covered his face with his hands.

Dimly, he heard the door open; dimly, he heard Emmett's voice, making an enquiry; dimly, he heard Andrew respond. Whatever Andrew said must have reassured the guard, for he withdrew quickly. The door shut again, leaving the chamber in silence.

The chamber was so still that Peter guessed that Andrew had left as well. He tried to gather himself together, but he found he was shaking. A full minute passed; the palace trumpets sounded in the new year. Finally, Peter managed to pull his hands from his face.

Andrew was kneeling beside him, mopping up the spilled water.

"I'm sorry," said the slave, without looking his way.

"Sorry?" Peter automatically reached forward to pick up one of the pieces of the broken pitcher.

"I'd forgotten that it's the same for you. That you have to wear a mask as well."

Peter's mind drifted back to the first conversation he had held with Andrew, concerning their shared burden of having to hide their true natures from other people. "My need isn't as great as yours. Andrew, I didn't mean to— I ought to have said—"

"It doesn't matter," Andrew replied. "At least you didn't break the glass bowl. . . . Some of the pitcher pieces have rolled under the bed."

"I'll get them." Peter dived down and squeezed under the bed. As he did so, it occurred to him that, just a week before, he never would have thought to help a slave-servant do so menial a task.

The Chara, he thought, had been more right than he knew. Andrew was helping Peter learn how to rule his subjects, for Peter was beginning to get a hazy sense of why the dominion of Koretia had caused so many troubles to Emor . . . and an even hazier sense of how he might be able to correct matters when he became Chara.

They finished cleaning the floor in silence, and then they worked together to clean the bowl and to place it back in the chest of treasures. Then they stood facing each other. Andrew appeared to be as much at a loss for words as Peter was.

Finally Peter asked, "Would you like to stay here tonight?"

And with those words, Andrew went rigid once more.

Feeling like a bladesman who has made a mortal mistake not once, but twice, Peter said quickly, "What is it?"

"You want me to sleep with you?" The mask, thankfully, had not returned yet, but what was there was nearly as bad: the same horror that had been in Andrew's face in the moment after he realized that Peter did not know what he was.

Peter, hearing his own statement reworded thus, felt the same horror enter him. He remembered now – too late for the memory to be of use to him – how he had touched Andrew after saying that he liked the slave as a eunuch, and how Andrew had flinched.

May the high doom fall upon himself – how could he have been so blind? He lived in the same palace as Lord Sutton; he should have known what it was that Andrew would fear most from his master. And Lord Carle—

But there his wildly darting speculation ran into a locked gate; he could not imagine Lord Carle in bed with a woman, much less with a eunuch. No, Peter was sure that could not have happened; he had heard Lord Carle speak with contempt concerning Lord Sutton's penchant for eunuchs. Whatever Lord Carle's motive might have been for gelding Andrew, it could not have been to obtain a bed-mate.

But there were other lords in the palace, and other dangers for a slave who was considered prime bedding material. Peter had once witnessed a lord pinch Laura's bottom when she was trying to serve the Chara's son at a public function. Peter had furiously made clear to the lord that he would not stand for such treatment of one of the Chara's slaves, and the Chara, thankfully, had backed his words. But would Lord Carle bother to protect the slave whom he had gelded?

And who could Andrew expect to protect him, if the Chara's son wanted him for such use?

Andrew said, his voice still rigid, "If you want me that way, I'll do it."

Peter wanted to cry then – to cry at Andrew's pain, to cry at the loyalty that forced Andrew to offer himself up to his new master for further pain. Furious at himself, he shouted, "No!" Then, seeing Andrew catch his breath at this evidence of his master's anger, Peter said quietly but fiercely, "No, I don't want you that way. You're a boy. I don't mate with boys."

Andrew seemed barely to be breathing now. Treading his way carefully, Peter said, "Don't you see? That's why it never occurred to me that you were a eunuch. You're a boy like me. Whatever Lord Carle may have done to your body, he hasn't changed what you are inside. You're still a boy, and one day you'll be a man."

Andrew had definitely stopped breathing. His eyes searched Peter's face, seeking something.

More sure of himself now, Peter said, "You know it's true, don't you?"

Andrew said, in a very soft voice, "I've always wanted . . ."

Peter waited; then, when Andrew did not speak further, he said, "But you didn't think anyone else wanted you to be a man?"

Andrew nodded slowly.

"Well, I do." Speaking firmly, Peter gripped Andrew's arm hard, as one grips a boy, not a girl or a eunuch. "So don't pay attention to what anyone else thinks. I'm the Chara To Be, and my opinion is the only one that matters."

He half expected Andrew to smile at this pompous speech, but instead the boy dipped his eyes. After a moment, Andrew nodded. After another moment, he looked up and said, "So . . . when you said you wanted me to stay here tonight . . . did you mean I should sleep on the floor?"

Peter hesitated. The idea that had formed itself in his mind before seemed absurd in retrospect; worse, it could easily be taken the wrong way. "It doesn't matter. I was being foolish."

All of Andrew's uncertainty vanished in an instant, and Peter had a second in which to feel uneasy. He knew what that sudden change of expression meant. Andrew had the most ghastly talent for being able to tell what people were thinking. There were times when Peter thought their roles should have been reversed, and that Andrew should be the one training to be High Judge.

"On the bed, you meant?" Andrew said. Then, as Peter started to stammer some protest, "But not mating. Just . . . sleeping?"

Peter sighed and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck, thoroughly embarrassed now. "I was just thinking . . . it was folly, but I was thinking about pallets."

"Pallets?" Andrew seemed interested now rather than concerned.

Peter gave a brief, somewhat garbled explanation, omitting only any mention of Lord Carle's name. "And so I thought it would be nice . . . Well, I was just curious as to what it would be like, sleeping with a frie— Sleeping with someone who was a companion."

"Such as one of your slave-servants." Andrew looked puzzled now, as well he might. Peter did not suppose this was the sort of proposal that most noble-boys made to their servants.

"Such as you. I mean, you're different from the others."

Comprehension entered Andrew's eyes. "You mean, because I'm— Because I'm not the sort of boy who might think you were twisted, because you'd asked another boy to sleep with you. You know I know it's not that."

Peter nodded. That aspect of his proposal had not even entered his head, though he felt his cheeks grow warm at the thought of the mistake he had nearly made. No doubt Lord Carle, who had slept with a friend in the days when poverty was sufficient excuse for sharing a pallet, had not thought to warn the Chara's son that a noble-boy's desire to sleep with another boy could be regarded in a very different fashion.

"It's for you to decide," Peter added. "It's not an order, you know. I just thought you might enjoy it. Sleeping in a bed for once, I mean."

Andrew ran the tip of his tongue across the corner of his mouth. "Would I need to undress?"

"No, of course not," Peter said immediately, understanding the reason why Andrew would not want to strip in front of him. "I always sleep in my breeches and undertunic in the winter. You could borrow one of my old undertunics – it's in a chest over there. And there's extra water there, near the mantelpiece . . ."

He gabbled on, knowing that Andrew knew as well as he did where the items of toiletry were, since Andrew had placed most of them in the chamber himself. But Andrew could not know, until Peter told him so, that he had permission to use the items.

"I'll go say goodnight to my father," Peter concluded, and left while Andrew was still contemplating the bed.

o—o—o

The spears were lowered before his father's door; the Chara, Emmett told him as he prepared to depart from his guard-shift, was closeted with the council's High Lord. Peter lingered in the corridor for a while, watching the sparse, late-night traffic of lords and ladies, until the newly arrived guards began to eye him. Knowing that he was not permitted to be in the corridor without his father's permission, Peter cautiously re-entered his own chamber.

The chamber was dark. The smell of scented wax lingered, even after the snuffing of the candles. Andrew had banked the fire; the logs glowed and shifted, sending down whispers of crumbling wood. The wind had died; cold moonlight slatted through the shutters, falling upon the bed.

Andrew was curled up in a ball under the blankets, facing the wall. Coming closer, Peter saw that the other boy had replaced the wet blanket with a new one. Peter supposed that he should be heartsick with the loss of his favorite blanket, but it seemed appropriate, somehow, that he should sleep under a plain blanket hereafter. He slipped off his belt and tunic and winter boots, laying them aside; then, shivering, he slipped under the covers.

Andrew did not move. Peter could see his hair, striped by the moonlight. Reaching out tentatively, Peter touched his back.

Andrew jerked, letting out a hiss. Hastily, Peter drew his hand back. He had forgotten about the bandages protecting the raw flesh. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"I'm fine." Andrew's voice was muffled. Peter, knowing that Andrew's answer was no answer at all, edged away from him.

For a moment, all was still. Peter lay with his eyes open, trying to figure out what part of this process Lord Carle had found companionable. Probably, he thought, the episode had never even happened to the council lord. Probably Lord Carle had lied about this, as he had about so many other things.

Andrew shifted, moving back. Peter, remembering the other boy's wound, shifted too, in order to allow Andrew more room. Andrew froze. Then he shifted back again.

Peter moved further back, puzzled. He was almost at the edge of the bed now – did Andrew know that? Was the younger boy trying to push him off?

Andrew paused; then, once again, he moved back. His legs touched Peter's legs, folding round the front of them like a sheath that protects a blade.

Then Peter understood. Carefully avoiding contact with Andrew's back, he wriggled forward and placed his arm round Andrew's side and chest, embracing the other boy. For a moment, Andrew did not move, and Peter wondered whether he had guessed correctly what the other boy wanted, or whether Andrew was fearfully trying to calculate at what point the Chara's son would begin removing his clothes. Then, groping like a blind puppy, Andrew moved his hand till it lay lightly over Peter's.

Peter shifted his head and rested his cheek against Andrew's bowed neck. He could hear the other boy's even breathing, and could smell his scent. Andrew's skin was warm.

For a long time, they lay like that, while Peter's mind wandered back through the events of the afternoon: The broken pitcher. The mask hiding pain. Andrew's dreams in Koretia. Andrew smiling at the creation basket. Andrew digging in the snow-covered garden for signs of green. Andrew's voice saying, "Buried, cold . . . dead."

Peter said in his memory, "Not dead. Alive and whole." Andrew stared at him in disbelief, as he had stared disbelieving when Peter spoke of how he would have treated the trapped bird.

And then, like the shock of fire, a memory of Andrew in Lord Carle's quarters, staring with longing toward the south. Toward Koretia.

"Andrew," said Peter.

For a moment, Peter thought the other boy was asleep, but then Andrew murmured an acknowledgment.

"Andrew, would you like to go back to Koretia?"

Andrew's breath caught for the second time that night. His hand tightened on Peter's. His voice was higher than usual as he said, "You'd take me there with you?"

Such a thought had never entered Peter's mind. His father, he knew, would never allow the Chara's heir to return to the land where he had nearly been assassinated, and once Peter himself became Chara, he would be forbidden, by law, from leaving the palace except in wartime. Chances were good that he would never go to Koretia again.

But Andrew could.

What could you give a slave who, by law, could own nothing?

You gave him his freedom.

"At what time of the year would you like to go back?" Peter asked, avoiding a direct answer to Andrew's question. "Spring?"

Andrew's breath was quick now, and heavy. After a while he said, "Summer. That's the best time of the year."

"Summer, then," Peter promised. "The trees will be very green then, and the lakes will sparkle with color. The mountains will shine under the sun. The jackals will be hunting for food. . ."

He continued on, painting a portrait based on his single glimpse of the Koretian summer – a glimpse that had lasted roughly half a minute before the assassin's attack forced him to retreat back over the border. In his mind, he could see Andrew walking under the green coolness of the trees, his skin warmed by summer's rays, his head high and his smile bright and unshadowed as he stared at the leaves and twigs and moss and vines and nuts and bark and berries and earth. He would be happy—

He would be happy, and Peter would be miserably alone again, because Andrew was different from everyone else. No one else could serve as Peter's companion in the way that Andrew did. But that was what made Peter's promise a gift: the fact that he wanted Andrew to stay with him forever, but he would give Andrew back his freedom, so that the other boy could be happy.

He said nothing of the emancipation to Andrew. Chances were that years would pass before Peter became Chara and inherited his father's slaves; there would be time enough to speak of the matter once Peter acquired the power to keep his promise. But he had made the promise to himself, and he knew that he would keep the promise, just as surely as if it had been an oath he took on the Pendant of Judgment.

Andrew had fallen asleep, lulled into relaxation by images of what he thought would be a brief visit to Koretia. Peter, still holding him, lay awake for a while in the still moonlight, thinking of the gods' law, and the Chara's law, and a law that was higher than both.

Then he slept, and while he slept, he dreamt of a new tree growing in a sunny garden, and of Andrew lying beneath it, fast asleep.

RE-CREATION

Historical Note

Most of the recipes mentioned in this story were borrowed from the Roman cookbook Apicius (4th/5th century).

o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Bard of Pain ===

"This [suffering of the artist] is perhaps what we should expect when we consider that a work of creation is a work of love, and that love is the most ruthless of all the passions, sparing neither itself, nor its object, nor the obstacles that stand in its way."

—Dorothy L. Sayers: The Mind of the Maker.

Bard of Pain 1

THE DARKNESS

CHAPTER ONE

The beginning of the end for Quentin-Andrew (or so it seemed at the time) came in the moment that he stepped into the shadow of Capital Mountain and was assaulted by a stranger.

During the first seconds of the attack, all that Lieutenant Quentin-Andrew could feel, in the form of warmth in his chest, was unadulterated pleasure. He had been attacked like this many times during his seventeen years serving the Commander of the Northern Army, and the results had always been the same. It never ceased to amaze Quentin-Andrew how many men continued to adhere to the rules of fair fighting even when it became clear that such rules were of no interest to their intended victim. And once the assailant had been captured . . .

The warmth spread to Quentin-Andrew's extremities. The Commander had given him standing orders that he could deal with such men in the manner that he preferred, as long as the necessary information was obtained from them. Few men, it was said, fell into the Lieutenant's hands without ending their lives pleading for the mercy-stroke.

Unfortunately, Quentin-Andrew was about to become acquainted with one of the handful of men in the Great Peninsula who scorned the rules of fair fighting. Moreover, the man had friends. As the first moment of pleasure faded, Quentin-Andrew became aware of this fact and turned his mission abruptly from capture to escape. It was too late, though; too late even to weigh the benefits and costs of calling for help, for the first action his captor took, upon seeing him disarmed and secured, was to clamp his hand heavily over Quentin-Andrew's mouth.

And thus Quentin-Andrew, who until this day had been the most valued soldier in the Northern Army, found himself pinioned and surrounded by soldiers of the Southern Army.

These men were part of the desperate remnant of what had once been the armies of the Great Peninsula's two southern lands of Koretia and Daxis. Even now that he was their prisoner, Quentin-Andrew could not help but view them with northern contempt, as the soldiers who were too weak – too civilized – to fight by the methods that had allowed his Commander to capture all of the Great Peninsula except for the area surrounding Capital Mountain, which now lay under siege.

A dozen soldiers stood before him; the Southern Army had taken no chances in planning this capture. One, however, had stood apart from the fight, fingering lightly the dagger in his hand: a young man, half of Quentin-Andrew's age. He lacked the hard muscles of a warrior, yet he watched the scene with great care, as though memorizing valuable information. Some part of Quentin-Andrew, deep in the cold darkness that had filled his mind for many years, flickered with curiosity, and a deeper part still flickered with recognition. But the part on the surface – the only part that anyone had seen for seventeen years – revealed no sign of interest as the young man stepped forward.

He was dressed in civilian clothes, as were the other soldiers, who had been forced to venture dangerously close to the Northern Army's camp. Nothing about his clothing revealed whether he was an army official, like Quentin-Andrew, or simply a bottom-ranked soldier who had been placed in charge of this hazardous mission. Quentin-Andrew hoped it was the latter. With an army official, he would be constrained by further orders from the Commander, but a bottom-ranked soldier could be questioned at length, using any methods Quentin-Andrew chose.

It had not yet occurred to Quentin-Andrew that his time of questioning had reached an end, and that a new questioning was about to begin.

The young man paused a moment to push back his cloak. The weather was mild by northern standards, but here in the south it was wintertime, and southerners dressed themselves accordingly. The young man tilted his head to the side, his gaze fixed upon Quentin-Andrew. Once again, a faint recognition flickered in Quentin-Andrew's darkness.

Suddenly the young man smiled and touched his heart and forehead in greeting.

"Randal son of Glisson," he said in a low voice, by way of introduction. His accent was that of a Daxion. "It is an honor to meet you, Lieutenant. A man of your talents has never before come my way."

So disappeared any lingering hopes Quentin-Andrew had held that he would not be recognized, but those hopes had never been great. An army in its final gasping breath, stretched to its limits in the days before its greatest battle, does not waste a dozen men to abduct a minor soldier. And ever since the time that the Commander had released Quentin-Andrew from his duty of leading the patrol that watched over the outskirts of the camp – his other duty had become too time-consuming – he had been known to have a habit of wandering alone late at night, perhaps as an inheritance of his father's blood. The Commander had once remarked, in half earnestness, that such a habit would prove to be the Lieutenant's undoing.

Now Quentin-Andrew coolly, and without haste, ran his mind through the alternatives available to him. Dozens of northern soldiers were within shouting distance, but they all knew the Lieutenant's voice, and none of them, he was aware from experience, would come near him except with great reluctance. His old patrol unit was out tonight, guarding the camp against intruders such as these; a single whistle would bring them running. Or would it? Eight years had passed since the Lieutenant had been their official, and that had been before most of the long, bloody tasks that the Commander had assigned him. Such tasks were done for the benefit of the Northern Army, but even so . . . The Commander himself. There was no question that he would risk his life to save the Lieutenant. These days, the Commander trusted no other man with his thoughts, which had grown steadily darker over the years, until Quentin-Andrew found it difficult sometimes to remember the light-filled man to whom he had pledged his loyalty at the beginning of the war. The Commander would come; but the Commander was away from the camp tonight, supervising the final stages of the siege.

The hand dropped from Quentin-Andrew's mouth. He had one moment in which to make his decision, and then the moment was lost as a gag was stuffed into his mouth.

The young soldier, Randal, was still watching Quentin-Andrew closely. Now, as though Quentin-Andrew had spoken, he said softly, "No one will come, Lieutenant. No one cares about you. You are alone now in the pit of your destruction."

The words burned him like fire. He knew, without having to think further, into whose hands he had fallen. For a minute he remained still, feeling the bonds around his arms; then, with a sudden jerk, he pulled himself free of his captor and lunged straight toward Randal's dagger.

Randal raised the dagger with a short laugh, preventing Quentin-Andrew from impaling himself upon the blade. He waited until Quentin-Andrew had been secured once more by the soldiers before he said, "You won't receive release that way, Lieutenant; you know better than that. We'll give you over to the Jackal's fire in time, but not until you have given us what we need. And should you delay your gift . . ." Randal's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Well, Lieutenant, I don't have your skills, but I can promise you with honesty that, by the time you encounter the Jackal's fire, it will seem cool in comparison to what you have endured."

o—o—o

The chamber was round, like the sun or the moon; it was deep, fringed by tiers of steps; and it was quiet, but for the sound of one man speaking. To the south side of the chamber, brown-robed priests sat listening and nodding their heads occasionally. The north side was filled with boys, whispering to each other and nudging one another and occasionally throwing pebbles when they thought that the priests weren't looking.

One boy stood apart from the others. He was of ten years and was dark-skinned. This was not remarkable in itself, for a few of the other boys bore skin that revealed unmistakably that their families had emigrated from the south. This boy, though, was not seated with the orphan boys whom the priests cared for. He stood in the galleries above the southern seats, surrounded on all sides by visitors who jostled each other to have a first view of the special guest.

By craning his neck, the boy could see through a gap in the crowd to the opposite balcony. The northern balcony, normally reserved for the Chara and other noble guests, was filled with an overflow of younger priests on this important occasion. The chiefmost of the balcony's inhabitants, though, was not a priest but an ordinary lesser free-man. He was formally dressed with a soldier's sword clipped to his belt and a black tunic enlivened only by the silver honor brooch that bound the neck-flap fast. He was taking no notice of the whispering of the younger priests or of the heightened excitement of the boys below him. His gaze was fixed upon the center of the room, where the High Priest of the Unknowable God stood, speaking as he held up a crystal bowl toward his unseen God.

The boy opposite, noting the man's unwavering attention, turned suddenly and began squirming his way through the tight-packed crowd, eliciting a few curses from the visitors who were trying to listen to the High Priest's speech above the murmur of the audience. Even the boy, though, could not fail to hear the brisk tones of the man who was accustomed to speaking before large audiences.

"We who worship the Unknowable God," the High Priest was saying, "know the God by many names. Here in Emor, in the land famed for its justice, we call him the Lawgiver, while his human representative is the Chara, our ruler who serves as High Judge of Emor and its northern dominions. We center our belief, though, on the knowledge that the Unknowable God shows different faces in different lands, and that each of these faces, though they may seem strange to us, is worthy of honor and worship."

The boy reached the back of the crowd. His way to the staircase was blocked by a Koretian merchant who had travelled over the border for this special occasion, bringing not only his wife but all six of his children. They huddled protectively together amidst the strangers, and it was clear that they would not give way to allow the boy passage. The boy frowned, momentarily frustrated, and then turned toward the window shedding light onto the balcony. As though it had been his plan all along, he worked his way back to the window and stood on tiptoe, staring out at the scenery before him.

Below in the sanctuary, the High Priest said, "We are privileged today to enjoy the company of a man who, for many decades now, has been famous not only in the Three Lands of the Great Peninsula, but who is also respected by the inhabitants of the mainland. To some, he is Master of the Koretian Land, ruler of that great nation that was born a thousand years ago. To others, he is High Judge of Koretia, upholding the law-system which Emor bequeathed to Koretia several decades ago. To still others, he is High Priest of Koretia, directing worship toward the seven traditional gods and goddesses whom the Koretians have served over the centuries – those gods who, as he himself has said, are but different faces of the Unknowable God above all gods. But to us who serve the Unknowable God directly, he will always be known simply as the Jackal, the man who has taken on the burden of holding the powers of the Jackal God and who speaks with that god's voice."

The boy, still standing by the window, turned slightly, as though preparing to work his way back through the crowd. Then he gave a shrug and continued to stand on tiptoe, peering through the window. From where he stood, in a sanctuary under the shadow of the Chara's palace, he could see the tiled rooftops of the neat houses in the capital city of Emor, surrounded by the lofty walls that had protected the city for a thousand years. The House of the Unknowable God was built high, though, and the boy could see over the walls to the autumn-brown fields and the black border mountains to the south of the city. At the feet of the mountains were dark shapes: tiny villages in the Emorian borderland. The boy looked at one of the dark shapes for a moment before turning his gaze back to the harsh slopes of the mountains.

The High Priest raised his voice to be heard above the rising murmur of the impatient crowd, saying firmly, "The Jackal can remain with us only for a short time today, as he is on his way to meet with the Chara to discuss matters concerning our two lands. Indeed, he has shown great courtesy in pausing here during his journey so that we might ask him to join the Chara in signing the Edict Against the God-Cursed, in which both rulers agree that they will not take under their care or into their employment any man or woman whom this house has declared to be under the curse of the Unknowable God. This edict was first proposed many years ago . . ."

The boy turned away from the window finally; his toes were aching from being stood upon. He paused as he brushed up against the Koretian merchant. In the manner of Koretian men, the merchant was wearing a dagger. The boy felt something pass through him then, too ill-defined to be a sensation – nothing more, perhaps, than the potential for a feeling. Then all of his thoughts were concentrated on reaching the front of the crowd.

This time he succeeded. The visitors were cheering like a chorus of trumpets, and the people on the balcony barely noticed the boy as he slithered his way to the railing. He looked down into the central circle of ground below the balconies. There, next to the high priest, was the guest all had come to see.

To his disappointment, he found that the Jackal, instead of facing south toward the priests, had for unaccountable reasons chosen to face north toward the boys. This had the effect of paralyzing the restless orphan boys. They glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes, obviously fearful of doing anything that would attract the god-man's attention to them. Even the young priests in the gallery above were now still. Only the soldier leaned forward with a smile on his face, remaining oblivious to anything but the spectacle taking place below.

What little that the boy could see of the Jackal was disappointing. His tunic was as black as the soldier's and contained no gold border indicating his rank; his posture was upright, but his hands were relaxed by his sides. He did not even wear a blade, like the other Koretian men in the room. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that the people in the chamber fell silent in an effort to hear him.

"I am honored to receive such an introduction from the High Priest of Emor," he said, "but I fear I must correct, ever so slightly, one point he has made. He says that I hold the powers of the Jackal God. This is true, but at most times, as now, those powers lie so deep within me that I am nothing more than a man, with a man's limitations. This fact explains why I have hesitated for many years to sign the Edict Against the God-Cursed. If I, who am both man and god, cannot always know which men in these lands are cursed, how can the wise priests here hold this knowledge? The rite of cursing has been used for great evil in Koretia's past; I was not happy to learn that the priests of the Unknowable God had chosen to revive this practice.

"The High Priest has assured me, however, that the rite is not intended as a sentence of exile, as its name would suggest, but rather as a way to impress upon those who have strayed from the gods' ways how serious their crimes are. Included in the edict is a provision that any man under this curse may ask to have the curse lifted, and the priests must do so if they are given even the slightest proof that the man has attempted to turn his face toward the gods. Without this provision, I would not have signed the edict; with it, I do so with great hesitation, and only because, as High Priest of Koretia, I have the authority to lift curses. Yet I am growing old, and when I leave the Land of the Living I hope that those who remain here will remember that we are all in need of the gods' mercy, even the most honorable of us."

The boy wondered whether it was a coincidence that, at that moment, the Jackal tilted his head upwards. In the balcony above, the younger priests fluttered like nervous birds who have caught sight of a cat. Only the soldier, unflustered, continued to smile, placing his fist against his heart as though he were saluting the Koretian ruler with his sword.

The orphan boys had taken this opportunity to exchange excited whispers amongst themselves. They froze suddenly as the Jackal's gaze returned to them. When the Jackal spoke again, the boy in the balcony was astonished to hear a note of amusement in the ruler's voice.

"Some of you here," he said, "asked me earlier what will happen when I die. Will I become part of the Jackal God, living in the Land Beyond? Or will my spirit continue to dwell in my successor, he who holds the title of Jackal after me? Or will I perhaps live as a hillside jackal, making my lair in the Capital Mountain?"

The boys spluttered with giggles, and several of them reached over to nudge the boy who had evidently asked this question and who was now turning bright red. He was smiling as well, though, for the Jackal's voice had held no mockery in it.

"The truth is," said the Jackal as the boys' laughter diminished, "I have not been granted knowledge of what will happen to me after my death. I do not even know whether another man will take on the powers of the Jackal after me, though I trust that the kinsman whom I have chosen as my heir will serve as a just ruler."

There was a pause as the Koretians in the chamber murmured approvingly. The Jackal continued, "I do not know what will happen to me, and though I hold the powers of the god of death, I have been granted only glimpses of what occurs to men after death. What I have seen is hard to translate into human words."

The room had fallen utterly still. Even the soldier looked sober now, and several pairs of the boys – wine-friends, perhaps – had drawn closer to each other. One of the orphans who was sitting by himself, a young boy of perhaps seven years, chose this moment to lift his face and look up at the balcony where the older boy stood.

There was an exchange of looks, signifying little in the older boy's mind. The suggestion of a smile fluttered upon the younger boy's face. Then he looked down quickly, as though fearing that the Jackal had seen this frivolous exchange.

The Jackal was continuing to speak in a matter-of-fact manner, as though recounting light anecdotes from his travels. "Since words cannot explain fully what I have experienced, I will instead borrow images from the Koretian religion, for the images, though limited in the way that all images are, at least touch upon the truth that we will all know one day. Some of you, perhaps, come from the borderland, either the Emorian borderland or the Koretian borderland, and you may have heard your parents tell this tale when they were alive. Here in Emor, the worship of the Unknowable God has not existed long enough for native imagery to develop, but no doubt some day the Emorians will tell their own stories of what happens when men come for judgment before the Lawgiver who rules over your people. In the meantime, here is the story as the Koretian priests told it to me many years ago, when I was an orphan boy like yourselves."

The priests in the northern balcony had shifted backwards, as though aware that they were no longer within the Jackal's vision. Only the soldier continued to lean upon the railing. Watching him, the boy felt a sudden coldness, like a man being touched by a death shadow, and as though in defiance of this feeling, he placed his fingers in his ears.

No one noticed, and though the Jackal's voice was soft, it penetrated the boy's barrier. "It is said that when a man dies, the god of death comes to escort him to the Land Beyond. If the man has died in the normal way, or he is executed justly, his spirit remains in the Land of the Living for three days so that he can watch his kinsfolk mourn him. If the man is murdered, on the other hand, the Jackal comes for him at once. In either case, the man must then face a final judgment. As a boy, I was told that the Jackal judged whether the man was good or evil. The good were allowed to enter the gods' dwelling place after they had been punished for whatever small wrongdoings they had committed in their lives, while the evil were immediately flung into the pits of destruction.

"As I grew older, though, I heard another story, less often told, but one that I have learned is closer to the truth. In fact, the person who makes the judgment is not the Jackal but the man himself. The judgment is whether to enter the Jackal's fire, that fire which burns away the remaining darkness of the man's evil desires and gives the man the ability to enter the City where the gods dwell. If the man has kept his face turned toward the gods during his lifetime, the purging is short, for he has already undergone the fire in his struggles to do good. But for men who are truly evil, the fire is long and the pain beyond that which the greatest torturer in the world could produce. Such men, when faced with this agony, sometimes choose instead to flee from the Jackal. Since they cannot enter the City in the Land Beyond, these men dwell in the pits outside the City that are nothing more than their own desire for self-destruction. The pits are dark, the pits are cold, and the pits are eternal, for the gods, having given men the right to choose for themselves good or evil, cannot take away from men the right to choose the evil of eternal death."

The boy's arms were beginning to grow weary. He lowered his hands, not caring now whether he heard the Jackal's words, for all of his thoughts were on the soldier who stood on the balcony opposite. The Jackal was saying more now – something about fire and light and life – but the boy kept his gaze on the soldier, willing him to look away from the scene below.

The Jackal's voice ceased. The High Priest spoke again for a short time, after which the crowd gave a collective sigh and began talking in normal tones. The orphan boys below rose to their feet and began jostling each other. The young priests hurried from the balcony, evidently eager to collect their charges before they made mischief. The soldier, after lingering at the railing, began to turn away. At the last moment he caught sight of the boy, standing alone now on the southern balcony.

The soldier smiled – a broad smile that made the boy catch his breath. But almost immediately the soldier turned away to speak to a priest who had made his way onto the northern balcony and was gesturing. Without looking back at the boy, the soldier walked toward the balcony stairs.

The boy released his breath. In the coolness of the Emorian autumn, his mouth emitted mist into the air, but almost as soon as the mist appeared, the boy was gone. As though imitating the soldier's indifference, he had turned toward the stairs and was hurrying down the steps.

He found his path blocked by the seven-year-old boy.

The younger boy had wheat-colored hair that fell over his shimmering blue eyes; he wore a brown tunic with a hood, a miniature version of the robes worn by the priests of the Unknowable God. His hands, small and delicate, grasped the railing carefully. He was smiling broadly.

"I saw you on the balcony," he announced with pleasure. "I'm Gareth." He lifted his hand to his heart and his forehead in the free-man's greeting.

The older boy, after a momentary assessment, continued on his way, brushing past Gareth. Gareth, undisturbed, trotted behind him in his wake.

"You're from the borderland, aren't you?" he said breathlessly. "Are your parents new emigrants, or has your family lived in Emor for a long time?" He waited a respectable interval for a reply. When none came, he added, "Our patron comes from the borderland, you know. 'Tenant Griffith."

The borderland boy, without looking back at Gareth, wove his way around the tapestry-covered altar-table in the center of the sanctuary. Upon it, in a brazier, the eternal flame of sacrifice burned. The crystal bowl, filled with water, flanked it on one side. On the other side rested the symbolic Cup of Friendship. The cup was only half-filled with wine; the borderland boy guessed that the Jackal had drunk from it.

"He once led the Chara's border mountain patrol guard," Gareth said, still following the borderland boy like a buzzing fly. "They're the bravest soldiers in the world – they stop men from breaching the border between Koretia and Emor. 'Tenant Griffith was the one who persuaded the Chara to let our priests enter this land and start a house of worship here, and ever since he retired from the patrol he has given lots and lots of money to help the priests. He spends nearly all his time here—"

The borderland boy spun round then, swiftly, like a hunted animal turned at bay. He did not touch Gareth, but the younger boy, seeing his expression, fell abruptly silent.

"Leave me at peace." The borderland boy's carefully spaced words were too quiet to be heard by the priests walking past the boys toward the northern door leading to the remainder of the house, but Gareth staggered back, as though the borderland boy had downed him with a blow. Without watching to see what further effect his words would have, the borderland boy turned and began walking down the sunlit corridor.

The corridor was lined neatly with doors at regular intervals. A few of the doors were open, and the borderland boy could see that they led to living quarters and study chambers, now clogged with priests and orphan boys. Above the doors, the walls jutted upward into a clerestory, with unshuttered windows allowing light to fall onto the slate floor. Narrowing his eyes against the afternoon glare, the borderland boy paid no attention to the men and boys he passed in the corridor, but made his way resolutely toward the door at the end of the corridor, like a soldier entering valiantly into battle.

The door was ajar. The boy opened the door noiselessly, as he had seen his father do, and had a moment in which to survey the room before the others noticed him.

It was a small chamber, with windows set high in the walls, so that the room seemed filled already with dusk. Lamps had been lit against the coming night. The northern-most windows glowed, though, and the boy knew that the glow must come from the reflected light of the Chara's palace. He turned his eyes away from the brightness.

Amidst the sparse furnishings of desks and stools stood half a dozen men, five wearing priests' robes. The sixth man, though his back was to the door, turned immediately and gestured to the boy to close the door. The boy did so, and then went to stand by the soldier.

The soldier draped his arm around the boy's shoulders and smiled at the High Priest. "My eldest son, High Father," he explained. "I would have brought him to you long before this, but whenever I come to visit here, it seems that my son is always busy with his brothers and sisters or is away in the mountains, playing Hunter and Hunted with our village's children."

"That is hardly surprising, given his father's work." The High Priest did not smile at the boy, but he bowed his head in greeting. "Yes, I can see the resemblance. You have your father's eyes – and perhaps a little of his discerning spirit? His ability to see into the hearts of men is a gift from the God, and he has repaid the God many times over for that gift."

"Hardly, High Father." The soldier shook his head. "I have so much time to catch up on – so many years spent without knowledge of the Unknowable God, so many years certain that no gods existed. Since the time that you opened my eyes to the reality of where my debt lies, I have been toiling daily to offer what sacrifices I can."

"Perhaps you have been toiling in the wrong fields," contributed one of the priests dryly. It was the priest who had fetched the soldier from the balcony; he was now standing at the High Priest's right hand. "The God welcomes sacrifices, but I sometimes worry that your family is the one who makes the sacrifice, rather than you. You spend so much time here that you must seem like a stranger to them."

"My family understands how it is for me, Aiken," said the soldier with ease, his arm still firm upon his son's shoulders. "In years past, I was like a man wandering blind in the night. You have shown me a shaft of light that will lead me, in the end, to that lighted City I hope to enter one day, through the God's mercy. In the meantime, I owe a debt, and any sacrifice I make is small in comparison to what I have been given. And so I have been trying to decide for some time what gift I should give to the God that would express my full love for him – what sacrifice would cut keenly enough into me that I should truly feel the pain."

"Too great a sacrifice can be as much a sign of pride as too little a sacrifice," the High Priest commented. His gaze had been travelling ceaselessly between the soldier and his son. "Take care that you are sure of your motives for giving beyond what you have already given, Griffith."

The soldier had begun shaking his head from the moment of the High Priest's first words. "No pride, High Father – I know how little my sacrifice will appear in the eyes of the God. What I give is small to the God, yet great to me – that is why I have chosen this gift. High Father, as a sign of my everlasting love of the God, I wish to present to this house my eldest son."

The three priests at the back of the room, who had been listening attentively all this while, turned now to look at each other, raising their eyebrows. Aiken opened his mouth abruptly, but the High Priest was swifter still, saying in a calm voice, "Be assured that the God appreciates the sacrifice you have offered and that he accepts the love you have given him. We cannot accept the emblem of that love, however."

"Certainly not," said Aiken indignantly. "The boys who live in this house are orphans, or else they are dedicated to this house as babes, because their parents cannot afford to raise them. To take a boy your son's age, one who has two loving parents who care for him . . ."

"Did you talk of this with your wife, Griffith?" the High Priest asked.

"Of course, High Father," the soldier replied. His eyes appeared puzzled, and he was frowning. "The sacrifice is from both of us. She finds it as hard as I do to let the boy go, but she understands where my spirit lies in this matter."

The High Priest gave a small sigh, and then said firmly, "You are both god-lovers, Griffith; that has been clear since long before this. Nevertheless, your son's best interests are a matter that the God would wish you to consider. To leave his family now—"

"I want to leave."

The boy's words, hard and without hesitation, caused all in the room to look at him. Ducking free of the soldier's arm, the boy stepped forward and endured their scrutiny.

He was shaking, and had been shaking since the moment of the soldier's announcement; bile filled his throat. Yet he tilted his head steadily to look up at the High Priest as he said, "I don't want to live with my parents any more. I want to live here."

"You see?" said the soldier joyfully, smiling at the boy. "He is my son; his love of the gods is as great as mine."

The boy did not look his way. Still staring up at the High Priest, he asked, "May I wait outside? I was talking with one of the other orphan boys before."

The High Priest's gaze travelled over to the smiling soldier, and then quickly back to the boy. "Of course," he said quietly. "I'm sure that you would like to explore this house during your visit."

The boy turned then and walked stiffly past the soldier, ignoring the hand that the soldier laid upon his head. He closed the corridor door behind him quickly, but as he did so, he could hear Aiken saying, in a changed voice, "Perhaps, in the boy's best interests . . ."

Much to the borderland boy's surprise, Gareth was awaiting him.

The corridors were empty now, and all of the doors were shut. In the short time since the borderland boy had entered the chamber, the light in the corridor had turned ruddy from the setting sun. In one of the pools of light falling upon the east wall, Gareth stood, watching the borderland boy with uncertain eyes. The borderland boy, with barely a pause in his stride, walked down the corridor, passing Gareth on the way.

As the borderland boy had expected, Gareth detached himself from the wall and hurried down the corridor beside the older boy. "I'm sorry," he said. "I talked too much before. You're the guest; I should have let you talk."

"You can talk without cease," said the borderland boy, not looking his way. "I'll be here for the next six years."

"Will you?" Gareth channelled his delight into a skip and a leap. "Are you coming to live here, then? You'll like it here, truly you will. You'll have lots of friends. I'll be your friend if you'd like."

The borderland boy stopped then. They had reached the end of the corridor, and all that lay before them was the rectangular doorway to the sanctuary, leading to the narrow passageway between the tiered seats. The borderland boy considered for a moment the empty sanctuary, which held only fiery specks of dust, twisting through the air under the evening light. Then he turned to Gareth, who was waiting anxiously beside him.

"If you want to be my friend," he said, "where's the cup?"

Gareth gaped at him for a moment, and then hopped in his place, saying, "Wait here. I'll be right back. Don't go away!" He darted past the borderland boy into the sanctuary.

The borderland boy turned his back on the sanctuary and looked down the corridor he had just travelled. The sun's rays were crawling up the sides of the wall now, leaving a pool of darkness collecting on the ground. The door he had travelled through was shut.

Gareth arrived at his side, panting in his haste. In his hand was a bejewelled cup, with the berry-red wine of Koretia inside it. "It's from the altar," he explained. "I don't think the High Priest would mind, though. What we're doing . . . It's a sacred vow, really."

The borderland boy had turned his back halfway on the shut door at the other end of the corridor. He reached out and took the cup from Gareth, slowly raised it to his lips, and sipped from the wine of friendship. Gareth, his face flush from the evening light, wriggled with delight.

Unnoticed by both boys, two men stood at the other end of the corridor, with the door behind them flung wide open. The soldier gestured toward the drinking boy, raising his eyebrows. The High Priest looked for a long moment at the borderland boy, as well as at Gareth, whose face was alight with a smile. Then the High Priest nodded heavily, and the two men turned to re-enter the chamber.

If they had waited a moment longer, perhaps their thoughts would have changed, and if so, the destiny of the Three Lands would have taken a different course.

It may be that the High Priest would not have recognized what he saw. Though a wise man, he was still relatively young, and he had always seen darkness in shapes that were easily recognizable: in the vicious look of a murderer holding a thigh-dagger, in the angry expression of a man who hated the gods, in the petulant pout of a self-centered woman. This was where he was accustomed to seeing darkness, and he had not yet learned the many shapes that darkness can take.

The soldier might have been wiser, for within his family a seed had been planted long ago, so many generations past that the family tales told without words of the many methods by which his ancestors had prevented that seed from growing. The seed had not skipped his own generation, and if he had wished, he could have spoken to his children the warnings that his father had given him. Such a thought had never occurred to him, though, and he had not recognized the signs of the seed in his eldest son.

What happened next would perhaps have alerted him to the danger and awoken him to the darkness he had turned his back on when he entered joyfully into the light. But he had turned away too soon, and so he did not see what Gareth saw in the moment that the borderland boy lowered the cup from his lips.

Quentin-Andrew son of Quentin-Griffith was smiling.

At age ten, Quentin-Andrew already had darkly beautiful eyes. His smile, calculated to the slightest degree in the manner of its curve, would have driven women wild later in his life if he had ever bothered to bestow it upon them. As it was, the smile caused Gareth to wriggle again, clearly overwhelmed by the gift he had been offered. As Gareth reached out to take the cup and drink from it, his hand brushed the borderland boy's, and Quentin-Andrew felt a warmth enter him, such as he had never felt before. His smile increased, and Gareth laughed with joy.

Not until five years later, in the final moments of his life, would Gareth learn that Quentin-Andrew had smiled that day because he was imagining Gareth's death.

CHAPTER TWO

They brought him to the dungeon of the Jackal's palace, the great building that had once housed hundreds of people. Just a handful remained now. The people in the Koretian capital had scattered, harried by the dark thrust of war, so that the only people left in the capital were the southern soldiers and the palace officials and lords whom they guarded. The lords and officials well knew what fate awaited them if they were captured; none of them had dared venture beyond the protective cordon of the Southern Army.

Quentin-Andrew saw none of those men and women during his forced march through the bowels of the palace. All that he saw were soldiers, grim-faced, confronting their coming doom with short words and tight lips. Some were old men, others were boys; not many were left to fight for the freedom of Koretia and Daxis. They glanced at Quentin-Andrew without interest. He wondered for a moment whether they failed to recognize his northern uniform and simply thought that he was a southern soldier who had been arrested for crimes. Then he realized that the men would have regarded him in the same empty manner if he had been the Jackal himself, rising from the dead to lead his people in their final battle. The southern soldiers were husks, void of all thought and hope; they were reserving their energy in order to die in an honorable manner.

The dungeon corridors were thick with tar-filled smoke from the torches; the soldiers escorting him coughed into their fists. Quentin-Andrew idly noted how little had changed in this place since he had been there last. Here was the same rough stonework, arching in a low ceiling that was blackened with torch-smoke; here were the same moans and cries, seeping like blood from under the doors; here were the same shadows, fluttering over him like the wings of a carrion bird. And there, straight ahead, the same golden glow—

A door opened next to him, he was thrust without preliminary through the doorway, and he found himself in a cell hot with fire.

The light was harsh to his sight. His eyes were slow to adjust, and when they did, he saw nothing that he had not expected. The instruments on the wall, the tools on the table – they were as familiar to him as the toys of his childhood. He wondered, dimly, why his heart pounded in his chest, as though he were in a strange place.

The door had closed behind him. He heard the rasp of a key turning in the lock, and the part of him that was examining this room with professional interest gave a small smile. The locked door was a mistake. It was better at the start to leave the prisoner with hope that he might escape – better, in fact, to allow that hope to linger as long as possible. That made the moment when the hope died all the more delicious.

As a soldier unbound his arms and wrists, Quentin-Andrew looked over at Randal, who was pulling off his cloak and hanging it on one of the hooks that was intended for other purposes. Without surprise, Quentin-Andrew saw that the young man's gaze was already fixed on him. Randal smiled as the borderlander looked his way, and he said, in a voice that sounded serious, "I hope that you approve."

Without meaning to – and the fact that he had not meant to told Quentin-Andrew immediately what level of man he was dealing with – Quentin-Andrew shifted his gaze back to the objects of the room: the rings, the chains, the pulleys, the irons glowing on the fire. Beside him, Randal said in a matter-of-fact voice, "When I was hired last year, our subcommander gave me permission to stock this place in any way I wished. I made up my list based on the reports we'd received of the methods you use. I didn't think that I could improve upon perfection."

Quentin-Andrew's mouth felt dry; he wondered why it was taking so long to recover from the effects of the gag. He turned his attention back to the soldiers. Only two of Randal's men had remained in the room. The older one was checking the heat of the fire, while the younger one was carefully inspecting the tools to see that they were ready. Quentin-Andrew noted this with professional approval.

Randal snapped his fingers at the first man and nodded toward a shadow-smothered corner. Then, having delegated the early duties, he pulled himself onto the table, stained with black blood, and sat there, swinging his legs like a schoolboy.

"I had mixed feelings about taking this assignment," reported Randal in the same light voice. "You're the hero of my childhood. I used to lie awake at night, dreaming that you would come and ask me to be your apprentice. I knew, of course, that I couldn't hope to reach your heights, but what man could? Since you never came, I learned everything I could about you: I studied your techniques, I recorded your questions in the few cases where the prisoner was released alive – I even received permission from the subcommander to examine the bodies of the men you had questioned, whenever those bodies were returned to our army.

"It was like gazing on the work of an artist. What you did here—" He reached up with his hand and briefly indicated a spot on his body. "It never would have occurred to me, even if I'd lived as long as the Jackal did. Yet you knew . . . How in the names of all the world's gods did you know? You knew what it would do to a prisoner. The first time I used that technique I felt like a bard stealing another man's song, yet the results were too beautiful to throw away. Neither I, nor any man living, will ever be able to match you in what you do.

"It seems such a shame to destroy you."

The fire roaring quietly in the corner was pricking Quentin-Andrew's body with heat. With the sluggishness of a mind that has not been roused to curiosity for many years, Quentin-Andrew wondered why he continued to feel so cold.

From the dark corner, the older assistant emerged, holding several objects, long and black and keenly crafted in a way that made Quentin-Andrew's heart ache. He had never had equipment that fine during his years of work; the Northern Army had been forced to wage war with makeshift tools, scarce at all times. Quentin-Andrew had not even had an assistant since the day that the man who helped him had been foolish enough to listen secretly as the Lieutenant questioned a spy who had to be broken quickly. Perhaps the assistant had merely wished to improve his own skills; perhaps he held hopes of rising above his official. Quentin-Andrew had never discovered the truth, for the assistant had lost his wits shortly thereafter.

Quentin-Andrew had been puzzled by this event; his special technique was supposed to affect no one except the prisoner. But the end result had been that no one was willing to be the assistant's replacement. This had pleased Quentin-Andrew: he could accomplish more on his own.

Now Randal turned to inspect what his assistant had brought him. After shaking his head at the first object offered, he carefully studied the remaining objects. As he did so, he said, "Your special form of questioning – you know what I'm talking about. You wouldn't be willing to teach that to me, I suppose? No?" Quentin-Andrew had said nothing, but Randal had glanced at his face as he spoke and extracted his answer from there. "Well, I suppose it's just as well. I'm not sure I'd have the skill to survive such training. If it could be taught in the abstract— But of course it can't; you'd have to demonstrate it on me. And even if we had the time for that, I wouldn't want to play the odds and see whether I could be the only man you ever failed to break."

He made his decision, reaching for the one with knots, and then turned to look at his prisoner. Quentin-Andrew waited with practiced stillness to see which direction Randal would take. He could tell Quentin-Andrew to do it to himself – that would be the right technique for some prisoners. And if he decided the matter that way, Quentin-Andrew would know that he was in the hands of a man who had not yet learned his trade.

A smile flitted across Randal's face, as though he had guessed Quentin-Andrew's thoughts once more. "Strip him," he said without moving his head to look at his assistants. At this word, the men came forward.

Quentin-Andrew did not try to resist them. Between here and freedom stood a locked door, a guarded exit, hundreds of soldiers, and a moat that was bridgeless at this time of night. There was no sense in wasting strength he would need soon. The only question that was left – and as yet it had not reached the surface of his mind – was how great his loyalty was to the Commander, and how much he was willing to endure for the Commander's sake.

Randal, watching as his assistants laid hands upon Quentin-Andrew, said, "I owe you a second debt you may not know of: you make me and all of the other torturers in the Great Peninsula look like the gods of daylight by comparison. My father . . ." Randal paused considerately as one of the assistants tore Quentin-Andrew's tunic open. Then he continued, "My father was ready to disown me when I took up this profession. He told me that he'd rather have an assassin in the family than someone who did this type of work. Then a few years ago we received word that you'd broken six men in one day. My father said grudgingly that at least I wasn't as bad as you. 'You only break men's bodies,' he told me, 'but the Lieutenant breaks men's spirits.'"

Randal rose, reached over to a small ledge nearby, and tossed an object there into the waiting hand of his older assistant. Quentin-Andrew, as he was thrust face-forward against the wall and his arms were raised above him, had a moment to wonder why Randal chose to bind his prisoners with soft leather straps rather than rope. Had he found an advantage to this method over the burns caused by the coarse cords of hemp? Or was Randal still in the experimental stage that Quentin-Andrew had underwent thirty years before, testing various methods to see which ones worked best? Over time, Quentin-Andrew reflected, it was all too easy to become constrained within old patterns, to miss taking advantage of new ideas and new techniques. Quentin-Andrew had long since given up hope of being taught something he did not already know; now a touch of idle hope reached him that this episode would at least be worth his time in terms of education.

He heard a footstep and turned his head. Randal had walked over to stand beside him; the young man was caressing, with absent-minded habit, the knotted line of the object he held. "Of course my father was wrong," he said quietly. "We both know that the breaking of the body means nothing. It is only when the spirit is broken that the prisoner gives forth his information. That's why, in a certain way, I've been looking forward to this assignment. You are a new challenge: how does one break the spirit of a man who is rumored to have none?" Randal gave a half-smile. "I grew up on stories telling that you were a demon in human form, and though I've heard tales like that about myself during the past few months, none have sounded as convincing as the stories told of you. They say that no man alive has seen your spirit – even to your Commander you are a mystery. Is it true that there's nothing left of you in the Land of the Living? Was your spirit eaten by a demon long ago?"

Quentin-Andrew's arms were beginning to ache. He inwardly recorded this information without interest, along with the fact that his body felt far more comfortable now that his clothes were gone. The heat that was making droplets of moisture begin to dribble down Randal's face touched Quentin-Andrew only lightly, and now that he was facing away from the fire, the light no longer bothered him. He felt secure in the cool darkness, and as yet nothing touched the surface of his spirit to suggest what was taking place at lower depths.

Randal, still stroking the object in his hand, grew suddenly still, his smile fading. Then he said, in a very quiet voice, "Ah. Now, that I would not have guessed. You see? I have become your apprentice despite the different paths of our lives; your presence here is teaching me things I did not know about you. I am looking forward all the more now to our time together."

His gaze flicked over to the assistants, and he gestured with his head. Quentin-Andrew heard the soft scuff of boots retreating as the men gave Randal the room he needed. Randal took a step back, judged the distance, and stepped back once more, stretching his arm in readiness. "I won't bore you with the usual pleas for cooperation," he said. "You know the information I want; you know what will happen if you refuse to speak. Do you need more time to decide?" He paused but an instant before saying, "No. Well, then . . ." He reached out his arm again, allowing the object to unfold at full length; then he glanced at Quentin-Andrew and smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid I've never had the benefit of watching you do this. If my technique is somewhat slipshod, that's why." He pulled his arm back.

In the moment before the blow landed, Quentin-Andrew became aware, as he had not been before, of various noises around him: the scraping of metal as one of the assistants picked up the next tool, the low scream of the fire nearby, and the hard and rhythmic pounding of his heart. And it was at that moment, in the bare second before the whip touched fire upon his flesh, that two appalling facts worked themselves to the surface of his spirit.

He was afraid. And what was worse, Randal knew that he was afraid.

o—o—o

Already his visit to the Jackal's palace was proving to be a disappointment, Quentin-Andrew reflected as he lowered the unconscious guard to the ground. From all that he had heard about the god-man who ruled Koretia, he would have expected the Jackal to have trained his soldiers well, yet it had taken only one pebble pitched in the right direction to distract the attention of the royal residence guard for as long as was necessary. The Jackal had best not prove to be as foolish a man as his guards, Quentin-Andrew thought as he turned his attention to pulling the guard behind the glowing arch that marked the entrance to the royal residence. If the Jackal was, then Quentin-Andrew's trip to this palace was in vain.

Pulling from his belt a flask of strong cider, he trickled a small amount into the guard's mouth, then placed the flask in the guard's limp hand, allowing the cider to collect in a pool on the floor. This done, he glanced down the corridor he had just travelled. The guards were still on patrol further into the dungeon; the corridor was deserted and quiet, except for the sobs emanating from a cell nearby. Quentin-Andrew appreciated the sobs, not only because they made his body grow warm in a comfortable manner, but also because they had covered the sound the guard's head had made when it was hit with the iron.

Quentin-Andrew carefully laid the iron aside in the shadows; he would not be needing that now. What was needed from this point on was not force but guile, as well as swiftness. It would not be long before the patrolling soldiers noticed the absence of the guard, and by that time he must be at his destination.

He turned. The corridor behind him was kept purposely unlit, but Lieutenant Quentin-Griffith had taught his eldest son how patrol guards moved in the dark; he had also taught his son what tricks border-breachers used to get past the border mountain patrol. A smile entered into Quentin-Andrew's eyes. He wondered what his father would think if he knew to what use his son would put that knowledge tonight.

Then the smile disappeared. Quentin-Andrew never allowed his thoughts to dwell long on his childhood.

Slowly, steadily, he moved forward until he could see the glow around the corner ahead. He paused a moment, wishing that he could see the faces of the guards he was approaching; so much depended on what type of men they were. But that was a risk he must take. He waited to allow his eyes to adjust to the light; then he sprang suddenly around the corner and began running with all his might.

He knew that he did not have far to go; he ran fast only because he wanted to come close quickly, so that the guards could see that there was no blade at his belt. Without that knowledge, they might loose their spears immediately. As it was, their spears were lowered with unreassuring suddenness, blocking his path. He skidded to a halt, barely avoiding being impaled on one of the shafts.

"Thank the gods that you're still on alert," he said without preliminary, speaking in the low voice of a man who is accustomed to remaining quiet and calm, even in the face of disaster. "Come quickly; the other guard—"

"Who are you, sir, and what is your business?" The elder of the two guards was wearing the uniform of a sublieutenant. He was about the same age as Quentin-Andrew, thirty-five, and he looked grave and unshaken.

This did not bode well. Quentin-Andrew turned his head slowly, as though noticing for the first time their weapons, shimmering in the torchlight before the guarded doorway. The younger of the guards was chewing his lip hard in a manner satisfactory to Quentin-Andrew, though his spear was steady.

Quentin-Andrew allowed his face to fall into the proper mixture of astonishment, exasperation, and the ill-contained impatience of a man who finds himself confronted with a pair of fools. "Who in the names of all the gods do you think I am?" he asked. "Do you think I wear an outfit like this in the palace for the pleasure of being arrested? Or do I need to show you this?" He flicked up the edge of his tunic momentarily.

The tunic was Daxion and belonged to the soldier that Quentin-Andrew had killed on his way over the border; the thigh-pocket strapped around his leg, on the other hand, was of Koretian design. Only the tiny thigh-dagger, whose hilt peeked out from the pocket, belonged to Quentin-Andrew. He had bought it on the day he left the House of the Unknowable God, using the money he had taken from the priests' offerings for the poor.

The sublieutenant allowed his gaze to flick down toward the thigh-dagger only momentarily; then his eyes rose to Quentin-Andrew's face once more. "Your name?" he asked quietly.

Quentin-Andrew paused; to give his name too quickly would not be wise. Then, having apparently weighed and discarded all other options, he said in a tight voice, "Lieutenant Seaver. Of the Jackal's thieves. And if you expect me to produce proof of my identity, then the Jackal is employing bigger fools than he was when I last visited this land."

There was a flicker in the sublieutenant's expression, as Quentin-Andrew had hoped there would be; he had gambled on the possibility that the royal residence guards would be entrusted with the names of the Jackal's spies. Quentin-Andrew had in fact met the thief whose name he was stealing. When last he saw him alive, the man's expression had been one of profound relief as Quentin-Andrew granted him the mercy-stroke. Standing nearby had been the torturer of the Daxion palace; his expression had been one of awe, having been privileged to see Quentin-Andrew at work.

That had been only yesterday. So swiftly had Quentin-Andrew broken the prisoner that the spy's arrest would not have been reported yet to the Jackal's palace.

The sublieutenant, apparently deciding to take the safer road in this matter, said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't let you into the royal residence. Not without the Jackal's permission beforehand."

"May the Jackal eat his dead!" Quentin-Andrew followed this up with a string of curses in Border Koretian. He did not speak Common Koretian well enough to be able to pass as a southerner; it was better that the men take him to be what he was, a borderlander. Only a fellow borderlander would be able to tell from his accent that he came from the north of the border rather than the south of it.

The younger guard's eyes were wide now; apparently he had some knowledge of Border Koretian. Switching quickly back to Common Koretian, Quentin-Andrew said, in the same quiet voice as before, "Are you two mad? Do you think I'd venture into the residence at this time of night? I wish to live long enough to complete my service to the Jackal, and entering his quarters uninvited would shorten my lifespan considerably. I thought" – he allowed the word to linger – "that you might be interested in what has happened to the other guard."

There was a moment's pause before the sublieutenant said, "Stay on alert, Orrick." The younger guard, still chewing on his lip, nodded and placed his spear in guard position across the doorway. Quentin-Andrew, without waiting to see whether the sublieutenant was following, turned and began walking rapidly back the way he came.

As he rounded the corner he felt the older guard join him at his side. "Sublieutenant Roe of the Royal Residence Watch," the guard said breathlessly as he strove to keep pace with Quentin-Andrew. "Sir, I can't stay away from my post for long."

"This won't take long," said Quentin-Andrew grimly and pointed to the slumped body ahead.

Roe reached the guard's side with a swiftness that caused Quentin-Andrew to reassess his views on the training of the Jackal's soldiers. Within a very few moments, Roe had checked the guard's pulse, had found and sniffed the flask, and had dragged the guard's body into the light spilling in from the corridor. His inspection of the body was just as swift.

"Drunk on duty?" Roe said, in the voice of a man making a tentative hypothesis.

"That's what you're meant to think." It had taken Quentin-Andrew only a second to change his tactics; his revision of plans arose from Roe's careful inspection. Helpfully – since Roe would have found the spot in the next moment anyway – Quentin-Andrew turned the guard's head to reveal the small lump at the back. "Look at this," he said.

Roe's eyes rose toward the empty corridor; then he looked back toward the dark corridor they had just traversed. "Has anyone gone past you tonight?" Quentin-Andrew asked.

"No one, sir." Roe rose from the unconscious body. "His pulse is steady; he's not badly hurt. Sir, I left Orrick alone—"

"You're right, we shouldn't leave that entrance with a single guard. We can talk there."

Before Quentin-Andrew had finished his sentence, Roe had started racing back to his guard post. By the time that Quentin-Andrew arrived, Roe was completing his explanation to Orrick of what had happened. The sublieutenant looked over at Quentin-Andrew and said, as if he had been asked again, "No one has tried to come past us, sir, and we've been on watch for six hours."

"The entrance upstairs?" Quentin-Andrew spoke absentmindedly, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. This was not a hard feat, since he knew the answer to his own question.

"Locked at this time of night, sir, and within full view of the main corridor, which is always busy. No one could enter the royal residence in that way."

"In any case, the man we're looking for was planning to come through this entrance. He must have been scared away when I walked past, but he'll be back." Quentin-Andrew gave a small smile, the hardest exercise he had undergone all night, since he had to remember which face muscles to use. "Forgive me, sublieutenant, for interfering in business that is your own, but my guess is that we are dealing with one of my enemy colleagues. If that's the case, then the man we're waiting for is very dangerous and very clever. He'll be arriving here in disguise – he may already have been disguised for many weeks now. He may be a soldier you know and trust, perhaps even an official."

"Not even army officials can enter the residence unless we allow them to, sir," Roe said flatly.

"And your own officials? We should alert them to what has happened—"

"The Lieutenant of the Royal Residence Watch is in meeting with the Captain of the Palace Guard tonight," Orrick volunteered. His eyes had been darting from wall to wall all this time, as though anticipating the moment of confrontation. "They'll both be in the royal residence."

Quentin-Andrew nodded as though he had known this already, as indeed he had. "And my official, alas, is out on a mission; that means I report directly to the Jackal. So we can receive no help there."

"If we called an alert—" said Orrick eagerly.

"The spy would take alarm from the noise and escape," said Roe. "That's what you fear, isn't it, sir?"

"Worse than that. I fear that whichever official we contacted about this would turn out to be the spy himself." Quentin-Andrew allowed himself to slump dejectedly against the wall. "The only men I would absolutely trust in this palace are my fellow thieves, and they happen to be the only men who could track down this spy or assassin or whatever he turns out to be. The trouble is, only the Jackal knows how to contact the other thieves." He raised his eyes and held them steady upon Roe's. "I'm sorry, sublieutenant, but it appears that either you or Soldier Orrick will need to enter the royal residence to let the Jackal know what has happened."

Blood welled as Orrick bit into his lip; the younger guard looked quickly toward Roe. Roe was evidently well versed in stoic expressions, but he said quietly, "One man can't hold this entrance, sir. Do you have experience in guarding?"

"None, I'm afraid." Quentin-Andrew tried a self-deprecating smile, and then abandoned the effort. "I'm trained only to defend myself through a quick killing. I take it that what we need in this case is to capture the spy so that he can be questioned."

"Yes, sir." Roe kept his gaze fixed on Quentin-Andrew, and Quentin-Andrew was careful not to allow his own gaze to waver. Hidden in the palm of his right hand was his thigh-dagger; if this plan did not work, he would have to kill the guards after all, and he could not allow himself that pleasure tonight. Dead guards would cause greater excitement in the palace than unconscious ones.

After a moment, Roe eased Quentin-Andrew by saying, "I'm sorry, sir; we're under orders to remain at our posts until we are relieved. I'm afraid that you'll need to carry the news to the Jackal of what has happened."

"Well." Quentin-Andrew swallowed in an obvious manner, and then cleared his throat. "No doubt he has a guard at his door who can give the report—"

"No guard, sir; the Jackal doesn't need one. We're only here to protect the other residents of the royal residence." Roe stepped back from the doorway. "Don't worry, sir. If he hears you knock at the door, he'll take the time to learn who you are, and he has met you before."

"Very well." Quentin-Andrew was intensely aware of the passing minutes; he decided that it was time to look forceful again. Squaring his shoulders like a spy setting out on a difficult and possibly life-threatening mission, he said, "If he has any special orders for you, I'll report back. Otherwise . . ."

"No one will pass through this doorway, sir," Roe reassured him. "Not even the subcommander himself."

Quentin-Andrew nodded, adding in a quiet voice as he stepped by, "I'll let the Jackal know how well served he has been tonight." Then he was through the entrance, and he was able to let the dagger lie loose in his hand.

Too long, he thought; it had taken too long to pass that keen-eyed sublieutenant, and if Roe had possessed just a few years more of experience, Quentin-Andrew would not have been able to pass him at all.

Now, of course, Roe would never gain that experience. By this time next week, the sublieutenant would be dismissed or dead, depending on how heavily he was punished for tonight's mistake. But that was a matter of no interest to Quentin-Andrew.

He climbed two flights of steps, pausing only to scoop up a loose chip of marble that he felt underfoot. The stairs were unlit; if the stories about the Jackal were true, the god-man needed no extra help in negotiating the night darkness. At the top of the steps, Quentin-Andrew hesitated in the shadows. No sound came from the corridor except a soft exchange of men's voices to the right; that would be the Lieutenant of the Royal Residence Watch in meeting with his official. Aside from the Jackal, only the High Lord and his family lived in the royal residence. The Jackal's heir had moved from the palace many years ago, purportedly so that he could raise his son in quiet isolation from palace politics.

Quentin-Andrew threw the chip of marble forward into the lighted corridor, then waited. No guard came to investigate. After a moment, he eased his way into the corridor, looked quickly toward the closed doors to the right, and walked equally swiftly to the left, toward the door at the end of the corridor.

The door was unmarked, and was lit only by the glow of the golden stones of the corridor's outside wall. Quentin-Andrew tested the latch cautiously before he began edging the door open at the same speed that a middle-aged tortoise would use when it was in no great hurry. The door had opened little wider than a hand's span when Quentin-Andrew slid inside the chamber and closed the door swiftly and noiselessly.

The shutters in the room were closed; a moment passed before Quentin-Andrew was able to adjust to the patrol vision he had acquired as a child. There was little to see in any case: a table, a stool, a trunk, a bed, and the ruler of Koretia, curled up peacefully in his slumbers.

His back was to the door; Quentin-Andrew could just see the shimmer of his silver hair. The rest of his body was in clear outline against the light peering through the cracks of one of the shutters. On this warm summer's night, the Jackal had abandoned all blankets and lay only in his undertunic and breech-cloth. He looked as defenseless as a child. Not even a cushion lay under his head, the first place Quentin-Andrew had looked, since that was the best place to hide a dagger during the night. With his hand still curled around his thigh-dagger, Quentin-Andrew cautiously approached the ruler. He could see the other side of the Jackal's body now. The ruler's hands were empty and were beyond reach of any object or hiding place.

Quentin-Andrew raised his blade so that it was in line with the Jackal's heart. The light from the shutter shone upon the dagger, causing a small reflection to appear on the opposite wall. Hastily, Quentin-Andrew turned the blade so that the reflection now shimmered on the dark skin of the Jackal's arm. He raised his other hand in order to muffle the Jackal's mouth.

His hand never touched the Jackal. A roar filled the room like the sound of fire eating the heart of a building. Quentin-Andrew saw a shimmer of light move toward him like a falling star, and then he was staggering back, his heart pounding from the pain across his right cheek, where five wounds had suddenly appeared.

Only his quick retreat saved him. The next swipe of the claws, aimed at his heart, fell short of its target, and the Jackal made no immediate effort to follow him. Quentin-Andrew could see the god-man's body only dimly, but his face was as clear as midday: his eyes shone like sun-sparks, his whiskers curled back like butchers' blades, and his teeth were honed to arrow-points. His mouth was smiling.

Quentin-Andrew did not notice that his own body was shaking; he was busy judging the distance between himself and the door. The windows were too far away to escape through, but it made no difference. On second reflection, he realized that any movement he made toward an exit would result in his immediate death. He wished that he had paid closer attention to the stories about the Jackal, as well as to Roe's veiled warning.

The Jackal's roar had diminished, but now a snarling began, like a warning sign given by a beast that is too polite to attack without cause. In the same moment, Quentin-Andrew realized that his greatest mistake had been to enter this chamber armed. With rapid calculation he weighed the odds against himself, and then he dropped the thigh-dagger onto the floor.

The snarling stopped, but the Jackal remained as he was, poised on the edge of his toes, ready to pounce. With a voice as deep as thunder and as soft as flames, the god-man said, "How dare you come into my presence, you who lie under my curse."

Quentin-Andrew was finding it increasingly hard to breathe, and he laid a silent curse upon himself for seeking out the one man he had most cause to avoid. His voice was cool, though, as he replied, "I came to seek your advice, Jackal."

In an instant, the room turned dark. Blind to all images, Quentin-Andrew waited with tensed muscles, straining his spirit to hear the Jackal's approach. A light flared. Quentin-Andrew shaded his eyes, and when he lowered his arm, the god-man of Koretia stood before him, emptied of his power.

His human face was in no way remarkable, except for his eyes, which were as black as dead coals. His face contained many lines from old age; his body contained many lines too, but most of these were old blade wounds. Quentin-Andrew realized, with rueful belatedness, that even without his godly power, the Jackal might not have proved easy to overcome. He stood stiffly, enduring the Jackal's inspection, but his breath whistled in as the Jackal raised his left hand. On the nails of the Jackal's fingers, the blood from Quentin-Andrew's cheek was still fresh.

The Jackal laid his hand on that cheek, turning Quentin-Andrew's face gently toward the candlelight. He said quietly, "Your wounds need to be washed."

He turned away, and Quentin-Andrew, without being aware of the fact, closed his eyes momentarily and let his breath out in a long sigh. After a minute, the Jackal returned with a basin and washcloth in hand. He raised the cloth and began wiping the blood from Quentin-Andrew's cheek, which continued to burn sharply.

With his gaze focussed on his task, the Koretian ruler said softly, "May I know your name?"

Quentin-Andrew's eyes narrowed. "Don't you know it already?"

"I know only what my powers tell me: that you lie under the gods' curse." The Jackal stepped back, dipped his left hand briefly in the water, and wiped the remaining blood from his hand before placing the basin on the table nearby. As he did so, he carefully nudged three objects aside. Quentin-Andrew made note of them in an automatic manner.

The Jackal took several steps back. His body was now full in the light, and Quentin-Andrew could see the sagging skin and the slight tremble of old age. The ruler was still wearing nothing more than his undertunic. In the same soft voice as before, the Jackal said, "No one places men under the gods' curse in our day except the priests of the Unknowable God, and they have done so very few times over the years. I remember one case that occurred twenty years ago, when they placed the curse upon a borderlander because he had killed a twelve-year-old boy."

"I tortured him to death," Quentin-Andrew said in the emotionless voice of a man who simply wishes to clarify facts.

The Jackal made no immediate reply. In the interval of silence – which seemed empty and cold in comparison to the fire-roar that had come before – a pounding began upon the chamber door. "Jackal!" shouted an accompanying voice. "Jackal, are you in there?"

Quentin-Andrew's estimation of Roe rose another notch. It had not taken the sublieutenant long to recognize the flaws in Quentin-Andrew's story. Unhurriedly, the Jackal walked to the door and opened it slightly. A low-voiced discussion followed, and then the door closed. When the Jackal turned back, his expression had not changed. He said nothing more than, "You could teach my thieves a few lessons."

Quentin-Andrew shook his head. "My only skills in that respect are in breaking into buildings and breaking out of them."

"Breaking out of them," the Jackal murmured. Then: "How many times have you been arrested?"

Quentin-Andrew made no reply, and after a moment the Jackal nodded. "You tortured the boy to death," he said, as though there had been no pause in the conversation, "and because you were a boy yourself, not yet sixteen, you were beyond the penalties of the Chara's law. So the priests tried at first to talk with you, and when you refused to answer their questions, they tried to show you the evil you had done, so that you would turn your face once more toward the gods. But all that you said was, 'I cannot change what I am.' And so, seeing your cold refusal of all efforts to help you, they took the only path left to them: they placed you under the gods' curse and drove you from their midst."

Still Quentin-Andrew made no reply. His heart's pace was unhurried now, and his body was warm with the remembrance of what he had done. A smile entered into his eyes, and he saw the Jackal's expression flicker. Then the ruler asked, "Were you fond of the boy?"

"Why would I have been?" Quentin-Andrew replied tersely.

The Jackal raised his hands in a brief shrug. "I was trying to determine under what circumstances you would commit such a deed. Do you kill out of hatred? Or out of love?"

This was the first indication Quentin-Andrew had received that the Jackal's mind was as quick as his body. It took him a moment to formulate his reply. "I enjoy pain. Long pain most of all. And deep pain. If I know the person well, then I am able to drive the pain deeper."

"So," the Jackal said softly, "those who love you are in greatest danger from you."

"All are in danger from me."

The Jackal stood considering this. His hand was upon the table beside him, absentmindedly brushing the faded colors of a cluster of autumn leaves. After a while he asked, "Why have you come here?"

"Not to request that you lift the curse." Quentin-Andrew's reply was quick.

"No," said the Jackal slowly. "No, I can see that is not your purpose. If it were, then I would not have reacted to your entrance in the way that I did. In any case, the curse lies too deep for me to reach. Only you have the ability to burn it away."

Quentin-Andrew ignored these words, as well as the pleasure caused by the sudden image he held of a brand-iron on the fire, waiting to be used on a prisoner. The Jackal asked, "What is your purpose, then, in coming?"

Quentin-Andrew raised his eyebrows and said dryly, "Only to seek the advice of a fellow torturer on where I should ply my trade."

The silence was absolute, but for the whisper of the candle. For one dark moment, Quentin-Andrew thought that he saw the Jackal's eyes begin to glow. When the Jackal replied, though, his voice was matter-of-fact. "To advise you, I must know your skills."

"Then show me to one of your prisoners."

The Jackal shook his head. "I question all of the prisoners here myself, as you know. Our methods, I believe, differ too much to allow me to place a prisoner under your care. You must demonstrate your skills on me."

Quentin-Andrew wordlessly placed his hand on his cheek, where the blood was still drying. The Jackal said, "I will not use my powers against you. I promise you that."

"Promises can be broken," Quentin-Andrew replied.

After a moment, the Jackal nodded. Walking forward, he scooped Quentin-Andrew's thigh-dagger from the floor, cut his right palm, and swore his oath to the gods – the oath of a ruler, the most sacred kind possible. Then he handed Quentin-Andrew the dagger. Quentin-Andrew's hand was warm now, as was the rest of his body.

Two minutes were required, no more, before Quentin-Andrew had the Jackal stripped and in the position he wanted on the bed. It had taken that long only because Quentin-Andrew had needed time to extract from his thigh-pocket the face-cloth and thin cords that he always carried. Now he checked the Jackal's bonds and gag once more before placing the thigh-dagger edge-on against the Jackal's throat.

This was – Quentin-Andrew would readily have admitted – a hackneyed move, used by all the torturers of the Three Lands. Quentin-Andrew started this way partly because he knew that the greatest fear could be raised by using methods that would be expected by the prisoner. He started this way also because it gave him the opportunity to check the prisoner's heartbeat. The Jackal's was rapid – this was hardly surprising, given the manner in which Quentin-Andrew had subdued him. But the ruler's pulse remained steady; the Jackal stared up at Quentin-Andrew with unblinking eyes.

Quentin-Andrew let the dagger disappear into the palm of his hand. When it reappeared again, the hand was beyond the Jackal's view. A third reason for starting with the thigh-dagger was the weapon's reputation. The slightest touch of the razor-thin blade, it was said, could bring death. The Jackal, who was no doubt familiar with the blade's power, did not stir as Quentin-Andrew placed the dagger's edge against the spot he wanted. The flats of the blade were now pressed between two of Quentin-Andrew's fingers, allowing him to judge the blade's progress without moving his gaze from the Jackal's face. A moment later, he felt moisture against his fingers. A slight sound in the Jackal's throat confirmed that blood had been drawn.

Quentin-Andrew was watching the Jackal carefully, but the results were unsatisfactory. He could see the steady pulse of a blue tunnel of blood in the Jackal's neck. No, this was not the right place to start, Quentin-Andrew reflected. While most men in the Three Lands had no greater fear than the operation that Quentin-Andrew was delicately suggesting, the Jackal was a priest, and he had dedicated his manhood to the gods long ago. Nor would he react strongly to pain, Quentin-Andrew could see from his eyes. Some soldiers were like that, and the Jackal had fought in many battles.

Not very hopefully, Quentin-Andrew moved the dagger until it was over the Jackal's heart. The Jackal made no sound as the blade pricked him with a forewarning of death; his pulse was as even as though he were still sleeping peacefully. Only one method remained.

As it happened, it was Quentin-Andrew's favorite.

He stepped back and let his hand drift over to the table beside him. The movement of the Jackal's gaze told him that he had been right. Smiling now with his eyes, Quentin-Andrew said softly, "You have a reputation, Jackal, for being excessively fond of your blood kin."

The only change in the scene before him came from the slight increase in pace of the Jackal's breath. That was enough to encourage Quentin-Andrew to pick up the first object he touched. He said without looking down at it, "A love basket – the sort of gift that a woman might give to an elder kinsman. This came from your ward, I take it. Well, she is with the gods now; I will not disturb the dead." His hand moved. This time he did not bother to pick up the object, for the Jackal's eyes were following his progress. "A braided sling – a gift from one soldier to another. May I hazard a guess that this comes from your ward's son, Perry-John? Your heir is said to return your affection, Jackal. Nonetheless . . ." He changed course as the Jackal's gaze flicked toward the third object and then quickly back again. "Perhaps it would be best to leave him aside. Soldiers do not give me much pleasure, for they are used to pain. This is what gives me the most pleasure. . ." His hand moved until it reached the leaves. "Children," he finished softly.

The slight tensing of the Jackal against his bonds told Quentin-Andrew that he had guessed right again. He let his fingertips brush the dried leaves, reading from it what manner of victim he had chosen. "A leaf bouquet," he said, still watching the Jackal's face. "A very childish gift indeed, and young Dolan is now fourteen, only two years from manhood. Could it be, Jackal, that your heir keeps his son hidden because he is not the warrior that the son of an heir confirmed should be? But of course—" He lowered his voice and allowed the smile in his eyes to deepen. "'Hidden' is a word that only fools use, and you are not a fool, Jackal. You know that, despite all your efforts to keep Dolan's location secret, some men – even dangerous men – know where Dolan dwells. But that doesn't matter, does it? Young Dolan – innocent Dolan – sleeps peacefully tonight, knowing that he is immune from danger because the Jackal's powers will protect him."

The blue tunnel in the Jackal's throat leapt. A harder throbbing of blood followed. Picking up the leaves, Quentin-Andrew moved forward and said, yet more softly, "You are not fool enough to believe that Dolan is hidden from me, Jackal, but you are fool enough to have lifted the shield you use to protect him. Did you really think that I would come here to seek your advice?" He let his voice grow scornful. "I could have taken Dolan any time during the past few weeks if I had not known that your powers protect him. And so I came here and very politely asked you to swear that you would not use your powers while I demonstrated mine – and you agreed. You agreed to Dolan's doom." He crushed the leaves in his hands. They fluttered onto the Jackal's face, causing him to blink rapidly.

"You disappoint me, Jackal," said Quentin-Andrew, his scorn unshielded now. "I thought that you would be more clever than to allow a god-cursed man – a man who has already killed a boy – unlimited freedom to use his powers against you. Did you think I would not know that your own torture and death mean little to you? The pain of others is what hurts you, and because you hold the powers of the god of death, you will know when Dolan dies. You will lie hidden in this palace, bound not only by my bindings but also by your oath, and you will hear Dolan cry out to you for help. And you will do nothing. You will allow him to die in slow torment and anguish, the victim not of me, but of your foolish trust."

Slowly, like sunlight creeping across the ground, the movement finally came: the Jackal's hands, bound above him, curled into two fists. Quentin-Andrew stood a moment, savoring the move which he knew was sharper than the scream of an ordinary man, and then he cut the Jackal's bonds. He placed the dagger in the Jackal's hand and waited.

The Jackal said nothing as he removed his gag, wiped off the blood trickling down his leg, rose from his bed, and donned his breech-cloth and undertunic once more. He kept his eyes averted from Quentin-Andrew. Finally he handed the thigh-dagger to Quentin-Andrew and said quietly, "You did right to come to me."

Quentin-Andrew slid the dagger into his thigh-pocket and waited as the Jackal gently brushed the crumpled leaves off his bed. After a moment more, the ruler said, "I cannot take you under my care, for reasons that you know; nor can the Chara. You have been to Daxis, I take it?" Quentin-Andrew nodded, and the Jackal said slowly, "The young Queen is mild of heart and rarely visits her palace's dungeon; she gives freedom to her torturers to proceed as they wish. You were right not to take employment there."

He moved to the broad-ledged window and pulled the shutter back, allowing light to flood into the room. Quentin-Andrew stepped back into the shadows, which were beginning to grow cold again. The Jackal was now looking out toward the black border mountains, many miles away at the northern edge of Koretia. He said, "My thieves tell me that Emor's northern dominions are planning to rebel against the Chara."

He paused, and Quentin-Andrew, now emptied of the warmth he had felt before, said coolly, "That is of no surprise."

"Yes, the Chara has given his dominions just cause for such a rebellion; his hand is heavy upon them. If the rebellion comes, it will be led by the head of the army of the Marcadian dominion: a soldier who is a few years younger than yourself but who has already acquired a reputation in his trade. It is said that he is a man of honor and a firm disciplinarian. He allows his soldiers to create as much harm as is necessary to win their battles, but no more."

The Jackal turned. His face was now in shadow, but his silver hair glowed white against the moon. "My advice to you would be to place yourself under the care of this soldier. Make clear to him that you require boundaries in your work, and make clear that he must supervise you to be sure that those boundaries are kept. Within those boundaries, if the coming war follows the pattern of previous wars, you will have ample opportunity to use your talents, but you will do so under the watchful eye of a god-loving man. The rest will be up to you."

Quentin-Andrew nodded. He had finished placing the cords and spittle-soaked face-cloth into his thigh-pocket, and now he turned his face toward the dark door leading to the corridor.

"Quentin-Andrew."

Twenty years had passed since Quentin-Andrew had last heard his name, and it brought back the sting of his youth. As a young child he had been proud to hear his birth-name, since it evoked the father and grandfather for whom he had been named. His name had been the first thing he had discarded when he left the House of the Unknowable God.

Now he turned slowly, and only because the god-man had been released from his oath. But the Jackal's face remained human. The ruler said, "You have not asked me one question."

"Which is?" The words were spoken in a chill manner.

"Why the gods have done this to you."

A knife's edge of feeling, as thin and sharp as a thigh-dagger, touched the surface of Quentin-Andrew's spirit. It was immediately gone, and he watched without any great interest as the Jackal walked toward him. His thoughts, in fact, were on the tremor in the Jackal's body, and on the pleasure he would have received from increasing that tremor. He regretted that he had kept the Jackal bound for so short a time. As the ruler came closer, Quentin-Andrew made note of the blood tunnels standing out on his neck, the delicacy of his fingers, the gentleness of his eyes. Quentin-Andrew gave an inward sigh, like a bard who is deprived of making song.

"It is a question that all men ask," the Jackal said. "We all have some darkness that we must purge from our spirits, and purge again and again. Your darkness is greater than most. You must have asked yourself why the gods made you this way and why they have allowed you to remain this way. Surely, with just a touch of their powers, they could remove this demon that eats at you, destroying your spirit and forcing you to struggle with all your might to do what the average man can do with scarcely a thought. Why are you tortured with this burden? Why must you suffer this pain?"

"I suffer no pain," said Quentin-Andrew in the quiet voice of a man correcting a simple error. "Those who fall into my hands suffer pain."

The Jackal was silent a moment bore nodding. "Yes," he said, "it must seem that way to you. Even good has become evil to you now that evil has become good. But you would not have come to me tonight if the demon had entirely destroyed your spirit. You would not have sought my advice on how to contain your darkness. I will not tell you, as the priests of the Unknowable God did, that you can change yourself; the priests may have been wrong. Sometimes the gods lay burdens upon us that we must bear during our entire sojourn through the Land of the Living. But you must not forget that the Jackal's fire is able to turn evil to good. I think that you will have to suffer greatly before you recognize the full meaning of that teaching, but this much I can tell you now: the ability you possess, to read into the hearts of men and to break their spirits, can be used to serve the gods."

"I have no desire to serve the gods." Quentin-Andrew's voice was flat, uninterested. His mind was drifting away toward the north, where new work awaited him.

"Do you desire to serve your work?"

The Jackal's voice caught at him, pulling him back. Quentin-Andrew, who had been at the point of turning away, paused to look back at the Jackal, but the ruler said nothing more, so Quentin-Andrew replied finally, "I am skilled at my work."

A smile appeared on the Jackal's face suddenly, as though his intruder had made a statement that revealed much. Quentin-Andrew remembered, with some uneasiness, that the god-man of Koretia had a formidable reputation for breaking prisoners, though the methods he was said to use were highly unorthodox.

The Jackal did not seem concerned to press his advantage. All that he said was, "You didn't need to use your dagger on me, you know. Your skill goes beyond that."

A warm wind whistled into the room, scattering the remains of the leaves; it stung the drying blood on Quentin-Andrew's cheek. Quentin-Andrew said slowly, "Your powers give you the ability to question prisoners without use of instruments. Everyone knows that."

"It is a technique that is not dependent on my godly powers; all of my thieves are taught it. I could teach it to you."

Quentin-Andrew narrowed his eyes against the glare of the moonshine. "In exchange for what promise?" he asked.

The Jackal shook his head. "In exchange for no promise. It would be an answer to the question you failed to ask." He added more softly, "When a darkness lies within a man, sometimes the only way to let light shine within him is to break open that man's spirit. Once the spirit is broken, you can then bring light into the man and mend what you have broken. Those are the two skills I teach to my thieves: how to break a man's spirit with words only, and how to mend that spirit with more words. Once you have practiced the second skill, you will understand why you have been forced to undergo the torture that you live in, the torture so deep that you have shielded yourself from its effects." The Jackal gestured toward the ledge of the unshuttered window. "Come sit with me; I will explain to you this form of questioning."

Quentin-Andrew walked forward, squinting his eyes against the light that the Jackal was walking through. He was thinking that this visit was twice worth the trouble he had taken to come here. Yet even as he sat at the Jackal's side and listened with obedient attention to what he was being told, he felt the contempt inside him grow to a peak.

Was the Jackal really fool enough to think that Quentin-Andrew would ever use the second part of what he was being taught?

CHAPTER THREE

"The subcommander wishes to know whether you have placed him on the table yet."

The voice drifted through the darkness, a darkness that had become more pronounced as the hours passed. Quentin-Andrew's spirit was focussed upon the sensations in his wrists and in his chest. He barely heard the words spoken at the door by the young orderly.

Randal's voice was cool in reply. "Tell the subcommander that if he is dissatisfied with my skills, he is welcome to take over the work himself."

The orderly was persistent. "The subcommander says that a full day ought to be enough time in which to extract the information. He says that the Northern Army may attack at any moment."

"Bern," said Randal with frigid politeness, "who am I questioning?"

During the pause that followed, Quentin-Andrew tried to twist his body into a new position and immediately regretted the action. Only by biting his lip was he able to prevent sound from being emitted.

"The Lieutenant," said the orderly finally. "The chief torturer of the Northern Army."

"And how long, Bern, do you think it takes to break a man like that?"

This time there was no reply. Quentin-Andrew felt moisture trail down his arms, and inwardly cursed Randal for his skill. It had taken Quentin-Andrew only an hour to discover why Randal used leather straps for his bindings: as the wrists grew wet, the moisture constricted the leather, causing the wrists to sweat and bleed all the more. It was a subtle touch, a refined touch, and Quentin-Andrew had grown to appreciate that Randal was adept at such niceties.

The door to the cell was closing. Quentin-Andrew waited until he heard the click of the latch falling before he let out his breath, along with the sound that had been suppressed inside. Nearby, one of Randal's assistants sighed in his sleep. It was past midnight now, and all four of the inhabitants of this room were weary from the proceedings.

Randal's hand touched the back of Quentin-Andrew's head, and a moment later the cloth that had bound Quentin-Andrew's eyes for the past day fell free. Knowing as he did the stages of questioning, Quentin-Andrew did not take this as a good sign.

"Gasps," said Randal abruptly, as though he had guessed Quentin-Andrew's thoughts. "Gasps, and then moans, followed by tears, sobs, curses, screams, pleas for the questioning to stop, more screams, protests that one doesn't know the information – and then the breaking." He leaned against the dungeon wall that was warm from the leaping fire nearby and added reflectively, "The protests were a mistake, of course. You know as well as I do that if a prisoner is going to claim he doesn't know the information, he needs to do so at the beginning of the questioning, while he can still craft a skillful lie. Waiting until the end never works."

Randal's eyes were blood-veined with sleeplessness, but he did not waver his gaze from his prisoner's face. Quentin-Andrew began to turn away his face, a movement which ended abruptly as the back of Randal's hand collided with his cheek. This time, the sound that Quentin-Andrew made caused Randal's other assistant to murmur in his sleep; then the cell fell into silence once more. Quentin-Andrew had heard the clatter earlier when the dungeon was emptied of its last inhabitants. He suspected that this had been done at Randal's request.

Acting as though the slap had not taken place, Randal said mildly, "But of course we can't allow anyone to know how easy it is to break the mighty Lieutenant. It would be harmful for the reputation of all of us in this profession if it were publicized how quickly men such as us can be broken. Though I must admit that you are a special case, Lieutenant. I don't believe that, in all the years I've been working at this trade, I've ever met a soldier who is as sensitive to pain as you are."

Quentin-Andrew had been waiting for these words for a day and a night – had been waiting for them, indeed, for many years. The anticipation of this moment did not seem to help. Quentin-Andrew closed his eyes against his torturer's look of frank pity. A moment later the blow of Randal's hand against his other cheek persuaded him that this was a poor decision. He jerked his eyes open and looked over at Randal, who was caressing in his left hand the instrument he had been using when they were interrupted.

"What I don't understand," Randal continued in a conversational manner, "is why you are holding out. You know what the end will be as well as I do, Lieutenant; you know that a man with your limitations is destined to break. So why, I have been asking myself, are you prolonging the pain?"

Quentin-Andrew had been asking himself that as well. For the first time in many hours, he dragged his spirit past the torment to a full awareness of Randal, sweat-soaked like Quentin-Andrew. Serious-faced now, his gaze one of painful concentration, the young man laid his instrument carefully aside on the disused table and said, "Is it out of loyalty to the Commander? But that would be foolish; you know that the Commander is not the sort of man who would have so much as spoken to you in peacetime. He finds you useful these days and seeks to protect you and keep your allegiance for that reason, but as for feeling affection for you – no, you are not that foolish." His statement was flat; he was reading what he wished to know in Quentin-Andrew's expression.

"Perhaps," Randal said slowly, "you are hoping that, if you show honor in this cell, the gods will forgive you for all that you have done over the years. But truly, Lieutenant, I cannot imagine that your wits have been destroyed to that degree. You know what fate awaits men like us – and you know that, if there was ever a moment when the gods could have forgiven you, it was lost eight years ago."

Quentin-Andrew, keeping his gaze carefully fixed on his torturer's blood-stained hands, thought to himself that Randal could not know the full truth of what he said. He could not know, though everyone in the Three Lands knew what the Lieutenant had done eight years before in the dungeon of the Chara's palace.

The only outward price which Quentin-Andrew had paid for that night was the loss of his patrol unit, since the Commander had quickly assessed the mood of Quentin-Andrew's men when all eleven of them had arrived at the Commander's quarters afterwards and stood in grim silence. Quentin-Andrew's second-in-command had been elevated to patrol lieutenant; Quentin-Andrew had been released from his patrol duties to take on work of greater importance to the Northern Army, as the Commander had tactfully expressed it.

That much the world knew. The world also knew the price that the Commander had paid for that night: the loss of his remaining supporters in Koretia, and the determination of the Koretians and Daxions from that night forward to fight the Commander to their deaths. Without that night, the Commander might have taken Koretia with little struggle. After that night, the Commander had been faced with the choice of denying his involvement in what had happened or subduing the southern peninsula by ruthless force.

To the Commander's credit, he had never denied what he had done. By contrast, Quentin-Andrew had added to his iniquity by suppressing one critical piece of information about that night. Not even the Commander knew how that night had ended; not even the Commander knew of the terrible, unforgivable act that had served as an immutable seal to the deeds of Quentin-Andrew's life.

Only Quentin-Andrew knew of that act and its consequences, and his knowledge of what he had done had cut into his spirit every day for the past eight years, like the precise stabs of a thigh-dagger. But Randal could not know that.

Indeed, Randal was now saying, "Oh, but the ways of the gods are mysterious. If I were to tell you that I knew their judgment upon you, you would laugh in my face. Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps the Jackal will extend his hand to you—"

The soft breathing of Randal's assistants was the only sound in the cell. Quentin-Andrew felt Randal's hand lift his chin. His eyes met Randal's.

"That is why you are holding out, isn't it, Lieutenant?" the torturer said softly. "You are trying to postpone that moment. You imagine that what you experience here will be less than what awaits you there. But Lieutenant . . ." His voice grew softer still. "You have forgotten one important fact. You need not accept the fire."

So there, like a blade hidden in the palm of a hand, was the disclosure of the final temptation Quentin-Andrew had been awaiting – the temptation he had been awaiting all his life. There seemed no reason that he should hold out against that temptation.

"We owe the gods nothing," Randal said with quiet intensity. "Nothing. They made us what we are and abandoned us. They deserve nothing from us, and no gifts they might grant us will make up for what they have done to us. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise."

And Quentin-Andrew knew that, whatever lies his torturer might have told during their time together, Randal was now speaking nothing more than the simple truth.

o—o—o

The winter winds of Emor were mild in comparison to those found in the mountains of the northern dominions or on the frozen wastes of the mainland, but Quentin-Andrew, born at the southern edge of Emor, had never adjusted to the colder climes of the world. For that reason, he was grateful to find that this first evening back in the camp of the Northern Army would not be spent in the chill activity of patrolling the perimeter of the camp. Instead, he was sitting in relative warmth in the smallest of the camp's huts.

The man seated across from him, who had so little concern for the weather that he had tossed his cloak back from his shoulders, was taking an unusual amount of time to formulate his thoughts. When he finally raised his forest green eyes to look at Quentin-Andrew, his voice was quiet. "I'm glad to see you looking so well after your long convalescence, Lieutenant. Your . . . injuries were so great that I was not sure that you would recover. And without your help, I had grave worries as to the future of the Northern Army."

One thing that could be said about the Commander of the Northern Army, Quentin-Andrew thought, was that he always meant what he said. He might omit information; he had certainly skipped lightly over his decision to isolate the Lieutenant while he was recovering from his injuries. This had been done for no special reason – no reason, that is, except that Quentin-Andrew had been in great pain during that time. Due to the isolation, only the Commander and the tight-lipped physician in attendance had learned how the Northern Army's torturer reacted to pain.

Yet if the Commander said that Quentin-Andrew's absence had endangered the Northern Army, he meant it. Another soldier might have reacted to this praise by stammering thanks or hotly denying the honor. Quentin-Andrew simply nodded silently.

The Commander, having passed over the most delicate part of his speech, grew more brisk in voice as he turned to accept a cup of wine from his orderly. "Now that you're better, I'd be interested in hearing in more detail the exact circumstances of the attack."

"There is little to tell, sir," Quentin-Andrew replied, but waited until the orderly had handed him his wine and left. Then he said, "I sighted an intruder, and he attacked me."

The Commander gave a half-smile. "A simple tale. You don't mention that you defended yourself while an arrow was sticking out of your leg and after the attacker had slashed down at your chest with his sword. It is the arrow that interests me. It's not the typical weapon of an Emorian soldier. Was he a Daxion?"

"You saw his corpse."

"I saw that he was light-skinned and wearing an Emorian uniform. There was nothing to indicate he might have come from the south?"

"Nothing, sir. He cursed me in Emorian when I killed him, if that's of any help."

"It's a relief, at any rate." The Commander leaned back in his chair, raising his cup to his lips. The lamplight cast shadows upon the battle-scars on his hand. "I need not tell you, Lieutenant, that it will be hard enough to defeat Emor in this war without worrying about additional allies. If Daxis becomes alarmed at our progress and joins with Emor . . . Well, we are still a comparatively small force in comparison with the Chara's. Fortunately, Daxis seems oblivious at this point to the possible consequences of our conquest of Emor. The gods who remain silent know that I have no quarrel with the Daxions, but if we should ever decide to cross the border into Koretia . . ." He left the sentence unfinished and set his cup down onto the documents that littered the table in front of him. "So he was not a Daxion soldier. Then why the arrows and bow? Those are not the weapons of a spy."

"No, sir. They are the weapons of an assassin."

The Commander's eyes, relaxed until now, grew suddenly sharp. In typical fashion, he waited only a breath's span before saying in a matter-of-fact manner, "For me?"

"I don't think so, sir. You were in battle that evening, as the Emorians knew." He paused before adding, "When I first marked him, the soldier was headed in the direction of my unit's hut."

"Dolan?" The Commander's voice rose, and his hand suddenly gripped the papers. In the next moment, his voice was level as he said, "You protect your men well, Lieutenant. I'm sure that you would have been sorry to lose your sublieutenant."

Quentin-Andrew smiled inwardly. The Commander was the one man in the Northern Army who kept up the pretense that Perry-John's son was nothing more than a lesser official who occasionally advised the Commander on matters concerning the southern lands of the Great Peninsula. To everyone else in the Northern Army, Dolan was the Commander's boy, the favored young man who had no talents other than a radiant worship of the Commander and a gift for listening attentively to the Commander as he thought through his strategies aloud.

If there was any soldier in the Northern Army who was more necessary to the Commander than Quentin-Andrew, it was Dolan, but this fact could not be commented upon in the Commander's presence. So Quentin-Andrew replied, "The Chara knows Dolan's value, sir. Since the time that you granted Dolan refuge from the Emorians, he has lent legitimacy to the Northern Army's claim to be more than a rebel army. And if you should enter Koretia accompanied by the son of the heir confirmed of that land . . ." Like the Commander, he allowed his sentence to remain unfinished.

"Yes." The Commander's eyes had taken on an expression that Quentin-Andrew recognized, a look combining determination with vision. "Yes, I have thought of that much during the past six years of this war. With the Jackal dead from old age and Perry-John dead from chill-fever, the only legitimate claimant to the throne can be Dolan, and he is clearly unsuited to be a ruler. He knows this himself. He has hinted more than once that he would support me if I claimed Koretia's throne, and his support would make a great difference in whether the Koretians accepted me. But it would still mean war. If we reached that far south, Emor would be ours and would be in no position to dispute my claim, but Daxis surely would. And I do not make war lightly. War is a terrible thing, Lieutenant; it brings the horrors of destruction and fear and torture—"

He stopped abruptly, as though suddenly aware that he was condemning the evils of torture to the wrong person. After a moment he smiled and said, "And what do I have to offer Koretia that any other leader could not offer that land? Only this: that for the first time in the history of the Great Peninsula, two of the Three Lands would be willingly united under one ruler – for I have no doubt that, in the end, the Emorians will accept me as their ruler. After all of the heinous acts that the Chara has committed during this war – this latest assassination attempt is the least of his crimes – they must see the need to start over, to begin afresh with a new ruler, new laws to replace the corrupt ones, new customs to wipe away the evils of past years. I will fully support any man who has the ability to bring about this rebirth, but until such a man arrives, I cannot let Emor suffer under a tyrant, nor can I let Koretia be destroyed by rulerless anarchy. To bring Koretia and Emor closer together, to take another step in creating a single law for the whole of the Great Peninsula—"

"Yes, sir," said Quentin-Andrew. "Would you like me to send Dolan to you now?"

The Commander, who had risen to his feet in mid-speech and was striding up and down the small chamber with his eyes still full of visions, stopped abruptly and looked over at Quentin-Andrew, sitting motionless with no expression on his face. After a moment, the Commander laughed and reseated himself.

"I take your point," he said. "I will reserve my flowery speeches on the destiny of the Three Lands for when Dolan arrives this evening. I know that your concerns are more practical. In a word: your unit has captured a dozen intruders while you've been gone, and all of those prisoners need to be questioned. But you needn't start work on that until tomorrow. You've had a hard recovery, and the shapeless gods know that I owe you much for this sacrifice. As does Dolan, of course, but perhaps this evens out the debt you owe him."

"Sir?" Quentin-Andrew's voice was cool.

The Commander raised his eyebrows. "I'm referring to what you told me shortly after you were wounded. . . . You don't remember this?"

"No, sir. I was unconscious at the time."

"Not the entire time." The Commander's hand tapped the papers lightly, the sound swallowed by the winds moaning about the hut and by the crackle as the orderly added fuel to a fire in the adjoining chamber. The Commander's gaze remained fixed on Quentin-Andrew's. After a while, he said, "Well, it's a story that you should know, if you no longer remember it. Dolan, you see, was left to watch over you while I was being fetched from the battlefield. Aside from your captain, no one else knew that you had been wounded. You were taken to the Blue Tent – you remember that?" This as Quentin-Andrew shifted his feet slightly.

"No, sir." He had been reacting, in fact, to the words "taken to the Blue Tent," a phrase that was said to strike terror into any prisoner who had the misfortune to possess information that was of value to the Commander. The phrase, Quentin-Andrew well knew, was now regarded by inhabitants of the Three Lands to be as terrible as "May the Jackal eat his dead" and other such curses. Quentin-Andrew had never expected to hear the phrase used about himself. The usage made him feel uneasy.

"Your workplace seemed the best place in which to keep you in isolation for a short time," the Commander explained. "No one visits there aside from yourself. Unfortunately, on this particular evening, three of your men became drunk and goaded each other into visiting the Blue Tent to see what lay there. They thought that you were still on patrol. At the entrance to the tent they found Dolan—"

He stopped abruptly. His orderly had entered the room, holding a sheaf of papers. The Commander shuffled through them, nodded in approval, and said, "Let me know when Dolan arrives, Marcus. Otherwise, no more interruptions until I have finished with the Lieutenant."

The orderly murmured an acknowledgment, casting a nervous glance in the direction of Quentin-Andrew. Quentin-Andrew noticed it in the same way in which a man notices that the sun has risen once more. The Commander waited until the orderly had left the chamber before saying, "Dolan judged it better that you not be disturbed. You were . . . in pain at the time, you see. He defended the tent against their entrance."

No trace of a smile appeared on Quentin-Andrew's face, but the Commander smiled himself, saying, "Not in that way. We both know that Dolan couldn't use his blade against another man if his life depended on it. No, what happened was that he cut his palm with his dagger and took a blood vow to kill himself if any man entered the tent." The Commander paused, pushed his cloak further back against the chair as though he were smothered by midsummer heat, and said quietly, "You told me that you believed he would have carried out his threat."

In a voice not noticeably warmer than a Marcadian mountain in winter, Quentin-Andrew said, "The men left."

"The men left indeed. Dolan, in his rare moments of stubbornness, can be very persuasive, as I know to my own cost. More than once he has convinced me to soften some harsh course I had planned to take in this war, and always, I believe, to the advantage of the Northern Army. He may never be a ruler, Lieutenant, but a ruler with that young man by his side would be beloved by the gods." The Commander suddenly sent his fist crashing down onto the table, causing the papers to flee to the floor. "A stubborn young man but a gentle one, as peaceful as a child." His voice grew hard. "When I finally meet with the Chara, Lieutenant, I will not forget what he tried to do to Dolan. I swear that to the invisible gods."

His fist remained white-knuckled for a moment more. Then he loosened his hand in order to pick up the wine cup, which had spilled red wild-berry wine over the papers that did not escape in time. With a sigh, he said, "But that will have to wait until we reach the Emorian capital, and whether we reach the Emorian capital depends on whether you remain well-rested." He smiled at Quentin-Andrew. "Your work, Lieutenant, remains vital to the Northern Army's survival. Without the information you obtain, we are blind to the Chara's schemes. Little though I like having to use such methods against prisoners, I trust that the gods who judge me will remember the number of lives that are saved each time we go into battle knowing what our enemy's plans are. I want this war to be short; I want the Great Peninsula to lie in peace once more."

He stood up. As Quentin-Andrew rose from his chair, his flesh aching, the Commander walked over and laid his hand on Quentin-Andrew's shoulder. "Welcome back, Lieutenant. I'm sure that your men are celebrating your return now."

And that, Quentin-Andrew thought darkly as he struggled his way toward his unit's hut through the evening wind, was the closest the Commander had ever come to telling him a lie.

The patrol unit's hut stood at the edge of the camp, separate from the other buildings. On this moonless night, it was as effectively hidden as though it were cloaked in mist. Quentin-Andrew passed a slender figure stumbling through the dark: Dolan, on his way to spend time with the Commander. They crossed paths without speaking; Dolan's vision was not keen enough for him to see which soldier he was passing. He would have made an easy target for the assassin, Quentin-Andrew reflected, and his memory lingered for a moment on an episode from his own past. Then he shrugged the memory away. He was oath-bound to the Commander, and though oaths meant nothing to him, the work suited him well enough. There was no point in worrying over whether his work in the past had been more pleasurable.

He paused at the edge of the hut doorway. The door was closed against the biting wind, but through the cracks in the wood came light and warmth and voices. The day patrol was off-duty now, and its members were exchanging candid remarks. Usually they had a lookout posted to ensure that Quentin-Andrew did not hear such remarks.

". . . will ask for a transfer, I tell you." The voice was deep and crisp, belonging to Meleager, the best swordsman in the unit. "These past two months have been like a release from the pits of destruction. I had forgotten what my life was like when I didn't have to be forever on my guard, fearing his approach."

"Are you converting to the Koretian religion, Meleager?" Quentin-Andrew could hear the grin in the voice of Northcott, his Second Blade. Like the Commander and most of Quentin-Andrew's men, Northcott was a native of Emor's northern dominion of Marcadia. "'Pits of destruction' is putting it mildly, don't you think? I'd say it was more like the ice prisons at the end of the world."

"Then you agree with me."

"The shapeless gods above, who wouldn't? But if you think you'll be safer from the Lieutenant if you request a release from his unit . . . Well, I'll ensure that your mother doesn't see your corpse. The sight would undoubtedly cause her heart to fail."

There was a pause; Quentin-Andrew pulled his cloak closer against the knife's edge of the wind. Then Orvin, the oldest guard in the unit, said, "This is ridiculous. We're scaring each other like nursery boys exchanging tales of death spirits. We all know that the Lieutenant won't lay his hands on anyone unless the Commander orders it, so we're all safe."

"Are we?" asked Northcott reflectively. "I wonder. At the rate that the Commander is purging his ranks of traitors, I wonder whether any of us is safe, however loyal we may be."

A pregnant pause followed. Someone tossed fuel into the fire, causing scented smoke to drift through the door-cracks. Then Meleager said, "Dolan is safe."

There were a few chuckles. Xylon, the youngest guard, spoke for the first time: "Dolan likes the Lieutenant. I wonder why?"

"Oh, Dolan," said Northcott, in a voice that did not even carry contempt – the subject was of too little importance for that. "Dull-witted Dolan likes everyone. If a barbarian raised his blade over Dolan's head, Dolan would give him a leaf bouquet."

The tension was broken by laughter. A moment later, the laughter stopped abruptly, and a silence deeper than death followed. Quentin-Andrew had chosen this moment to enter the hut.

Two of the guards, the ones who had not spoken, were in a corner by themselves, exchanging sips of wine from the same cup. Revis and Edel were long-time wine-friends, and they had a strong instinct for survival which caused them to avoid taking part in such conversations. The other four guards looked as though they had just stripped their bodies of all armor and placed themselves directly in front of the Chara's vanguard. Xylon, blushing violently, ducked his head and began to polish the sword on his lap; Orvin gave a soft moan and raised his eyes upward toward the gods; Meleager turned as white as a blizzard and clutched the flue-pipe, ignoring the heat under his hand. Only Northcott, who had been caught in this situation so many times that he forever carried the look of a man who is under a death sentence, had the strength to rise and approach Quentin-Andrew. Without a word, he handed Quentin-Andrew the patrol unit ring.

Quentin-Andrew slipped on the ring of his authority, allowing his gaze to drift again toward the men frozen before him. He said to Northcott, "The reports."

"Over there, sir." Northcott gestured toward a reed table at the far corner of the hut. Quentin-Andrew walked over to it, pausing on the way to ladle himself a cup of wine. By the time he sat down at the table and began reading through the reports that Northcott had prepared in his absence, a vigorous exchange of wine had begun taking place at the other end of the hut. Xylon was sharing wine with Orvin, Orvin was sharing wine with Northcott, and Northcott was pressing his wine upon Meleager, who seemed unaware that his hand was beginning to singe. Quentin-Andrew, his nose tickled by the familiar smell of burnt flesh, smiled inwardly. One of his credits as an army official, he thought to himself, was that he inspired strong friendships between his men. His very presence guaranteed that the other guards would cling together in a desperate fashion.

His own wine cup remained untouched by anyone but himself. The minutes drifted by, then the hours. There were many reports to read, and Quentin-Andrew always had a tendency to linger over the reports of how prisoners were captured. Gradually he became aware that the guards, now preparing for sleep, had broken their silence.

"I knew a man," Meleager said loudly, "who was wounded in five places, but he made no sound when the doctor sewed his wounds."

"That's a small story," said Orvin, keeping his gaze carefully fixed on the blanket he was unfolding. "I knew a man who laughed when his leg was sawed off."

"Of course," said Meleager, his gaze flicking toward Quentin-Andrew, "I'm sure there's at least one soldier in this camp who could put those men to shame."

Quentin-Andrew finished reading the reports, turned the stack on its head, and began reading the first report again.

"There's no doubt of that," Northcott contributed. "It need hardly be said."

Xylon opened his mouth, glanced at the Lieutenant, and contented himself with nodding hard. Quentin-Andrew, having pretended to read the first page, turned to the second. The room seemed to be growing colder by the moment; he wondered whether he should add fuel to the fire.

At that moment, warmth entered the room.

It came, oddly enough, from the door opening to the howling wind outside. Quentin-Andrew did not need to raise his eyes to know who stood at the threshold, listening silently as the other guards continued their boasting. After a minute, Quentin-Andrew raised his eyes, glanced at the figure in the doorway, and then looked down at the page in front of him. The room was quite warm now.

The other guards did not appear to agree. One of them took notice of Dolan and shouted an abrupt command. Dolan was above the rank of all of Quentin-Andrew's men, but he quickly complied with the order to close the door. After a moment more, the Commander's boy walked diffidently over to the fire-pot where the wine was warming and scooped out a cup for himself. Quentin-Andrew, his gaze fixed upon the third page, could see Dolan as though he was gazing straight at him. He knew that Dolan was hesitating, wondering whether to offer his cup to Quentin-Andrew. He had done so five times now . . . or was it six? Whatever qualities Dolan might lack as a soldier, he was certainly persistent, even in battles ordained to be lost.

". . . tortured for two days and never spoke a word . . ." Revis, evidently feeling that he was on safe ground, was offering his own contribution to the covert praise of the Lieutenant. Quentin-Andrew, turning two pages in a row, felt rather than saw Dolan withdraw. No offer of wine tonight, then; perhaps no offer of wine ever again. After all, Dolan had been free of the Lieutenant for two months, and before then he had seen the Lieutenant reacting to his pain. . . . Quentin-Andrew skipped to the final page.

Then something made Quentin-Andrew turn his head. He saw the scene as he had seen it many times before: the six men of the day patrol clustered together in a companionable group, while Dolan sat apart from the rest, his head bowed as he gazed blankly at the table before him. He sipped at his wine, seemingly oblivious of the isolation in which the others had imprisoned him. There was a faint smile on his face, and the hair fell in front of his eyes, which were forever full of dreams. He raised his head—

Quentin-Andrew caught the motion before it was complete and turned his own gaze back to the paper in front of him. But in the edge of his vision he could see Dolan bite his lip as he gazed at the Lieutenant. The boy swallowed, and then bowed his head over his cup.

His smile never faded.

The boasts nearby were growing larger; now the man had survived three days of torture without talking. Abruptly, Quentin-Andrew rose, his half-emptied cup in hand, and walked toward the men. They scattered at the sight of him, like an army in retreat. Only Dolan remained sitting at the trestle table, oblivious of the danger he was in. His head was still bowed; he was staring at his empty wine-cup.

The other guards had turned their backs. None of them saw the moment when Quentin-Andrew carefully placed his cup within reach of Dolan. He turned then, and began walking toward the cold end of the hut as rapidly as he could. He was therefore halfway across the hut by the time the warmth entered his body.

By then, it was too late to turn back.

CHAPTER FOUR

The dungeon of the Jackal's palace was quiet now. In the corner, curled upon a mattress, Randal's assistants slept again. The empty wine-flasks beside them told, even more than the troubled sounds they made in their sleep, that the events of the past day had proved too much for their stomachs. Now one of them cried out, as though he were the man being questioned.

Randal was also asleep, his head cradled in his arms for the first time in two days, but his sleep was untroubled. By turning his head, Quentin-Andrew could see the young torturer, sitting next to the table with his face lying near his prisoner's face. His expression was relaxed, and his hand was curled gently around the hilt of his thigh-dagger, as a child cradles its doll.

Only Quentin-Andrew was awake. Partly this was because of the strain now upon his body and the anticipation of what was to come. In this respect, as in many others, Randal had imitated his mentor: if time permitted, Quentin-Andrew often laid his prisoner upon the table, tightened the cords about his wrists and ankles, and let the prisoner remain there for a while, contemplating the effects that the machine would soon have upon him. Fear broke more prisoners than pain, and Randal knew by now the extent of his prisoner's fear.

Partly, though, Quentin-Andrew was kept awake by the noise: the faint noise travelling through the door, of shouts and cries and metal clashing. Closer and closer the sounds were coming, and it was with no great surprise that he heard sudden hammering on the door.

The assistants jerked awake, staring first at Randal and then at the door. Randal had raised his head and was listening. Then, with a smooth and unhurried motion, he walked to the door and lifted the latch.

The subcommander's orderly stood in the doorway. "The Northern Army will soon break through our defenses," he said without preliminary. "The subcommander says that you may leave here and take up arms to defend yourselves."

For a moment – an unguarded moment – an unfamiliar expression passed over Randal's face: it was of intense relief. The look vanished, though, as Randal turned slowly toward his prisoner. He walked back steadily to the table where his prisoner lay, trussed and shivering under the dying fire. Then he leaned over Quentin-Andrew and said in a soft voice that did not carry to the door, "What would you do?"

Quentin-Andrew turned his face, but it was too late; Randal had read the answer there. The torturer said briskly to the orderly, "Tell the subcommander I'm staying. I may still be able to extract information that will allow us to win this battle."

"Do whatever you like," snapped the orderly. "I've no time to carry messages." And he was gone, leaving the door open and the sounds of battle driving into the cell like a volley of arrows.

The assistants looked uneasily at Randal; they had already risen and armed themselves. Randal glanced their way and said, "I won't need you any more. You may join the battle." He waited until they had scurried from the room; then he walked back to the door. This time he slid the great iron bar into place, as though sealing a tomb.

Quentin-Andrew's gaze had travelled away from him. He was staring at a series of weights, neatly stacked in the corner, all carefully labelled with numbers. By the time he looked back, Randal was standing beside him again. He pulled up the stool he had been sitting upon before, settled himself onto it, and stared down at Quentin-Andrew silently for a moment before speaking.

"The borderland," he said. "You're from the borderland – your accent tells that. One of our spies, a native of the borderland, approached close enough to the Northern Army's camp to hear you talking. He reported that your accent is of the Emorian borderland. So you're Emorian-born, but you didn't stay there."

His hand, still holding the thigh-dagger, travelled down to Quentin-Andrew's chest. As the blade touched his skin, Quentin-Andrew drew in his breath sharply, but Randal did nothing more than trace a pattern lightly. "A mainland tattoo. You've lived on the mainland, been initiated into one of the barbarian tribes there – perhaps that was where you learned your profession? I think you may have visited Daxis as well; one or two of your skills have a Daxion flavor to them. Whether or not you did, I know that you've been to Koretia before."

Again his dagger moved. This time he caused his prisoner's breath to stop short by laying the flat of his blade upon Quentin-Andrew's scarred right cheek. "The claw-marks of the Jackal," Randal said softly. "What did you do, Lieutenant, to make the god-man so angry? More to the point, how did you survive that encounter? What caused the Jackal to spare your life? Did you fool the Jackal into thinking that you would reform your ways? Or did he simply say, as the priests always say, that the gods can turn evil into good? If so, it's lucky that he died before he saw to what use you put your talents."

The dagger moved. Quentin-Andrew tried to see where Randal had placed it, but he could not find the strength to lift his head. Randal's hand was beyond his sight, somewhere at the other end of the table. Quentin-Andrew closed his eyes and tried to draw steady breaths.

Quietly through the darkness drifted Randal's voice. "That's all I know about you, Lieutenant – that's all anybody knows about you. I could discover the rest. You'd tell me anything at this point. You'd tell me who you are, and what your deepest wish is, and what your deepest questions are. Your deepest fears I already know. I could flay open your spirit and learn what lay inside you."

A heaviness was settling upon Quentin-Andrew: not the tug of the weights, but merciful sleep entering upon him. In the next moment, the drowsiness was shocked away from him as his body tried with futile desperation to arc away from the pain. His breath, whistling in too quickly, ended in a choke that scourged his chest.

When he opened his eyes, he could see the thigh-dagger once more. It was resting in Randal's palm, glistening with the small amount of blood that the torturer had drawn. As though there had been no pause in the conversation, Randal said, "But I won't pull that information from you, Lieutenant. You know why, don't you? At this point in the questioning, to change my goals . . . Well, it would be like a bard suddenly turning his ballad into a drinking song. It would be crude."

He leaned forward and carefully wiped the bloody blade dry on Quentin-Andrew's hair. "That's what the others don't understand," he said. "They think that men like us are barbarians, no better than mountain-pass murderers. They believe that any man could do what we do if he were vicious and heartless. And they're wrong – oh, so wrong. Why, they might as well say that any gutter-child could sing as well as a bard. We're artists, Lieutenant – you and me and a few others like us. If we were simple murderers, we couldn't do what we do: patiently and carefully break a man, dancing down the thin line that keeps the prisoner alive long enough to allow the information to be extracted. Our work takes more self-discipline than the labor of most soldiers. To go as far as the work requires, but no farther. To enjoy the pain – for without enjoyment we could not last in our profession – but not to allow our enjoyment to overcome our sense of duty. And to serve the work – ah, that's the part that even our employers don't understand. They don't grasp the difference between a murderer's careless stab and the delicate and beautiful curve of a wound—"

He waited until Quentin-Andrew had subsided to shuddering gasps, and then leaned forward to wipe the blade once more. "We're bards of pain," he said, "and of all the bards in the world, you are the greatest. To those who have the ears to hear, your song has a richness that will make it immortal. Generations from now, men in our profession will still speak of the Lieutenant and of the beauty of his craft."

His hand travelled under the table. When it rose again, it was no longer holding the dagger. Leaning forward, Randal placed his head on the table beside Quentin-Andrew's and said in a low voice, "You know, don't you? You know that's why I've been so gentle with you. I could have placed you on this table on the first day and broken you. I could have hung you from the ceiling or shattered your bones or done a dozen other things to make you talk. But I did nothing like that – nothing that would cause you permanent harm. This—" His hand touched his prisoner's hand for a moment, and Quentin-Andrew heard himself whimper. "This will heal; everything I've done to you up to this point will heal. And do you know why, Lieutenant? I have no orders to execute you. That's the truth. After we're through, I can release you, and you can continue your exquisite work. In fact—"

Randal's lips brushed Quentin-Andrew's ear. In a whisper, he said, "You can be better than you were before, Lieutenant. You can be better because I'll be with you. Oh, I know that I can never be what you are, but I have a few talents of my own. Take me with you – as your partner if you find me worthy, otherwise as your apprentice. Together we will be the most powerful and creative force this world has ever known. The gods themselves will not be able to hold out against us. Let me join my song with yours, Lieutenant. All that is necessary is that you give me the information I need in order to release you."

Randal raised his head. After a while, Quentin-Andrew turned his face toward the young man, waiting in silence in the darkening cell. The heaviness lay upon Quentin-Andrew's spirit now.

"You're good at this," he whispered.

Randal smiled. It was a smile of pure joy, like that of a boy who witnesses his dreams come alive. He moved behind Quentin-Andrew and placed his hand momentarily on his prisoner's head.

"Think about what I've said," he murmured. "I don't want to hurt you any more."

And then he moved away from the table, and Quentin-Andrew felt the darkness enter his spirit.

o—o—o

The dungeon of the Chara's palace was widely admitted by its guests to possess a certain beauty not found in other dungeons of the Three Lands. This was due largely to the fact that Emor, being a wealthy land, had gradually expanded its palace over the years, so that the chambers of the original palace, built seven centuries before, were now used to house prisoners. The old council chamber formed the main cell, the Chara's former residence was the luxurious quarters of the dungeon-keeper, and the Court of Judgment, appropriately enough, was the main torture cell. Simple yet tasteful stone carvings still decorated the lintels and cornerposts, while the platform on which the Chara's throne had once stood was used as a racking table. All in all, a visit to this cell was an aesthetic delight.

The prisoner whose hands were presently chained above him, against the cell wall, appeared not to appreciate the privilege he was undergoing. He was, in several respects, an unusual prisoner. To start with, he was clothed, and his flesh was unmarked. No search had been done on him for weapons, and even if he had been carrying a weapon, no struggle would have taken place to disarm him. He answered all questions in a low voice, but with a quick obedience usually found only in prisoners faced with the table. The only element which made him look the same as other prisoners usually questioned in this place was that his body was bathed in sweat, causing his skin to glow in the firelight. Quentin-Andrew, standing nearby, thought to himself that he had never seen such a beautiful sight as Dolan under torture.

"No one will come, Dolan," he told the boy softly. "No one cares about you. You are alone now in the pit of your destruction."

It was a statement he had made to many prisoners over the years, but it had never been truer than now. Dolan possessed only two living friends; one had sent him to this place, and the other now stood before him, administering the torture.

Dolan lifted his head slowly to look up at Quentin-Andrew. No crushed hope showed in his expression; no hope had existed there from the moment he had realized what would be done to him. He had been with the Northern Army for eight years; he knew Quentin-Andrew too well. The cups of wine they had exchanged were forgotten.

Yet Quentin-Andrew knew that he had forged a valuable tool during the past four years, a tool which he could now use to break the boy. Leaning close to Dolan, he said softly, "I could help you, you know. I could save you from this place."

Now twenty-three, yet still boylike in appearance, Dolan showed no renewed hope or wistfulness or hostility. In a voice that was weary but clear, he said, "You can't. The Commander ordered you to execute me when you were through."

Dull-witted Dolan, Quentin-Andrew reflected, was far from dull-witted in his better moments. In fact, the boy had talents far beyond that which most people guessed at, the most important of which was his perceptive spirit. He had perceived aspects of Quentin-Andrew that no one else in the Northern Army had suspected, not even the Commander. Dolan's great weakness – a weakness that would now cost him his life – was that he would not use this knowledge to defend himself. If he had done so – if he had taken his knowledge of Quentin-Andrew's weaknesses and had hammered at those cracks in his torturer – Quentin-Andrew was not at all sure which of them would have been the victor. Yet Dolan, who would kill himself at a moment's notice for the sake of a friend, would never think of attacking an enemy. That wasn't in his nature.

Dolan's breath grew quicker; his gaze drifted past Quentin-Andrew toward the fire with its brand-irons, but his eyes were unfocussed. Quentin-Andrew, recognizing the signs, momentarily relished the vision of watching Dolan faint in his chains. He put the thought aside and reached into his thigh-pocket for the key to the manacles. He had told the Commander that the boy was too weak in body to endure physical torture; Dolan would undoubtedly die quickly before giving up the secret he was hiding. Quentin-Andrew could only use his special form of questioning, and even there he was constrained by the promise he had made to Dolan at the start that he would be gentle to him.

Why he had made such a promise was not clear to him now, but it made no difference. "Gentle," as any of Quentin-Andrew's previous prisoners could have borne witness, was a relative term where the Lieutenant was concerned.

Released from his manacles, Dolan sank to the floor and began gulping in air. In order to give Dolan time to recover from his sickness, without appearing to be merciful, Quentin-Andrew turned and walked over to the bottle of wine on the table. As he poured himself a cup, he reflected that it had taken a long time for his spirit's desire to be granted.

He had known that this day would come from the moment that he had first seen Dolan watching him with wide and innocent eyes. The boy looked so much like Gareth that Quentin-Andrew had not even needed the exchange of wine to know that their relationship would end this way. What surprised him – what astonished him – was that he was doing this with the blessing of the gods. Or so he must conclude, for the Jackal had told him to follow the Commander's orders, and these were the Commander's orders. For once in Quentin-Andrew's life, perfect pleasure corresponded with perfect duty.

For eight years he had followed the Commander; for eight years he had done only what he was ordered and no more. It was true that, as the years passed, the Commander's orders had grown harsher, as was natural, given the increased opposition to the Northern Army's conquest of Emor. Yet Quentin-Andrew knew well – and he supposed that the gods knew also – that during those years he had never questioned a prisoner to the degree that he would most have enjoyed. Not until tonight. It made no difference how gentle Quentin-Andrew was tonight. He knew that his very acceptance of this role was the keenest torture he could place upon Dolan.

He turned his back to the table, with its straps and weights, and began sipping his wine as he looked down at Dolan, who was still crouched, gasping. This had been a heady day for Quentin-Andrew: first the final siege of the Emorian capital, then the sack of the Chara's palace, then the torture of selected prisoners to obtain knowledge of the location of all remaining Emorian law documents, and finally the lengthy and glorious beheading of several dozen lords and palace officials. The Chara, much to Quentin-Andrew's disappointment, had been executed by the Commander himself, but Quentin-Andrew had at least been able to witness the change in Dolan's face when the Commander, after not even the pretense of a trial, had swung the blade against his unarmed prisoner. Quentin-Andrew had known then what Dolan would do, but he had never expected the Commander to punish Dolan like this. Never had Quentin-Andrew expected such bliss.

Dolan noticed for the first time that Quentin-Andrew was watching him. Always obedient, he struggled to his feet and stood waiting, his face a model for all prisoners on how to frame despair. At any moment now, thought Quentin-Andrew, the boy would reveal the information he had hidden from the Commander, the information that would allow the Northern Army to destroy for all time the memory of what Emor had been. The only wonder was that Dolan had held out as long as he had. All of Quentin-Andrew's experience with Gareth told him that fear drives out love, and now that Dolan's love of Quentin-Andrew was gone, he would have nothing to distract him from the pain he was undergoing.

It was becoming yet more clear, Quentin-Andrew conceded, that the boy who could not be a warrior nonetheless had certain strengths that went unrecognized by the world. The Lieutenant had broken soldiers in half the time he had already spent with Dolan.

Dolan was beginning to breathe heavily again. It would not do to have him waste time by falling to the floor unconscious. Stepping forward, Quentin-Andrew handed the cup he had been sipping to Dolan and watched as the boy drank the wild-berry wine. He wondered at what point Dolan would recognize the dark irony of the sharing that was taking place.

Dolan's hand grew suddenly still. His head was bent forward, and Quentin-Andrew idly made wagers with himself as to what the boy's expression would be when he raised his face. Bitterness? No, Dolan would never look bitter. He took with deference what was given to him, caresses or blows. Anger? Dolan was capable of anger, but Quentin-Andrew doubted he would see that emotion now. Anger, if it was present, should have manifested itself long before this. Anguish? Yes, that was the only answer. Filled with hopelessness as Dolan was, the memory of their friendship could be nothing to him now but a torment.

Dolan lifted his head. He was smiling.

It was a weak smile, to be sure – the tentative smile given by a child who expects no smile in return, but who cannot keep from showing what he is feeling. For one moment, Quentin-Andrew searched Dolan's face for signs of renewed hope, but none existed. Dolan knew that Quentin-Andrew would continue the torture, he knew that the fear and pain and despair would continue, and that made no difference. The love was still there. To his dying moment, Dolan would regard Quentin-Andrew as his friend.

It was then that Quentin-Andrew perceived how formidable an opponent he faced, and it was then that Quentin-Andrew began to suspect that he would not obtain the information for which he was searching. It was then too that Quentin-Andrew realized that the unarmed boy before him had been fighting him all along, in ways that neither Dolan nor Quentin-Andrew had recognized.

For a moment, Quentin-Andrew thought that he heard someone sob, and that person was not Dolan.

Then darkness penetrated his spirit once more, and he considered the boy in a cool manner. It made no difference whether the boy yielded his information or not. Dolan's death was certain. Once dead, the boy would have no chance to pass on his secret to others, and the last law documents in Emor, wherever they might be hidden, would rot away and be forgotten. It touched Quentin-Andrew's professional pride, certainly, that for the first time in his career he might not succeed in breaking a prisoner, but this would mar neither his duty nor his pleasure. Dolan would die, and Quentin-Andrew would be the one to kill him.

And all this, Quentin-Andrew thought in astonishment again, was in accordance with the will of the gods. The thought touched him lightly that perhaps he had been wrong in thinking that he would spend all eternity under the curse of the gods. Perhaps, after all, he could remain as he was and yet be granted the gods' mercy.

It was the last time in his life that he would hold this hope.

Bard of Pain 2

THE FIRE

CHAPTER FIVE

Quentin-Andrew was on fire.

He had always feared fire the most. It had taken Randal half a day to realize this before he had taken hold of the brand with a smile – an apologetic smile, because the young torturer had not yet mastered Quentin-Andrew's technique of knowing immediately which instrument the prisoner most dreaded. Quentin-Andrew could feel the marks left by the brand, but that was not the fire that tormented him. This fire was inside: the fire of taut muscles, strained tissues, throbbing blood-tunnels – the fire most of all of a spirit that was stretched as tight as a lathe-reed, about to snap.

Aside from the soft hiss of the cell's fire, Quentin-Andrew could hear nothing. Earlier, as the palace trumpets sounded the midnight call for the final time in Koretia's history, the rumble of fighting had filled the corridor, and at one point soldiers had hammered at the cell door. Randal had done nothing, though, except to place his hand firmly over Quentin-Andrew's mouth. The Northern Army soldiers had gone away, apparently unwilling to take the time to force the iron door. From that time on, all noise had faded until nothing filled the cell now except the sound of fire and iron and screams. Especially fire.

Something cool touched Quentin-Andrew's eyelids: Randal's wet fingers, gently wiping away the blood that gummed his eyes shut. A moment later, Randal pried his eyelids open. It would have taken more strength than Quentin-Andrew possessed to free his eyelids from Randal's tender touch. He stared up at his torturer's face, dim in the growing shadows. A part of Quentin-Andrew that still lived and moved wondered whether the cell's fire was dead but for the coals or whether he was growing blind, as prisoners sometimes did toward the end.

"The seventh weight," said Randal quietly. "You know what that means, Lieutenant. There is still time for you to speak before I destroy your body. For your spirit will break after the weight is added, you know."

Quentin-Andrew did not doubt that Randal was right; he knew the signs himself. Already he could feel the fraying of the fibrous cord that linked his mind to sanity. One more weight . . . No, not even that; the break would come before the weight was ever applied. With detached interest, he watched the fire begin to eat into the slender strand. His body was screaming; his mouth no longer screamed only because he had no power with which to voice his agony. He took a shallow breath and felt a thousand daggers enter his body.

With his last remaining strength, he closed his eyes.

Above him, dimly through the darkness of the approaching madness, he heard Randal sigh. "Oh, Lieutenant," said his torturer softly, "I would so much have liked to have worked with you. Even to have been broken by you would have been a privilege." There was no sound for a moment, and then Quentin-Andrew heard a thump as Randal lifted the weight onto the table. Another moment before it would be attached; another moment before the thread snapped and what was left of Quentin-Andrew plummeted into a darkness so black that his spirit would be utterly destroyed.

Not even the pit of destruction awaited him; only annihilation. The fire began to eat the final strand, and Quentin-Andrew felt his mouth open, felt himself prepare to give Randal the information he wanted.

The words he spoke, though, caused his spirit to vibrate with shock. "Jackal," he whispered, "help me."

Even the fire was gone now. He was entirely in blackness, and he wondered at what point the last portion of his spirit would crumble and he would cease to think. Then he felt something – an awareness, a presence – and he opened his eyes again.

Before him, hovering in the darkness of the cell, was a wild beast: it was snarling at him, its claws tightening in anticipation, its mouth parted in a tooth-bladed smile. Though its fur was blacker than the shadows, a golden glow outlined its form. He could see that it was crouching, ready to pounce.

Then the beast leapt suddenly high in the air, and in the instant before its forepaws landed upon Quentin-Andrew's chest, it flung its head upward, and its shape began to change. In a moment, the four-footed beast had acquired legs and arms; it stood upright, with claws still shining at the end of its hands. Only the beast's face remained the same.

In a soft voice, a voice that thundered like a forest burning, the Jackal said, "How dare you call upon my name, you who lie under my curse."

Quentin-Andrew took a breath and felt the daggers begin to flay his flesh. The fire was now eating his organs. "For the Commander's sake," he whispered. "He is the gods' servant. Help me not to betray him."

The Jackal continued to smile in his deadly manner. All around him, the fire leapt golden. In a soft voice, the voice a torturer uses when his victim is about to break, the Jackal said, "Eight years ago, the Commander murdered the Chara and placed his own wine-friend, the son of Perry-John, into your hands. Since that day, he has been under the gods' curse."

For a moment more, the fire licked at Quentin-Andrew's flesh; he could feel it blackening his heart. Then Quentin-Andrew screamed.

It was a long, hoarse scream that echoed in the far corners of the cell, a cry so deep and reverberant that it drove from Quentin-Andrew all awareness of the killing fire. It was followed by silence. Quentin-Andrew could see nothing and he could feel nothing; he was empty like a husk. In a second, he knew, the fire would return and his spirit would be forever obliterated, but just for the moment he felt only relief.

It was over – all of his last hopes were mercifully gone. The worst torture was ended: the torment he had felt all his life of believing that he could change his fate if only he tried hard enough. Now he knew that he had been right on the day of Gareth's death. There was nothing he could do, no change he could make, that would bring the gods' mercy. From the day of his birth, he had been doomed to destruction.

A light began to grow, and with it came warmth. Quentin-Andrew tensed, waiting for the final inferno. Then he became aware of the glow in front of him: the Jackal, with his hand outstretched. "Come," said the god.

Quentin-Andrew dimly knew the choice he was being offered; it was a choice between two torments. But he did not give himself time to dwell on the balance. As though of its own volition, his hand moved forward. He flinched at the last moment, feeling the approaching heat, and then, with his breath shuddering, he clasped the Jackal's hand.

In an instant, the light exploded silently around him. He could feel its warmth upon his skin. With a moan, he shielded his eyes, like a night animal that has been driven to the surface during the day. Then the light faded, and he found himself in darkness once more, except for a glow which seemed to emanate from no object except himself.

It was a dark glow, a bleak grey against the blackness around him, but it caused him to look down at himself, and he felt his heart jerk.

He could see his hands. He remembered with sickness what his hands had looked like a short time before; now his hands were whole and unmarked. His arms and his legs were as smooth as a babe's skin. The rest of his body he could not see, for it was covered in the uniform he had worn for so long: the undyed cloth of a Northern Army tunic and breeches, the gold honor brooch that the Commander had given him, the thick cloak meant to protect against Marcadian winters, and the hard boots that could travel through ice and snow. Only his thigh-pocket and his blades were missing.

He swung around, the instinctive move of a patrol guard who has become lost in the night. To all sides, he was encased in darkness, but a body's length below his feet he began to see a figure: a man stretched taut upon a table, his eyes wide and unblinking, his naked body mangled and broken. The seventh weight was not yet attached.

Quentin-Andrew turned his face slowly away. At his side, the god of death waited, the fire around him now brighter than before. In a flat voice, knowing the answer but requiring the words to be said, Quentin-Andrew asked, "What happens to the god-cursed after they die?"

"Come and see," said the Jackal. He turned and began walking into the landscape of shadows. For a moment, Quentin-Andrew remained motionless; then he followed the beast's tawny back.

o—o—o

They travelled over a flat land. The ground Quentin-Andrew could not see was hard under his boots. The sound of his steps was loud in the stillness but made no echo. He could not see where the horizon ended and where the sky began – the sky was without moon or stars. But he became aware that beyond the Jackal, hidden by the god's body, a light was beginning to grow. And then the light narrowed; it was a rectangular shape now, and Quentin-Andrew felt as though the darkness was narrowing in on him, squeezing his body. His breath had only a moment to quicken, and then he had passed through the rectangle of light. He found himself in a large chamber.

The chamber was round, like the sun or the moon; it was deep, fringed by tiers of steps; and it was silent, but for the sound of one man speaking. To the south side of the chamber, brown-robed priests sat listening and nodding their heads occasionally. The north side was filled only by the speaker. He was young, and his face was younger still. His voice was almost too low to be heard, but he spoke quickly, and his eyes scanned the audience before him.

". . . And then he sheathed his sword and he took me to the gate, and he told me who he was and told me to come here, to the House of the Unknowable God. He said that you would give me refuge against the Commander. And so I came here, and he must not have told the Commander what he did, because everyone thinks that I'm dead. But I'm alive. I shouldn't be, but I am."

From where he now stood, in the center of the sanctuary, Quentin-Andrew turned to look up at the priests. Their bodies were motionless, and their faces were hard. From his position near the High Priest, Aiken leaned forward and said, "So he tortured you all night – and then spared your life. And you believe that act weighs more heavily than all else that he did during his lifetime."

Dolan, wide-eyed, stared without comprehension at the priests for a moment, his hands crossed behind his back. "You don't understand," he said finally in a high voice. "The Lieutenant told me that the Jackal instructed him to follow the Commander's orders. And the Lieutenant wanted the curse to be lifted from him – he never told me that, but I know he did. I think— I know it sounds mad, but I think the Lieutenant believed that, by disobeying the Commander's order to kill me, he was disobeying the gods. He must have thought that, by helping me, he was losing his last chance to be forgiven by the gods." Dolan's voice grew soft. "He did that for me. He was willing to dwell eternally in the pits of destruction for my sake."

Quentin-Andrew heard the priests begin to murmur amongst themselves, but this time he did not move his gaze from Dolan. The boy – no, the man – was staring down at the stone tier, scuffing the floor with his right sandal. He was unarmed. Quentin-Andrew held his breath, waiting for the warmth to come that had always come, but nothing happened except that something brushed his arm.

It was the High Priest, stepping past him. He was headed toward the eternal flame on the altar, and as he walked forward he said, "We who worship the Unknowable God have never claimed the right to weigh men's deeds and judge men's eternal sentences. That right belongs to the God alone. The only right we have claimed is to ask the God to place a man under his curse if, in our poor judgment, it appears to us that the man has made no effort at all to follow the gods." He gave a wry smile as he dipped his hand into the crystal bowl of water beside the flame. "Never before have we been asked to show a man mercy for doing that which he believed the gods would condemn. Nevertheless, Dolan, your witness matches that which we received today, telling of the manner in which Lieutenant Quentin-Andrew died. And so we must conclude from this that Quentin-Andrew, though filled with darkness which blinded him to the true consequences of his deeds, was indeed willing to make deep sacrifices for the sake of his fellow men, and we know this to be the sign of a god-lover. Therefore, High Judge above all judges, we ask that you take our wishes into consideration in judging Quentin-Andrew son of Quentin-Griffith, and we request that you wipe from his forehead the ashes of cursing that we placed there thirty-seven years ago."

The Jackal, dipping his golden claws into the water held up by the High Priest, replied, "I am the god to whom the son of Quentin-Griffith pledged his loyalty as a child; I speak the words of the Unknowable God above all gods. In the name of that Mystery which none may see but those who dwell eternally in the City of the Land Beyond, I declare that the son of Quentin-Griffith has turned his face toward the gods, and in so doing has become and was and always will be a servant of the God who created him." As he spoke, his claws touched Quentin-Andrew's forehead, and Quentin-Andrew felt the warm water dissolve the grime that lay there.

Silence filled the chamber like a fine mist. Quentin-Andrew stared at the golden eyes of the god, dancing with brightness like fire upon a death-pyre. The god's snarling smile did not change. He gestured with his hand, still sparkling with water. "Come," he said.

Quentin-Andrew turned to follow; then he found himself whirling to look up at the tiered chamber once more. Behind him, the priests were beginning to murmur again. The sound of their feet as they walked down the steps echoed on the other side of the chamber, where young Dolan still stood. Dolan seemed unaware that the trial was over. He was staring at his feet, and the hair falling in front of his face did not obscure the smile on his lips or the dream-look in his eyes.

Warmth touched Quentin-Andrew. He turned his head, and saw that the Jackal was standing beside him, shining like one of the torches upon the wall. The god was waiting. After a long moment, Quentin-Andrew asked, "What will happen to him?"

The god lifted his face, like a dog that has scented its prey. "Does it matter?" he asked in his soft, thunderous voice.

Quentin-Andrew looked back at Dolan. The young man had awoken from his dreamlike state, and he was moving slowly now toward the exit, cautiously, as though he feared that someone would notice him and stop him. He no longer wore the bright-bordered tunic of an army official that the Commander had given him; he was dressed all in brown, like a priest or an orphan-boy.

"Yes," said Quentin-Andrew, his voice faint against the sound of the priests talking. "He is my wine-friend."

The god's voice, though quiet, continued to fill the chamber above all other voices. "He will die, killed by the daggers of war that you helped to whet. Yet because you granted him eight years' respite from his execution, he has had time to pass on his secret to another. And that secret, carried through the long night, will one day be a sheath upon the blade of war and lawlessness. In this way, the gods have accepted and transformed the sacrifice of pain which the son of Perry-John offered to us in the Chara's dungeon."

Dolan, still moving cautiously, had arrived at the bottom of the steps now. He walked slowly forward, past the priests who no longer watched him, until he had nearly reached where Quentin-Andrew stood with the god. He had kept his face bowed till now, but his eyes lifted suddenly and met Quentin-Andrew's. For the moment between lightning and thunder, Quentin-Andrew thought that the eyes held recognition. Then, still smiling, Dolan walked without hesitation into the fiery god.

Light flared, as though someone had thrown tinder upon a bonfire. Quentin-Andrew thought he heard a sharp cry, but whether it came from Dolan or from himself he never knew. When his vision cleared, he found himself standing at the foot of a dark hillside, looking down upon a dry moat.

CHAPTER SIX

A dry moat is what he thought he saw at first. It was hard to tell in starless darkness, though now a faint sheen of moonlight frosted the ground under the moonless sky. The moat itself, though, was darker than blackened blood, and a steady wind of icy air blew from it. Quentin-Andrew was standing at the lip of the moat.

Then he looked harder and saw that the moat surrounding the hillside was in fact a series of long pits, each divided from the other by a wall of earth. Faintly now, he could hear sounds arising from the pits: gasps and moans and sobs and screams. He heard words too: curses and pleas and protests. And Quentin-Andrew knew, without lifting his eyes to look up the hillside behind him, where it was that he now stood.

He turned his head. The god of death was waiting, his body dazzling in the blackness. Quentin-Andrew felt oddly calm, perhaps because he had anticipated this moment for so long. Yet still the question needed to be spoken. "Do you wish me to enter this pit?" he asked.

"Do you wish to enter the pit?" the Jackal replied, his voice taking on the tone of a priest who is asking a ritual question.

Quentin-Andrew turned his gaze once more toward the pit that lay at his feet. Moonlight was beginning to creep down its sides, which remained dark like the landscape surrounding Quentin-Andrew. Only the dullest shimmer of light revealed that the sides of the pit were composed of black ice. Deeper the moonlight crept, remorselessly slow, until Quentin-Andrew began to wonder whether the pit had any bottom. And then the light touched the floor of the pit, and Quentin-Andrew heard his own indrawn breath join the sounds arising from the pits nearby.

At the bottom of the pit, bound loosely to the wall in glittering chains and manacles, was a tall man with reddish-white hair. He was alone, hunched over the dark ice on the ground; his face was hidden in his hands. It was a pose Quentin-Andrew had seen many times in other prisoners, and once again he expected the warmth to enter him, but it did not come. Nothing came except the cries of the tormented and the endless draft of cold.

"Yes," Quentin-Andrew heard himself reply. "My service is unfinished."

The creeping light reached the end of the pit nearest Quentin-Andrew, and as it did so, he saw a form take shape: steps leading down to the depths of the pit. He turned for a final look at the Jackal. His spirit hummed in anticipation, but his body was steady.

"Enter, then, since it is your wish," said the god, "and leave again, since it is your wish. The pits hold only those who desire to stay there. All others, who have turned their faces toward the gods, may bring healing to the wounded, but no chains bind their spirits to this place."

The light had now reached the mouth of the pit; it touched Quentin-Andrew and snuffed out. A glow remained in the air, however, and after a moment Quentin-Andrew realized that the dim light emanating from his body had grown bright enough to cast an aureola that pushed back the darkness around him. He took a deep breath, and without looking again at the Jackal, he placed his foot on the top step of the pit. Following the lamp of his own body, he made his way down the stairway, which had no bannisters.

The noises from above dropped away as he travelled lower. The cold increased. Soon, every breath he sucked in stabbed at his lungs, and through his boots he could feel the numbing pain of the ice. The silence was deeper than death. After what seemed like a journey of many days, Quentin-Andrew reached the final step, and there he paused, blinded by the darkness beyond him. Further ahead, he could hear the sound of aching breath; he followed it, as he had once followed the men he trapped. And so, in the end, he found the Commander.

o—o—o

The Commander of the Northern Army was just as he had been before: crouched on the ice, his hands folded over his face. Quentin-Andrew knew the other man from his hair and from the gold edging of his cloak, signifying his rank. Stopping a body's length away, he said, "Commander."

The Commander raised his head at once and rose slowly to his feet. Though he stood within the dim light cast by his visitor, he stared with unseeing eyes in Quentin-Andrew's direction. "Lieutenant?" he said in a cautious voice.

"Yes, sir." Quentin-Andrew found that his vision had sharpened, as it always did at such moments. He could see the throbbing blood-tunnel in the Commander's throat and the practiced stillness with which the Commander held his dagger-hand. The skin near the Commander's manacles was blue-white, and the Commander's lips were chapped and bleeding.

"So they have captured you as well," said the Commander in a calm voice. "I feared the worst when you disappeared from the camp. Have they questioned you?"

Quentin-Andrew paused a moment before answering; he was watching the Commander's eyes and gathering the information he needed. "Sir, why are you here?"

The Commander sounded more hesitant than before. "I was captured, I suppose. We went into battle – you heard that? – and as we broke through the palace walls, I felt something hit my head. When I awoke, I was here." His voice grew more firm. "You didn't answer my question, Lieutenant."

Quentin-Andrew walked forward and placed his dagger-hand in the Commander's. "I am well, sir," he said.

The Commander briefly inspected with his fingers the unmarked hand and wrist before releasing Quentin-Andrew. "I'm glad of that," he said quietly. "Now that they have me in their hands, they won't bother you. They know that I have all the answers they need." His voice grew lower. "I have been trying to prepare myself for that."

The dagger-pricks of coldness were beginning to dull Quentin-Andrew's mind. He shook his head in an effort to clear his thoughts and asked, in a hard, precise manner that all too many men had known, "Who are 'they,' sir?"

"The enemy, of course." The Commander's reply was immediate, with a note of surprise to it. "Those who are against us. The men who are destroying the Three Lands."

Quentin-Andrew felt an easiness come over him then, as he always did in the moment when he learned which instrument would break the prisoner. Still he hesitated, wondering which of several paths to take to his destination. At that moment, a movement caught his eye.

It came from the wall of the pit that glistened black under the light Quentin-Andrew cast: a faint color and movement, like the blue throb of a blood-tunnel that was sheathed by skin. Quentin-Andrew stepped over to the wall and wiped his hand across the face of the ice, feeling the coldness bite into his hand as he did so. Where his hand had passed, the opaque wall turned to clear crystal. Now he could see what lay beyond it.

"Sir," he said in the respectful voice he used to lure his victims into unwariness, "will you come over to this window, please?"

"Window?" The Commander's voice was uncertain.

"Yes, sir; it's within a few steps of you. I think you'll find that your chains extend that far."

Quentin-Andrew did not turn his head, but he heard the heavy clank as the Commander dragged his chains across the floor. A moment later, the Commander's arm brushed his, and Quentin-Andrew stepped aside to allow the Commander full view of the scene.

After a minute, the Commander began to curse, steadily and with his usual restraint. "Those demons," he concluded. "Those heartless villains."

"What are they doing, sir?" Quentin-Andrew knew better than to provide his own commentary.

"Destroying a village. The men are imprisoned in a group – the enemy isn't allowing them to die quickly, the poor wretches. And the women and children— I cannot speak of it." He started to turn away, but Quentin-Andrew grasped his arm and held it fast.

"What's happening now, sir?"

The Commander sucked his breath in quickly. "How odd. I can see Capital Mountain now. I thought that this window looked out onto the north, and yet . . . No matter; the scene to the south is just as terrible. A bonfire is blazing, and the enemy is throwing objects onto it: books and harps and tapestries – everything that enriches the Three Lands."

"I see." Quentin-Andrew's voice was colorless. "And is that all the enemy is doing?"

"No, I— How odd, the window seems to point west now; I can see the setting sun. The enemy is destroying a law court. . . . Gods, if only I were free!" The Commander's arms tensed as he tightened his fists. "They are destroying everything civilized, everything the gods love."

"I don't believe they are quite finished, sir," Quentin-Andrew said in a cool manner. "Can you tell me what the enemy is doing now?"

After a moment, the Commander said in a weary voice, "We must be looking east; the landscape is night-laden. I can barely see— Yes, they are executing people. Law officials, bards who sing of the deeds of gods and men . . . The shapeless gods preserve us, they are even killing priests." The Commander's voice took on an edge. "When I leave here – and I will leave here – the enemy will pay for this in blood. I will see that each man who has done this pays his debt, and the men who ordered it will pay the greatest debt of all. They will regret the day they were born. Do you understand, Lieutenant? I want you to help me to punish these men."

"Certainly, sir," Quentin-Andrew said in a matter-of-fact manner. "Including you?"

The Commander had begun to turn away from the window again. Now he stopped and said, "Lieutenant?"

"You wish the men who did this to be punished. Shall I punish only our captains, or am I to punish you as well, sir?"

"Lieutenant, what in the names of the nameless gods are you speaking of?"

"Look again, sir; the enemy is destroying another village."

"I already saw that, and I have said they will be punished—"

"Look at their uniforms, sir."

A silence, and then the Commander said in a tight voice, "Rogue troops. They exist in every war, but I had trusted that I had my men under better control than that. I see what you mean, Lieutenant. The captain who allowed this to happen will be punished for his men's deeds—"

"No captain ordered this, sir; the order came from you. Have you forgotten the command you issued concerning villages that harbor fugitives?"

The Commander remained silent for several seconds. From where Quentin-Andrew stood, he could see the Commander's face, which was lit by the colors cast from the scene beyond. "Yes," the Commander said slowly. "I needed to track down the leaders of the enemy, and some had taken refuge among the villagers. It was a harsh move but a necessary one. With the enemy alive, I could not protect the villages against them. One or two villages must be sacrificed in order that the others—"

"Here is the bonfire again," said Quentin-Andrew. He could not tell whether the fire was in fact there, but he dared not allow the Commander to continue down the path he was taking. He knew from experience that the Commander could lose himself for days in his thoughts of the greater good. "What uniforms are the soldiers wearing?"

The Commander's voice turned quiet. "Our uniforms. I remember now. I ordered the destruction of the law books and the other objects that recorded the past history of the Three Lands. It was a hard decision but a necessary one. The law has grown corrupt – it must be purged of its evil elements, cleansed of its dark past. I wish to bring Koretia and Emor and Daxis closer together, to take another step in creating a single law for the whole of the Great Peninsula—"

"Yes, sir," said Quentin-Andrew. "Is that why you ordered the death of the priests?"

"Of course," the Commander replied without hesitation. "Only the corrupt priests, the ones who had taken the side of the enemy. War is a terrible thing, Lieutenant; it brings the horrors of destruction and fear and torture. Little though I like having to treat men in such a way, it is necessary for the sake of peace. I want this war to be short; I want the Great Peninsula to lie in peace once more. With the enemy dead—"

"I see." Quentin-Andrew allowed his voice to grow a shade colder, as it did when he was discussing matters with the Commander that entered into his own province. "Sir, who is the enemy?"

The Commander's voice grew cool as well. "I have already answered that question, Lieutenant. Surely we have more important matters to discuss, such as how to find a way to escape here so that we can once more fight the enemy—"

"I need to know for the sake of my work, sir." Quentin-Andrew's voice was now as cold as a long-buried bone. "Are the Emorians our enemy, sir?"

"Certainly. They started this war by their oppression of the dominions."

"And the Koretians, sir? And the Daxions?"

"They opposed my attempts to bring Koretia under lawful rule once more. Of course," he added quickly, "once we have killed the true enemy – those who oppose me – the peaceful Koretians and Daxions and Emorians will have the opportunity to choose new rulers and to choose a new law. The shapeless gods know I will fully support any men who have the ability to bring about this rebirth, but until such men arrive, I cannot let the Three Lands suffer under the enemy—"

"Is Dolan the enemy, sir?"

The pause lasted very long this time. The colors at the window had grown dim; the Commander's face, which still faced that window, was flung into shadow. Quentin-Andrew could see its outline only by the faint mist emitted from the Commander's mouth.

"That is not a name I wish to discuss." The Commander's voice was flat. "You know my wishes in that regard."

"But sir, I cannot do my work without being certain who I should question. You gave Dolan into my hands—"

"That is in the past." The Commander cut Quentin-Andrew short with a voice like a blade. "Dolan disobeyed orders, and he received the punishment I had promised upon any man who disobeyed me. It was a hard decision for me to make, but a necessary one, for the sake of the Three Lands—"

"The Three Lands that are being destroyed by your soldiers, sir?"

The moment he spoke, Quentin-Andrew knew that he had taken a misstep. It had happened before; he was not a god, and despite his reputation, he had made errors in his work. Always in the past, it had not mattered greatly. He was certain of his success in the end, for no man in the Three Lands could hold out against him.

Except, perhaps, the man who had helped to make him what he was.

"You said that it was a necessary decision," Quentin-Andrew added quickly, trying to retrace his steps. "Could you explain why to me, sir?"

The Commander, though, was not listening. He had turned from the window and was staring at Quentin-Andrew with narrowed eyes, as though seeing him for the first time. He said quietly, "You are not chained."

The Commander's quiet voice had deceived many a man before. Quentin-Andrew, who had heard the Commander use that voice on the night of Dolan's torture, remained silent and waited.

The Commander took a step back and ran his gaze down Quentin-Andrew's untouched uniform and his unmarked body. When his eyes rose again, they glittered like the dark ice surrounding him.

"I see," he said with bitter frigidity. "I should have guessed that the enemy would take this course. You are the only man who has stood beside me through it all, the only man left whom I could trust. Why should the enemy torment you when they could offer me greater torment by taking you from me? What did they give you, Lieutenant, to make you desire to come here and speak their words?"

"Sir—"

"Leave me at peace!" The voice was thunderous, with only a slight break at the end. Iron rattled as the Commander thrust his fists forward, but the chains held him fast. Quentin-Andrew, who had automatically calculated the length of the chains from the moment he first sighted the Commander, remained where he was, unmoved. He noted that the Commander's face was as dark now as the ice in the pit or as the starless sky above.

"Leave me before I kill you." The Commander's final words were spoken in a grim whisper. The chains clanked as the Commander turned his back and made his way to the corner where he had crouched before.

Quentin-Andrew stood awhile, regarding him. The Commander's hunched body was now beyond most of the light that Quentin-Andrew cast. His appearance was like that of dark rock or of a dead beast. After a time, Quentin-Andrew turned and stepped over to the window.

The events had continued to unfold during the period since he had been there last. Darkness had fallen; now he could only catch sight of the figures outside through moonlight and starlight and the occasional flare of a torch. He saw men and women and children falling back under the onslaught of the leaderless troops, and he saw what happened when they failed to escape. He saw the troops, still restless after their bloodlust, turn against each other, while the captains strove without success to keep order. He saw the captains slaughtered. He saw the cities lying in ruins – not only Koretia's capital, but also Daxis's and Emor's – and he saw the gradual abandonment of the towns as trade grew more precarious and it became necessary to live close to the land. He saw the burnt crops of farmers and the strong bands of huntsmen that arose. He saw what they hunted.

Watching the dim scene, Quentin-Andrew felt the coldness encase his legs and make its way up his loins. He wondered how long it would be before the ice chained him to this place. He wondered also how much time had passed in the Land of the Living. Had centuries slipped away while he stood motionless and silent and essentially alone? Or had he been granted the vision of a god, to see the future that would take place? Or was there in fact any time at all in this place?

The cold travelled further; soon it would reach his heart. Reluctantly, Quentin-Andrew stirred himself, turning away from the window. As he did so, he heard a soft sound. It came from the Commander.

Quentin-Andrew could not be sure how much time passed as he remained where he was, watching the quivering rock and listening to the sounds it made. He did not move forward; all of his training told him not to. Yet he felt oddly empty, watching the gradual splitting of the rock's spirit. This moment, which had always brought him great warmth, seemed cold and hard and lifeless.

The sounds stopped finally; only the quivering continued. Quentin-Andrew was shivering as well. He could barely feel his own hands and arms, which were wrapped tight against his chest. It was becoming hard to remember now why he had come here, and the temptation to lie down on the ground was overwhelming. Then his head lifted, sensing a change; and a moment later the rock unfolded and became a man again.

Under the dim light of where he half-crouched, the Commander's face shone like the moon; it was encased with ice. His eyes, dark like winter leaves, stared blankly forward. His lips opened a small gap as he whispered, "Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir." Quentin-Andrew did not move from where he stood. "I am still here."

The Commander shuffled forward, weighted down by the chains and by the frozen mask upon his face. His body glimmered with frigid moisture. In a hollow voice, the Commander asked, "Why did you betray me, Lieutenant?"

"I didn't betray you, sir." Quentin-Andrew spoke in a flat voice. "I died rather than betray you."

"You—"

The Commander stopped. He tilted his head, looking up at the unending blackness above him, and then down at Quentin-Andrew, standing unarmed and glowing softly, like a shining fish in the dark sea. The pit was utterly silent, but for the sound of the two men breathing. Even the wind scything their skin made no noise.

"You are saying that you are dead," said the Commander in a changed voice.

"Yes, sir."

The Commander raised his hands and looked down at them. The ice on them was nearly as thick as the manacles now, but it was clear, and through them it could be seen that the Commander's skin was smooth and unscarred.

"You are saying that we are both dead." The Commander's voice was once more even and quiet. "I was not captured by the enemy; I died in battle."

This time Quentin-Andrew did not bother to reply. The Commander turned slowly in a circle, his gaze taking in the dark ice that shadowed him. He reached out and touched the wall of the pit tentatively, then snatched his hand back.

"And this . . ." he said slowly. "This is one of the ice prisons at the end of the world, where the enemies of the silent gods are punished."

Again Quentin-Andrew did not speak. He could feel the ice beginning to encase his body, and he wondered how long it would be before he was bound in the pit by the coldness, unable to move or think but still able to feel the heavy ice cutting through his skin. He resisted the impulse to take a step backwards. One of the few virtues Quentin-Andrew possessed, as his employers could have attested, was that he had never left a job unfinished, no matter what the cost to him.

"This makes no sense." The Commander's voice wavered. "How could the gods punish me? What I did in the war, I did for their sake, to bring peace. War is evil – I always said that – but I had no choice in my methods. My enemies forced me—"

"Come to the window, sir." For the first time, Quentin-Andrew's voice sharpened. He had reached the stage he knew well, where time was all-important. Not waiting for the Commander to respond, he reached forward, grasped the Commander's icy arm, and thrust him toward the window.

Time, it seemed, was going backward. Quentin-Andrew could now see the scenes he had witnessed before – the wide arc of destruction growing narrow and yet more narrow, until it began to center on its origins: particular places, particular acts, particular men. The Great Peninsula no longer held any trade routes; this was due to the greediness of the Commander's troops, who plundered the goods of merchants. The Great Peninsula no longer possessed ambassadors or peace treaties; this was due to a peace oath that had been broken long ago by one of the Commander's emissaries. The Great Peninsula no longer contained mighty men and women, capable of upholding the law; their graves could be seen, or in some cases simply their bodies, when the Commander had not bothered to order their burial.

For one brief moment, a corpse flashed by: a young man, his head crushed and bloody, his eyes wide and unblinking. Quentin-Andrew felt his breath jerk in. A flame of pain pass through his whole body that melted the ice forming upon his skin. At the same moment, the wind shattered the scene before him, and the pit was once more dark except for the light from Quentin-Andrew's body.

Quentin-Andrew looked over at the Commander. He was on his knees, hiding his eyes; he had not witnessed the final scene. "I had no choice," he whispered.

"No choice, sir?" Quentin-Andrew allowed his voice to take on a note of scorn. "You had no choice but to do what you did – is that what you are saying?"

He waited. With any other man, he would have supplied the answer, but the Commander was capable of doing so on his own.

The Commander's response was a long time in coming. Quentin-Andrew, shivering, wondered how many centuries were passing by. Finally the Commander said in a broken voice, "I could have retreated. I need not have continued the war. But if I had done that – if I had let Koretia exist under rulerless anarchy or if I had let Emor continue under a tyrant . . ."

"They would have been worse off than under your protection."

This time Quentin-Andrew needed do no more than make the statement. No scorn was necessary, nor any hidden irony. For a moment more – how many years the moment encompassed Quentin-Andrew could not tell – the Commander remained motionless.

Then his hands dropped. He stared unseeing at the scene before him, the scales of ice now beginning to travel over his eyes. He whispered, "Dolan."

Quentin-Andrew did not speak. He was waiting for the heat to come that always came at such moments, like a sun warming a ripening field, or a hearth-fire blanketing the room with its light. He waited, and then he realized, with a grief that cut through to his very bones, that the warmth would not come. It was gone forever, the only pleasure that the gods had ever allowed him during his dark life; even that they had taken from him now.

He might have fallen to his knees and joined the Commander in his captivity. What saved him was his professional pride. He had never left a job unfinished, and though the job was finished by his old standards, he knew that his new employer had higher standards. He said in a level voice, as though nothing had passed through his spirit during the past moments, "Sir?"

"I destroyed him," the Commander whispered. Then, rising slowly to his feet, he looked over at Quentin-Andrew with a face like a man who has seen his death-shadow. "I destroyed them all. I destroyed the Three Lands."

"We both did, sir." It was always safest to be sure in these cases that the prisoner had no route of escape left. "We murdered the Three Lands while their people begged for mercy."

It was then that the Commander did what no man in Quentin-Andrew's hands had ever done – and yet what he did was of no surprise to the Lieutenant. The very qualities that had made the Commander hold out so long against Quentin-Andrew were the same qualities that had caused his soldiers to follow him through sixteen years of warfare. It was inevitable that the Commander's strength would break through in the end, no matter what the cost to himself. Though at this stage the Commander should not have been able to think of anything but the inner pain he was undergoing, he instead turned his mind to a greater concern.

The Commander's gaze took in Quentin-Andrew. He said, "You are not chained."

Quentin-Andrew shook his head. The Commander added quietly, "I am glad of that. Your deeds were done under my command – it is right that I should suffer for them rather than you." He let out a breath, and then said steadfastly, "Thank you for visiting me here, Lieutenant. I see that the gods sent you to open my eyes to my crimes, and I truly appreciate your willingness to serve them in that way. Now you must go, however. While I enjoy your company . . ." His voice wavered for only a moment before he regained control of it. "It is not right for you to stay here any longer than you must. I thank you again for coming; farewell."

He tried to turn away immediately. Quentin-Andrew, seeing the shadow of change in his face, knew why, but in any case the Commander's intentions were frustrated by his chains, which wrapped themselves around his body and held him tight. The Commander began to emit a soft plea to the gods and then fell silent as he remembered where he was.

"Allow me, sir." Quentin-Andrew reached out and tried to ignore the piercing pain as he took hold of the Commander's frozen hand. Under the dim light of Quentin-Andrew's body, the ice encasing the Commander's hand melted immediately. The icy manacle around the wrist remained intact a moment more before a crack could be heard, and the shackle fell to the ground, shattered.

"I forgot," said the Commander. "This is your profession."

Quentin-Andrew heard the note in the Commander's voice, glanced at his face, and then turned his attention to the other hand. After a moment, the second manacle fell to the ground, and the Commander's hands were free. Quentin-Andrew knelt by his feet.

"You need not be afraid to tell me, Lieutenant." The Commander's voice was very quiet. "Did the gods send you here to torture me?"

Quentin-Andrew began to speak, and then waited until he had freed both feet, before rising and saying, "The time for breaking is over, Commander; now is the time for mending. I have come to take you from this place."

"No!" The Commander's swift response was filled with passion. "I must remain in this prison. I destroyed the Three Lands; there can be no forgiveness for what I have done—"

"I see." Quentin-Andrew's voice turned dry. "Is that what you wish me to tell the gods, sir?"

After a long while, the Commander said quietly, "You were always skilled at your trade, Lieutenant. I take your meaning; it is not for me to determine the length of my sentence. You are sure that the gods wish this?"

"Yes, sir. I was sent here for that purpose."

The Commander drew a deep breath, allowing the biting air to fill his lungs. He nodded slowly. "Then show me the way from here. I will follow the gods' will."

CHAPTER SEVEN

They travelled over the slick ice cautiously, Quentin-Andrew calling upon his patrol senses to tell him when he and the Commander would reach the stairway. Yet even before the soft glow of his body touched the wall, he knew that the stairs were gone. He tilted his head to look up the side of the pit. The wall was jagged, and when he put out his hand to touch the cold blackness, the ice that burned under his hand was unyielding.

The Commander was silent behind him, waiting. Quentin-Andrew said, in the same matter-of-fact tone he used when ordering the flaying of prisoners, "We will have to climb from this point, sir. Do you think you can manage that?"

"I'm from Marcadia, Lieutenant." For the first time, a note of humor appeared in the Commander's voice, as unexpected as a crocus breaking through the snow. "The question is rather whether you can climb from here."

"Yes, sir," said Quentin-Andrew as he shrugged out from his cloak and reached up to take hold of a solid spar of ice. "I spent much of my childhood climbing in the black border mountains." He pulled himself up, but not before he heard the indrawn breath of the Commander. Never before had Quentin-Andrew spoken to the Commander of his past.

They climbed slowly. The silent winds clutched at their bodies, threatening to throw them to the bottom of the pit, and pieces of ice occasionally crumbled under their hands and feet. Once, only Quentin-Andrew's hand, reaching down abruptly, kept the Commander from sliding down the pit wall. Quentin-Andrew wondered then what their fate would be if they fell – an eternity enduring the pain of a broken back, perhaps? In this place, they would not receive the mercy of oblivion.

The ice continued to burn under Quentin-Andrew's hands. Each breath he took caused his chest to ache from air filled with slivers of ice. Quentin-Andrew began to feel his legs shake, and he hugged the wall closer as he tilted his head. Though no stars filled the sky, he could see the glow around the edge of the pit, as he had seen it in the moments before they began to climb. It appeared no nearer than it had been when they had started climbing an hour before.

The Commander, a body's length further down than Quentin-Andrew, asked breathlessly, "How far have we to go?"

"Not far, sir," said Quentin-Andrew, trying fruitlessly to sight the bottom of the pit. "We'll be there soon."

His voice, the other torturers of the Three Lands had often noted with envy, was capable of conveying the blackest deceit without effort. The Commander, though, was silent a moment before saying, "We're no closer than before, are we?"

Quentin-Andrew leaned his head back to look again at the elusive lip of the pit. "No, sir. We don't seem to be making any progress."

The Commander's sigh was so heavy that it seemed to drop immediately to the bottom of the pit. "I feared as much. Lieutenant, you must go on without me. I'm sure that my presence alone is preventing you from leaving this prison."

Feeling his raw hands scream as he placed them into new positions, Quentin-Andrew carefully climbed down until he was beside the Commander once more. "Sir, close your eyes."

The Commander stared at him for a long minute from under frost-laden lashes, and then followed the instruction.

"Sir, above us is the place where the gods gather." Quentin-Andrew paused, probing his memory for his faint knowledge of the Marcadian religion, then added, "It is the place where all names are known, all silence is spoken, and all that is hidden revealed. In that place is Dolan. He is waiting for you."

He spoke the words firmly, having no doubt that what he stated was true. The Commander's breath quickened. In a shaking voice, he said, "That cannot be. I placed Dolan in your hands; I ordered his execution—"

"Sir, I speak of Dolan."

A pause while Quentin-Andrew's hands continued to scream as though they had been flayed open. And then the Commander said, with pure simplicity, "Yes, of course. Dolan is waiting for me."

"Open your eyes, sir."

The Commander did so, and Quentin-Andrew heard the small shock as the Commander's breath hissed in. "Yes," said the Commander slowly, his head tilted back to look upward. "Yes, of course." Then, in the firm voice he had always used before battles: "Follow me, Lieutenant. It is not far now."

His words were of strict truth: the remaining journey was not far, at least not for a man being tugged forward by visions of what awaited him. For Quentin-Andrew, who had no love drawing him upward, it was like the time he had found himself caught alone in a blizzard on the mainland and had been forced to crawl through the flesh-cutting ice missiles for several hours until he reached his destination. On that occasion, his incentive for continuing was knowledge of an unfulfilled work contract. Now he found his gaze dropping downward, to the still chill of the ground below.

The jagged ice was beginning to cut into his hands, slicing deep toward the bone. He closed his eyes and clung to the rock, shuddering. Then a hand took his, pulling at him, and all of a moment he was on flat ground again, with the ice replaced by burning heat.

It stunned his eyes open. He was standing where he had begun, on the lip of the pit, but the cool air above the pits seemed like fire compared to what he had felt during the time he had been away. Instinctively, like a prisoner facing the brand, he wrapped his arms around himself. Then he turned his head, wondering how his northern-born Commander was enduring the change.

The Commander seemed unaware of any pain he was experiencing. His gaze was raised high, up the slope of the steep mount they faced, toward the edge of the plateau above, where the Jackal stood, glowing brightly like a hearth-fire.

"Commander . . ." Quentin-Andrew murmured.

"Yes, I see." The Commander's voice was as matter-of-fact as it had always been when his Lieutenant issued warnings of grave danger, but there was a note of awe in his voice that Quentin-Andrew had never heard before. "That is one of the gods, nameless except in the place where names are known, shapeless except to the eyes of those who have received her mercy."

Quentin-Andrew stared at the Commander, whose gaze had not broken from the figure standing above them, and then he felt the fiery warmth broken by a shiver through his body as he wondered what the Marcadian was seeing that Quentin-Andrew himself could not see.

He did not receive the opportunity to ask. Without looking his way, the Commander said, "I must go forward alone from this point, Lieutenant."

Quentin-Andrew looked up at the figure. All around the god, the air wavered, as on a summer's day. "It may be difficult, sir," he said. "I believe it is warmer up there—"

"I cannot wait." And with that, the Commander slipped away, taking his first step onto the hill.

His face was twisted with pain from the moment he touched the dark slope. Quentin-Andrew, shading his eyes against the brightness above, watched the Commander struggle his way upward, as though he were fighting through a fierce wind. At one point, the Commander slipped on the slope and slid nearly to the foot of the mount. He lay sprawled for a moment, his back heaving as he gasped in air. Then, before Quentin-Andrew could decide whether to move forward, he heard the Commander whisper, "Dolan," and the Commander was on his feet again, battling his way through the haze of the heat.

The light had increased by the time he reached the plateau. Quentin-Andrew, squinting, could not look directly upon the figure awaiting the Commander, but even so, he was nearly blinded in the next moment as a blast of light travelled forth, like a wave of hard earth from where a catapult-flung stone has fallen. It cut through all of Quentin-Andrew's senses, causing him to cry out as he squeezed his eyes shut.

When finally he looked again, the whole of the landscape had changed. It was covered now with a dim, pre-dawn glow, so that Quentin-Andrew could see the faint outline of grass upon the slope, dancing slightly in the warmth's haze.

The glowing figure still stood on the ledge above, but it was alone now, and as Quentin-Andrew raised his eyes, he realized that it was not the god he saw.

The figure smiled down at him. He was as Quentin-Andrew had seen him only once during their years together: when the Lieutenant, unannounced, walked in upon the Commander while the Marcadian was immersed in conversation with Dolan. Here once more were the eyes of love, drinking deeply, but the gaze had spread beyond the young Koretian to a wider horizon.

In a voice deep and soft, which carried over the landscape to the horizon, the Commander said, "Thank you, Quentin-Andrew."

And then he was gone, but the light remained, glowing from some object on the plateau that was beyond Quentin-Andrew's sight.

o—o—o

Quentin-Andrew stared at the mount before him. It looked familiar, though he could not pin to the ground the memory of where he had seen it. It remained too dark as yet for him to gain any more impression of the hill than its massive shape looming above him. Nor could he see the surrounding landscape, though he was beginning to realize that it was not as flat as he had thought. To the west of him . . .

He frowned. Why was he so sure that the land to the left of him was the west? Perhaps it was due to the shining light he sensed to the right of him. He turned his head.

The Jackal sat beside him. He had dimmed since Quentin-Andrew had last seen him, which meant that he was no brighter than the sun. His coat was burnished gold and his face was black, but for the gold and silver that picked out his features. He was sitting on his haunches. He turned his head, and Quentin-Andrew saw once more the sharp teeth, smiling at him.

The Jackal said nothing. He simply sat there, grinning wolf-like, as his fur burned in the grey darkness.

Quentin-Andrew said, "Dolan . . . and the Commander . . . and against them, all the others who have fallen into my hands . . ." He stopped, unable to put into words his question.

The god's smile did not waver. Sitting with his clawed paws digging into the ground, the Jackal was as tall as Quentin-Andrew was standing; the god's gaze was level with his own. The words he spoke, when they came, were not delivered from the mouth of a wild dog. Rather, they entered into Quentin-Andrew's spirit by some secret gate.

"You wish to know whether the tales are true," the Jackal said. "You wish to know whether you must suffer for what you have been."

Quentin-Andrew did not speak. The land around him was utterly still, but for the waving of the grass under the silent wind. Even the cries of the people in the pits had faded from his consciousness.

"The tales are true," the god said softly. "For men who are truly evil, the fire is long and the pain beyond that which the greatest torturer in the world could produce. That is the fire you must endure to be purged of your darkness. Do you wish it?"

He continued to glow like a furnace. Quentin-Andrew could now see that what he had thought were strands of fur were in fact licks of flame, reaching outward. They danced like the grass.

He turned his head slowly. Behind him, as before, were the dark pits. He could see the ice on the lip of the nearest pit, and he remembered the coolness there. His time in the pit had seemed bitterly cold, but surely, after a few thousand years, one would grow numb to it. Better the ice than the fire; better that he should remain alone—

And then he felt the shock enter him, as though lightning had attacked his body. Alone. Figuratively, he had been alone nearly all his life, but that had only been an image. How could a man such as himself ply his trade if he were truly alone?

His thoughts skittered suddenly, sliding on ice. Ply his trade in a place like this? And yet he had done so once already. He thought back to the pits, dark and frigid. Places of imprisonment, as the Blue Tent had once been. Places of imprisonment and breaking. . . .

He saw it then, as though the image had been within him all along. A Commander who broke prisoners, not through his own skills, but through the skills of those he sent out to do his work. From the warmth of the Commander's hut, a Lieutenant departed, set upon the task of going to the frigid outskirts of the camp in order to break a prisoner and hear that prisoner speak with sincerity the words of healing that the Commander wished him to say. . . .

But the Lieutenant could not do this, if he himself were a prisoner.

He turned his head back to the god, yet more slowly, the fire filling his gaze once again. The god was smiling with mouth and eyes, as he had on the day when Quentin-Andrew had stood in his royal bedchamber and spoken the words that would allow the Jackal to break him.

"I am skilled at my work," Quentin-Andrew repeated now. And then, "I will not give up my work." And then, answering the Jackal's final question: "Yes."

In that instant, his knees gave way, and he felt the ground bite his shins.

His hands were over his eyes before that happened, but his palms could not shield him from sight of the blaze. He could feel the warmth of the fire as well, pricking at his body, and he smelt the thick smoke. He waited, tense, as the sweat swam upon his skin, uselessly trying to hold back the heat.

No sharper bite entered him, and after a while it occurred to him that he had not reached out to touch the Jackal, as custom required. He opened his eyes cautiously—

—and saw that the fire was not next to him. It was below him.

It danced in a ring several spear-lengths below where he knelt; it surrounded two figures. The older of the two, who was standing, was in mid-youth. He held a cup in his hand, which he was heating over a tiny fire. The flame leapt up to meet the cup, which was bejewelled and made of gold. Pure as the gold was, it was unmarked by the flames touching it, but within the cup – Quentin-Andrew could see from where he knelt – was blood-red liquid that was beginning to boil.

The boy holding the cup had his hand wrapped in a cloth to protect himself from the heat. He had been bending over to look at the bubbling wine, but now he raised the cup, apparently to admire the sight of the wine-bubbles springing over the rim. He was smiling.

He did not seem to notice the ring of fire around him, nor did he look at the boy beside him. This younger boy was lying upon the stone table that held the flame. Near his head was a bowl that had once held water but had been tipped over. He was gagged, and was bound in a ball. His eyes, filled with tears and terror, were watching the progress of the cup.

The older boy, still smiling, looked over at his prisoner and laughed lightly. It was a joyful laugh, bubbling like the wine. With deliberate slowness, he brought the cup over until it was above the younger boy. He began to tilt it.

At that moment, Quentin-Andrew, whose body had been beating with blood all this while, saw something happen that made him rub his eyes, in case his vision had been damaged. The older boy, in the instant of the tilting, split in two.

The split was not entire: the dark boy, standing smiling, remained where he was, attached to a version of the boy whose brown-black skin glowed like coal-fire. The glowing version of the boy had turned away and was trying desperately to break free, but at the moment upon which it seemed that he would either free himself or drag the dark boy away with him, he sighted the ring of fire dancing silently before him. He stood motionless for a moment, staring at the fire eating the air, and that motionlessness was his undoing: in the next second, he was pulled back into the dark boy. The boiling wine began to spill—

—and then the scene was gone, and in place of it was another, with an imprisoned young man and an older man standing beside him. The torturer this time was not smiling. It was the young man who smiled, and his smile was for the torturer.

Beside the torturer, kneeling and sobbing, was the glowing figure that Quentin-Andrew had seen before. It had pulled itself far enough away that it was now touching the surrounding ring of fire. The flames ate at the glowing figure, racking its body. With a final sob, the glowing version of the older man allowed himself to be pulled back into the darkness.

And then came a series of images, so rapid that Quentin-Andrew could only follow the summation of them: more attempts at separation, more torture, and each time the tortured figure returned to the cool of the darkness, but each time the torture was longer and more painful. The dark version of the torturer continued his work, oblivious to how closely the fire was approaching.

The fire finally reached him. He lay stretched upon a table, united in his two parts, as the fire of his self-selected torment filled his body. Amidst the flames, he cried out a name, calling upon the fire to enter him.

At the sound of the god's name, a young man standing nearby turned his head, shock written upon his face at the words he had been sure his mentor would never speak. The fire crept closer to the torturer—

—and in the same moment, the prisoner reached out his hand and entered into the heart of the harsh fire.

"No," Quentin-Andrew heard himself say aloud. "No, it wasn't like that. When I touched you, there was no fire. I felt no pain, only light . . ."

In the cell he had left behind, the fire was gone. All that remained was a broken figure on a table, covered with a dark cloak, and beside it the young man, his fists tight as he stared down at the fruits of his work. The young man's chest was heaving. He turned away abruptly and started toward the door of the cell. Then he seemed to become aware that he was holding something. He stared down blankly at the thin blade, and his finger touched a drop of blood that had dried near the hilt. His face contorting in fury, he flung the thigh-dagger away and left the cell, unarmed.

The dagger, spinning through the air, soared over the corpse and landed in the dying coals. Flames sprung up at once, invading the cell, chasing after the figure that had left. The fire filled the air like flood-waters, and Quentin-Andrew heard himself cry out—

And then it was gone. Everything he had seen was gone, but for the dark landscape, which was now filled with light.

He knew this landscape.

From where he stood, under the shadow of a cloud, he could see spring-green fields and black mountains beyond them. At the feet of the mountains were dark shapes that he might have taken for tiny villages if he had not known better. All of the land before him was dancing in the heat of the risen sun, blurring and stretching, as fabric does when pulled.

But this tugging – this foreshadowing of a rending – was not due to the heat. Looking down from the top of the mount upon the landscape of his childhood, Quentin-Andrew knew that every image he had experienced since his death had been an illusion. The gods had taken images from his childhood vision of what the Land of the Dead would be like, and had used those images as a way to reveal the truth. As far as they went, the images had been true. But now Quentin-Andrew was about to be shown the deeper truth that lay within the vision.

The heat of the day pressed behind him, like the sun riding the northern sky. But he knew that the heat did not come from the sun. In a panic, he spun round.

The illusion had not broken there. Before him lay the City of the Gods.

It was just as he had imagined it as a boy, staring up each night at the walled palace where the Chara lived: light shone forth from the marble-white building, brighter even than the reflected light that had burned from the Chara's palace until the Northern Army's attack doused that flame. The palace before him seemed to dance like a living flame, and all the air was growing brighter by the moment, as though the fire of the palace were filling the world around him.

Below the white heart of the flame were streets lined with neat houses, all wavering in the light as the illusion strove to keep intact in these final moments. Standing on the golden streets was an enormous group of men and women. They were silent, watching him.

His hand moved in an automatic manner toward his thigh; then he remembered that he was no longer armed. He scanned the crowd slowly, trying to read the people's intent from their expressions. With a jolt of blood through his body, he recognized one of the men. He looked at the woman nearest the man; he recognized her too.

One by one, he began to make out the faces. They were all here – all the thousands of men and women he had murdered during his life. And standing at the front of the crowd, with his arms outstretched in welcome, was Gareth.

The whiteness of the palace coalesced into a ball of light, spreading its warmth in the manner of a spring sun. Wordlessly, the light spoke to him, saying, "Here is the fire you feared, son of Quentin-Griffith. Enter into my City."

Still standing in the cool darkness surrounding his body, Quentin-Andrew tentatively put forward his hand until it touched the light beyond the darkness. A sharp pain flashed through his body, more exquisite than he had ever known, as the fire burned out the last of the remaining darkness within him. Then it was gone, and nothing lay within except warmth.

Smiling, he stepped into the light.

And that was the end of the beginning for Quentin-Andrew.

o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Mystery ===

MYSTERY

CHAPTER ONE

To Huard, priest of the tribe of the Feasters, under the care of the City Priest, under the care of the High Priest of the Northern Peninsula:

This letter is borne to you by Prosper, who until a few hours ago held the honored position of City Priest. He has now been stripped by the High Priest of his title and of his priesthood and has been placed under the God's curse. The sentence given to him was exile from the Capital Territory and from the God's presence for one year's time.

I know that you will be concerned that I have sent you a demon-filled man. Like all men who have given themselves over to the power of those spirits who are enemies of the Unknowable God, he is filled with impulses toward destruction. For that reason, I will explain what destructive acts led to Prosper being placed under the God's curse, and why I believe that you may be able to help him.

Prosper entered into the service of the God at age thirteen, three years before he would normally have been permitted to take his vows of priesthood, because his father was a friend of the High Priest. He took his vows under the instruction of the High Priest himself, who then appointed Prosper to the title of City Priest when Prosper was twenty years old. Many people are said to have commented at the time how unusual it was that the High Priest would appoint a man still in his youth to so high a position.

I recite these facts, which you know as well as I do, in order to emphasize that, from the beginning of his adolescence, Prosper was supervised only by the High Priest, whose duties require that he spend the majority of his time in prayer to the God. For his first two years as City Priest, Prosper lived in the same house as the High Priest, but thereafter Prosper founded a training school for boys entering into priesthood, half a day's ride from the High Priest's dwelling, and from that time forward Prosper received no spiritual supervision at all except for his quarterly confessions to the High Priest.

You were one of the earliest boys to serve as a pupil at the City Priest's training school, so you know better than I what Prosper was like in those days. My own training was completed only twelve years ago, and by that time Prosper had acquired the reputation among the priest-pupils he trained of being a hard and exacting master – not necessarily a fault, we can both agree, but one which brings certain dangers that may open a person to demons.

Prosper himself was the first to realize that he had begun to turn his face from the God, but by the time he realized this, the demons seemingly had already laid hold of his spirit, for rather than turn for assistance to the High Priest, as he ought to have done, he instead made his confession to me.

I had offered my priestly vows only four months before. Being young and inexperienced, it did not occur to me to question why Prosper had sought one of his former priest-pupils as his confessor rather than the High Priest. I believed Prosper when he told me that he considered the matter too serious to await his quarterly confession.

I may tell you what he told me at that time, for I have been released from my lock of confession. He said that he believed that he had been too harsh and hasty in his judgments of those under his care, and in particular of those who were brought to his judgment in the God's court.

This being a serious matter, I placed Prosper under a discipline combining prayer, silence, and a set of instructions for behavior, the most pertinent instruction being that I required Prosper to delay three days after anyone was charged with breaking the God's Law, before passing sentence upon the prisoner.

Two years later, Prosper removed me from my duties as a tutor at his training house and made me sanctuarian at the nearby government house. I did not question at the time his motives for doing so, but the effect of this change of duties was that I could no longer directly supervise Prosper to see whether he was adhering to the discipline under which I had placed him. The only discipline, indeed, that I could now check was whether he waited three days between charges and sentences in the God's court.

He maintained this discipline for eight years. Then he sentenced a man to burning for atheism two-and-a-half days after the charge was placed against him. Prosper promptly came to me and told me that he had broken the discipline. For that reason, I renewed the discipline but warned him that, if he violated his discipline again, I would have no choice but to place him under the God's curse.

I took the opportunity of our conversation to ask whether he had been maintaining the remainder of the discipline I had placed him under. His answers did not fully satisfy me, so I began questioning the priest-pupils under his care at that time. I learned from them that the situation had worsened since my own time at the training school. Alarmed, I told Prosper that I wished to meet with him weekly thereafter, but he informed me that the High Priest was watching him closely on this matter. Since Prosper was officially under the care of the High Priest rather than myself, I could take no further steps to assist him.

Last night, my worst fears were realized when Prosper placed a charge against a man and then sought to make immediate sentence upon him. (The man has since been found innocent of his charge, so I will not name him here.) I was brought into the matter as a witness, since I was the man's confessor. Hoping to find evidence against the man, Prosper lifted the lock of confession upon me, requiring me to give witness as to whether any person who had made confession to me was believed by me to have broken the God's Law recently. I immediately appealed this lifting of the lock to the High Priest, who was visiting the training school at the time. The High Priest, however, upheld Prosper's lifting. I was therefore forced to charge Prosper with having broken his discipline and thereby the God's Law.

Prosper's reaction was consternation, followed by an attempt to make light of the matter, followed by anger. At last, I am glad to report, he came to realize the truth of the charge made against him and to acknowledge that he had placed himself under the God's curse. For this reason, I recommended that Prosper be sentenced to exile rather than burning. It is my hope that he may thereby drive away the demons within him rather than undergo purification through fire.

I should add that Prosper has expressed the desire that, if he is unable to release himself from the demons' hold, he be burned at the end of the year of exile. In that way, whether or not purification of his spirit is thereby accomplished, he may at least spare those around him from the evils that his demon-filled spirit would cause.

I am sure that what I have told you does nothing to lessen your anxiety about having Prosper sent to your tribe. Indeed, I would be a dishonest witness if I did not add that, in all my years as a confessor, Prosper's is the worst case I have encountered. I have served as confessor to murderers, rapists, atheists, oath-breakers, and other demon-filled people, and though many sought to justify what they did, all were at least aware that they had broken the God's Law. By contrast, until last night, Prosper was convinced that he was one of the most God-loving men in the Northern Peninsula. He has yet to fully name the demons that have bound him: vainglory, arrogance, self-focus, greed, envy, cowardice, and above all, his native demon of judgment which makes it impossible for him to face the full magnitude of the cruel deeds that he has carried out.

By the time you read this letter, matters may have shifted somewhat, for Prosper is still stunned by what he has lost. Only gradually will he come to understand that the curse was not placed upon him by the High Priest last night; rather, he cursed himself many years ago, when he allowed the demons to do their evil work through him.

For a man such as Prosper, who has held the second-ranked title in the spiritual realm of the Northern Peninsula, such a realization is all too likely to lead him to despair and perhaps even to the crime of self-slaying, unless he is given reason to hope for the future.

And that is why I have sent him to you. It seems best to me that he should be cared for by someone who knew him when he was young, and I believe that returning to his native tribe may help him to recover the godly qualities he held as a child – for I do not believe that the High Priest would have named Prosper as City Priest if Prosper had not been a young man gifted with a love of the God.

Obviously, since Prosper has been exiled from the territory that is under my care, I cannot take official notice of where he goes or with whom he has contact during his year in exile, so please do not mistake this letter as a command. It is a request only, based on the debt that you and I, and every priest who passed through the City Priest's training school, owe to Prosper.

I have arranged to have Prosper sent back to your territory by escort; since he bears the mark of the God-cursed, the danger to his life during these first days of exile remains acute. You know better than I do whether your tribe's chieftain is likely to welcome Prosper into his territory. I can only hope that, if the chieftain is inclined to drive him out of the territory, you will intervene on Prosper's behalf. It is always sorrowful when a God-cursed man dies unpurified, and especially so when that man has been a priest.

I am grateful for the time you have taken to read this letter. I hope that all lies well with you and your tribe.

In the names of the unnameable God,

Martin

Formerly Sanctuarian of the government house in the Capital Territory, under the care of the City Priest; now City Priest, under the care of the High Priest

o—o—o

The chieftain lifted his gaze from the scroll he had been reading. He was a short man, slight in build, which made the many battle scars upon his body all the more remarkable. He paused a moment to look around at the men and youths gathered in a cluster to stare at the man who had walked into their camp that afternoon.

"This man," said the chieftain, raising his voice to be heard even by the women and younger children listening from a safe distance, "was a play-companion to my father. My father often told me stories of their days together."

Prosper, covered with dust from the travel and sweating under the early spring sun, felt his body sag with relief. He had remembered clearly the previous chieftain, but he had not known whether the chieftain's son, who had never met him, would acknowledge his link to the tribe. Prosper had once been so eager to rid himself of tribal ties that he had left his home without his father's permission. Now those ties seemed all-important; they were the only protection left to him.

Having been recognized by his tribe, Prosper felt a smile begin to form upon his lips. Behind him, he could hear the sound of water slapping against the crude bridge he had crossed a short while before. The water seemed like a protective wall, defending him from the danger that lay outside.

The chieftain glanced down at the scroll again. When he raised his eyes, they were cold. "My father never liked him, and he never trusted him," he said in the same clear voice. "I am not at all surprised that the High Priest has placed him under the God's curse."

Prosper felt the words like a blow. He sensed at once the change in mood in the surrounding men and youths: the shifting of spear from left hand to right, the movement of hand to hilt, the tensing of muscles in preparation.

The rush of swiftly moving water continued. The border was only a few spear throws behind him. On the point of being seized by the demon once more, Prosper reminded himself that fleeing was the worst possible action he could take. He was thirty years older than the chieftain and many of his men; he could not hope to outrace them. Nor did safety lie on the other side of the border. The tribe there had seen his curse-mark as he rode past their camp.

When that had happened, he had been surrounded by soldiers who were under orders to protect him. But those soldiers had departed, ridding themselves of him as quickly as their orders permitted. Now he was amongst different soldiers, who might be given different orders.

Prosper felt sweat trickle down his chest, under the temporal man's tunic that still seemed so unfamiliar to him. He remembered in time that prayer would avail him little. He tried to still his mind into silence, but failed.

The chieftain, still cold in gaze, addressed Prosper directly for the first time. "Remain here," he instructed tersely, then turned and disappeared into the crowd of men behind him.

Several of the men and youths turned their heads to watch their chieftain leave, but otherwise the crowd did not move. A blue-eyed boy, still young enough to be among the children, peered out at him from behind a stone pillar; a gangling youth, seemingly just past his coming-of-age rite at sixteen, stared with unshielded horror at Prosper; a senior warrior, nearly as old as Prosper himself, checked in a matter-of-course manner to see that his spear-head was properly bound for battle; and a honey-colored man, with the dark eyes sometimes found in Prosper's native tribe, drew his sword and stroked it lovingly, like a priest caressing a quill before beginning the hard work of copying a manuscript.

Prosper, watching the hand fondle the sword-flat, with the blade's killing edge turned toward him, found himself doing battle with no less than three demon-fears.

The first demon had appeared to him three days before, at the moment when he realized, like a pupil having overslept his lesson, that he had committed the grave crime of breaking the discipline placed upon him by his confessor – not for the first time, but for the second. This demon was bewilderment; after three days of searching the depths of his spirit, Prosper still could not imagine how he had made so simple an error, like a boy neglecting a vowel change in his study of the God's Language.

The second demon had appeared at the moment of the cursing, when Prosper had grasped for the first time – as he had not fully grasped even when the robe of his priesthood was stripped from him – that he was now exiled from the God's presence. Exiled, and marked forever as one of the God's enemies. Even when he was returned to the priesthood – for Martin would surely permit this after Prosper's year of exile – the mark of his cursing would always remain on his forehead, a sign to all who met him that he had undergone this period of shame. Shame was not a demon, but despair was, and he had felt despair touch him lightly, like a feather.

And now the worst demon arose, which had begun to show itself during the past day, but which Prosper had been able to thrust away until now. He had never truly believed that it would happen, though he himself had sent scores of men into exile and therefore knew how many had died during the first few weeks after their cursing. To die by fire – yes, Prosper had prepared himself to accept such a death, should it become necessary. But to die unpurified, to remain forever exiled from the God's presence . . . The demon of fear was tugging at him now, urging him to run from the beweaponed men before him.

Whether Prosper would have heeded the demon's temptation he never knew, for at that moment the crowd parted, and a portly older man strode up to Prosper and enfolded him in his plump embrace.

"Prosper!" he cried, his voice ringing out over the camp. The crowd shifted again as the tribal folk exchanged looks.

"Huard." His voice unsteady, Prosper sought to free himself from the priest's embrace. "I am under the God's curse—"

"Yes, I know," said the priest with matter-of-fact cheerfulness, as though they were discussing which meat to serve at a quarter-day. "I am saddened that our meeting should come on such an occasion, but by the God! it is good to see you again after all these years. Come; you must be tired from your journey."

Prosper hesitated, looking over at the chieftain, who had been contemplating the reunion with a sour expression. The chieftain spat on the ground and said, "You are welcome in this territory," in a voice that held no welcome. Then the chieftain turned away to join the other men, who were now in murmured conversation with each other.

Prosper had no opportunity to learn what they were saying, for Huard had taken him by the arm and was pulling him as rapidly away as any priest could hope to move in his ground-length robe. "Just over this way," said the priest. "I have a hut of my own here – had you heard?"

Prosper had not. His last meeting with Huard had been when the priest completed his training at Prosper's newly opened training school, thirty years before. Nor had Prosper maintained any ties with his native tribe; looking about, he saw that much had changed in the camp since he had last been there. In his boyhood, Prosper had lived in the long hall that served as living quarters for all of the families of the tribe. Now the camp was dotted with dozens of separate living quarters, in addition to a newer long hall that lay at the edge of the camp, next to the rapidly running river where Huard's predecessor had once warned the tribal boys not to swim, lest they be drowned by the rapid current.

Near the river was an unmistakable windowless hall. The door of this hut was painted with a black mask; Prosper found himself dragging back upon Huard's grip. The priest did not take him into the sanctuary, however. Instead he pulled Prosper round to the far end of the hut and swung open there the wicker door that already lay half open.

Prosper hesitated – some sanctuaries had doors leading directly into the altar area, where Prosper could assuredly not enter without his priesthood. To his relief, he found instead that the sanctuary was backed by the priest's living quarters.

They were spacious quarters, Prosper saw: a chamber with a trestle table and chairs, followed by a chamber with a low sitting table and two beds, one presumably for any sick men whom Huard might need to heal. Prosper frowned, wondering with disapproval whether this unpriestly spaciousness of quarters had been Huard's idea. This thought was cut short, however, by a scent arising from a pot hung over the central hearth. Liquid simmered in the pot, sending up smells that tickled at Prosper's nose, though he frowned again as he recognized one of the scents.

Huard, following his gaze, said, "You caught me at my mid-afternoon meal, I fear. Have you eaten yet?" Then, looking more sharply at Prosper, he asked, "When did you eat last?"

It took a moment for Prosper to cast his mind back. "Three days ago, before my trial."

"Sacred Mystery!" Huard seemed as horrified as Prosper would have been had he found a priest-pupil reading a manuscript with dirtied hands. "By all the names, Prosper, fasting is good discipline— Don't laugh; I know you never thought to hear such words from me. But fasting during travel comes perilously close to committing the crime of self-slaying."

"I was not thinking clearly on the day I left," Prosper explained, "and so I neglected to arrange for a food packet."

"And your escort did not share their food with you?" Huard's voice was thoughtful. "Yes, I see. Well, sit you down. I think I can promise you that starvation is not a likely death for you during your stay here."

He gave a quick smile as he guided Prosper to the table. The priest had evidently just sat down to his meal, for the contents of the cup and plate and bowl were all untouched: the golden wine of wall-vine grapes, a slice of flat-bread, and a stew of spring lamb and herbs.

Only the bread was familiar fare to Prosper. He stared at the meal with distaste as he seated himself at the table. "The brightest purification of all is not fire, but a willing sacrifice." He had tried to teach that to his pupils, but so many, like Huard, had failed to heed the lesson. He found himself wondering briefly whether his exile counted as a sacrifice to the God, but he knew that it did not: he had been given no choice as to whether to be cursed. Still, at least he had the wisdom to understand that sacrifice might sometimes be necessary. He was beginning to wonder whether Huard had listened to any of his lessons.

Beside him, Huard said cheerfully, "Yes, I'm afraid that I still disagree with you about the degree of austerity required in a priest's diet. You will be glad to know, however, that I have not eaten a sugar ball in over thirty years."

There was a note of mischief in his voice as he spoke. Prosper looked up sharply at the priest's twinkling eyes and forced himself to remember that he was no longer in a position of spiritual supervision. He looked down at the meal once more. Wine and meat. Even at the quarter-days, when such indulgences were permitted to priests, Prosper had never allowed himself these luxuries, preferring to take the harder, priestly road of sacrifice.

"I am no longer a priest," he heard himself say.

"Then you need feel no guilt about eating a temporal man's meal." Huard's hand rested briefly upon Prosper's shoulder before the priest turned back toward the stew.

Prosper forced himself to taste the wine. It seemed too rich after the water he had drunk for forty-four years. "But I will return to the priesthood in a year's time, I hope," he said. "Surely it would be better for me to maintain a priest's discipline—"

He stopped abruptly; he had seen on the table the letter from Martin, still bound closed by the ribbon. He put down the cup. "Huard, you ought to read that letter before you welcome me into your home—"

"Oh, I can guess what it contains," Huard said briskly, returning to the table with a second plate and cup and bowl in hand. "You've been disciplining someone too hard, have you? You know, I do recall telling you at our last meeting that the day would come when you would realize that starving a boy for a week's time because you discovered him chewing a sugar ball is not the best way to impress upon him the nature of the Mercy of all mercies."

Frowning as he watched Huard bite into a piece of the tender lamb, Prosper said, "The discipline seems not to have worked in your case."

"You think not?" said Huard placidly. "Well, I'm sure that many of your priest-pupils must have turned out as disappointments to you. Tell me, do you remember Guiscard? He was a year younger than me, and I always wondered whether he was able to overcome that temptation to mischief, of which you tried so hard to break him. Have you heard from him since he took his vows?"

The conversation took a turn for the normal after that: an old tutor passing on news to his former pupil. Prosper began to feel the knots in his stomach unwind for the first time in three days. Sitting in the sunlight cast slantwise from the doorway, he almost began to feel his usual self. Huard, apparently intent on devoting his attention to sopping up every last bit of broth from his bowl, said little except to ask questions. Prosper, casting a look of disapproval at Huard's unpriestly chubbiness, took care to avoid the meat in his stew and did not touch the wine again.

The river ran unending outside, droning like a bee. Prosper heard his own voice droning on, as it did late in the day when he must complete quickly a lesson.

". . . . was much disappointed to hear the latest news concerning Radegund. I know that many of my former pupils do not share my belief that fire is the only way to purify a man or woman of twistedness, but I would hope that any priest worth his name would at least sentence the offender to exile. Yet I hear that, within the last year, Radegund was brought two men who had been found in the very act of lying in twisted lust with each other, and Radegund actually refused to bring charges against the men, instead committing them to discipline. The news was a great disappointment for me, as I had high hopes for Radegund. He was most careful in his translations of the ancient tongue."

Huard, pushing back his bowl and plate, apparently felt his mind freed for higher matters than food, for he said, "What a sad tale you tell, Prosper. It seems that few of your pupils have lived up to the standards you set for them. And to top it all, here you sit with a priest who is as fond of food as he was when he was your pupil."

"But you have become a good priest." Warmed by the sun, Prosper felt cheered enough to pass on this praise.

"How kind of you to say so." Huard was staring down at the bottom of his cup, evidently disappointed that no more wine lay there.

Prosper felt suddenly angered. He did not pass out compliments lightly, as his former pupil ought to remember. "The evidence is all around me in this chamber: the prayer-lights that were burning when we entered here, the polish on that shelf for the sacred objects, the neatness of your quarters . . . Though in terms of prayer, you have been neglectful, Huard. You ought to have started your preparations for the evening service by now."

"Oh, I gave those up years ago," said Huard in an easy manner. "I find that my spirit draws closer to the God if I instead spend an hour in silence after the service."

Prosper felt as much shock rend him as if a pupil had admitted tearing up his prepared lesson. He narrowed his eyes at Huard and said, "Prayer and silence are both necessary, Huard. If you have been neglecting your prayers, I would urge you to mention this to your confessor at your next meeting, so that he can purify you. Otherwise, you will answer to the High Judge above all judges when you meet him at your death."

Huard, like a pupil daydreaming during his lesson, seemed not to hear. Getting up, he collected his own empty bowl and plate and cup, asking, "Will you have more, Prosper?"

"Thank you, but no."

"Are you sure? There is plenty more stew left."

Prosper was in fact still hungry after his long fast, but he was irritated by Huard's blatant attempt to use his guest as an excuse to break his own discipline. "No," said Prosper, shoving back the bowl angrily to show what he thought of Huard's diet.

The remaining stew spilled on the table, narrowly missing the ribboned scroll. Huard said nothing, but took Prosper's eating pottery away. Prosper did not bother to hide his sigh. Truly, the life of a teacher was one of disappointments. Even a promising pupil like Huard would prove, when put to the test, to be unable to uphold the hard discipline placed upon him long ago. And Huard had been promising, for all of his indulgence of the demon of gluttony. Prosper found himself thanking the God that he had been committed into divine service at an early age, at a time when it was easy to develop discipline in his own life.

He raised his hand to touch the God-mask brooch pinned above his heart, before remembering that it had been removed from him at the time of his stripping of priesthood. Suddenly sobered by thoughts of his present troubles, Prosper watched as Huard, returning to the table, used the meat-knife to cut the ribbon binding the scroll. The priest glanced briefly at the opening words of the letter, then said, "We need more light here," and disappeared into the back chamber.

Prosper resisted the impulse to follow him. The priest returned in a very short time, too short in which to have read the long letter that was now fully unrolled in his hands. He was holding, not a lamp, but a prayer-light, which he placed with the other lights dancing on the shelf for sacred objects. Huard handed the letter to Prosper and said, "My eyes grow worse as the years pile on. Please to do me the favor of reading this aloud to me."

He did so as Huard carefully returned the disused wine from Prosper's cup into an overly large wine casket nearby. Prosper's voice slowed as he read from the letter. By the time he reached the listing of his demons, he was finding it unexpectedly hard to speak. When he lifted his gaze finally from Martin's words, he saw that Huard was sitting in the corner of the chamber upon some cushions, in the traditional manner of the tribe. At Huard's gesture, Prosper joined him there.

The priest asked, "Is what Martin writes true?"

Prosper discovered that his throat was clogged; he had to clear it before he could speak. "If you had asked me a week ago, I would have been hard pressed to understand how Martin could say such things of me."

"And now?"

"I would say that he has been more merciful to me than I deserve." Prosper stared down blankly at the letter, which he still held in his hand. The words had blurred, and he could see only the neat, beautiful hand of the City Priest. "He does not tell you that, at the time of the prisoner's trial, Martin made seven attempts to seek private audience with me, in order to warn me, under the lock of confession, that I was breaking my discipline. Nor does he tell you that, toward the end of my trial, I accused him of giving false witness."

"A remarkable statement, if Martin's reputation is true." Huard's voice was quiet.

"It is true." Prosper could feel a weight beginning to press upon his chest again. He took a deep breath. "Martin and I have disagreed on many matters since he became a priest. I have felt that he was far too indulgent with those under his care, sentencing them to discipline where cursing would have been appropriate. But one fact was shiningly clear from the moment he first walked through the doors of my training school: he is a person of absolute honesty. When I spoke the words that I did against him . . . When I saw the shock on the faces of the people attending the trial and saw the look of pity on Martin's face . . . It was then that I knew that his charge against me was true, and that I had allowed myself to be captured by demons. But truly, Huard, I do not remember the moment when I permitted the demons entrance; nor do I know best how I should go about ridding myself of them."

"Can you name your demons?"

Prosper stared harder at the letter. "Martin tries to."

"'Tries'? You do not believe that he succeeds?"

Prosper struggled with the answer, as a man struggles against the current of a stream. "Some of these demons I recognize – they have briefly tempted me over the years, and in the few cases where I have given in to the temptation, I have confessed my crime before the God, in the witness of my confessor. But other demons . . ." He pointed to one word in the letter. "Here Martin says that my native demon is judgment, and that I do not understand what I have done. Certainly it was proved at my trial that I had engaged in harsh and hasty judgment in two cases over the years, and I regret my crimes bitterly. But Martin's phrasing seems to suggest that I ought not to have made any judgment at all, and that is absurd. I am— I was the City Priest, and it was my duty to stand in judgment over those under my care."

Huard said nothing for a moment. He had picked up a feather from the ground as they spoke and was now using a meat-knife to sharpen the quill into a pen, to the exact same angle Prosper had once taught him. Prosper found the sight oddly comforting. His comfort vanished, though, as Huard asked, without looking up, "When our chieftain refused to welcome you initially – what was in your mind?"

Prosper tried to cast his mind back, and found that he was gripping his hands together in concentration. "Shock. I could not believe that he would turn upon me in such a manner, when I was of his tribe. Fear. I have been afflicted by the demon of fear for the past three days." He hesitated, then added honestly, "Anger. It seemed to me that he was acting in a manner ill-befitting his title, and that his behavior was likely to bring him punishment from the Mercy of all mercies."

Huard nodded, set the finished quill-pen carefully aside, and raised his gaze so that it was level with Prosper's. "And what thought did you give to our chieftain's pain?"

It was a blow as great as the chieftain had given him. For a moment Prosper could do nothing but try to catch his breath as he felt his body grow cold. "Oh, the God," he said in a strained voice. "Have I turned from the Mercy that far?"

"I fear so." Huard leaned back against the wall, his gaze remaining upon Prosper. "'If a man is struck – whether the man be spiritual or temporal – he must devote no thought to his own pain but only to the pain of the man who has struck him.' That was one of the wisest pieces of advice you ever gave to me and my fellow pupils, yet even as a boy I suspected that you were better at advising in this matter than at following your own advice. You will recall that your words say nothing about passing judgment over the man who has struck you."

"But I am spiritual— That is, I was a spiritual man, a priest. It was my duty—"

"Your duty." Huard's expression did not change, but his voice became suddenly harder than before. "Shall we discuss your duty to the God this afternoon, and how you have fulfilled it? You come here, with the blood of your exile mark still fresh, bearing a letter from the City Priest requesting that I offer you advice on discipline – and you must know how rarely it is that such a request is granted to a God-cursed man. Tell me again what you think of my decision to eat meat and wine today."

Caught off-guard, Prosper said, "It does not seem to me to be in the tradition of priestly discipline that I taught you."

"Tell me again what you think of my number of prayer-lights."

"You have a goodly number of lights, but—" He stopped.

"Go on. Tell me."

"Perhaps I should not have—"

"Tell me. I wish you to hear your own words."

The commands continued remorselessly for several minutes as Huard forced Prosper to repeat the words he had spoken that afternoon. Within the first few replies, Prosper could feel moisture trickling down his spine. By the end, his back was sticky with sweat.

When he had finished, Huard said, in the same hard voice, "When you arrived here, you told me immediately that you were cursed, and you asked me to read Martin's letter before welcoming you – that much is to your credit. Other than that, however, I have seen none of the marks of duty due from a God-cursed man to the man who may or may not consent to act as priest to him. Instead, your behavior has been wholly that of a tutor holding judgment over his pupil: you said nothing about your crimes until I prompted you, but you have passed judgment upon me for my dietary discipline, the setting of my house, my worship discipline, and my conduct as a priest. Nor have you confined your judgments to me: you have passed judgment upon our chieftain, upon Martin, and upon the priests who were once entrusted to your care – all of them men who are welcome to the God's presence. You, a man bearing the curse-mark of the God's enemy, make these judgments. You, who have been found unworthy to wear the robe of priesthood."

Huard's voice, as adamantine as iron, was so far now from the hesitant pleading he had engaged in as a boy that Prosper felt his mind whirling in an eddy of bewilderment. Clutching at the first thought that drifted his way, he said, "You are right that I should not, in my present spiritual state, pass judgment upon you, but—"

"Sacred Mystery, Prosper, have you closed your ears entirely to the God's voice? Then hear words that you may remember better: 'A pupil may ask questions, but he must neither condemn nor praise his tutor, for either act presumes that he is in the position of judge.' Or have you come to disbelieve your own teachings?"

Prosper struggled to breathe. He cast down his eyes for a moment before saying, "I have a question."

"Ask." Huard's voice had passed beyond hardness to coldness.

"You speak of what I am now, since the demons entered me, but what of the time when I was City Priest, before the demons took hold of me? Surely at that time it was my duty to pass judgment—"

"And do you truly believe, Prosper, that the God gave you the honor of having spiritual care over his people so that you could spend all your waking days worrying over whether your priest-pupils were eating too many sugar balls, or whether the men and women who took you as confessor had neglected some small crime, so that you could drag them into the God's court and have the triumph of showing how superior you were to them in your spiritual state?" Huard leaned forward. His eyes were as cold now as dark pebbles in a winter stream. "How long has it been, Prosper, since you gave thought to any other living creature, except to judge him? How long has it been since you were silent long enough to listen to the God's voice, whether it came from the sacred flame or from the men and women of whom you are so scornful?"

Prosper could not answer; he could not even raise his gaze above his hands, now white as they clenched each other. Above him, Huard continued remorselessly, "Vainglory in believing that your discipline is superior to all others. Arrogance in spurning the food offered to you by your host. Self-focus in giving no thought to other people's needs but only to what punishment you can place them under. Greed in assuming that the priesthood is your right rather than a gift from the God. Envy that causes you to examine carefully the spiritual states of others so that you can reassure yourself that others are in a more demeaned state than your own. Cowardice in refusing to acknowledge that these demons did not enter you recently or briefly, but have been within you for most of your life. Above all, an evil judgment that has prevented you from listening when Martin, as your confessor, no doubt said words to you very like the words I am giving you now. . . . Have I named your demons, Prosper?"

"No." Prosper's voice was breathless and broken. "I must have dozens more demons. The God help me, I did not know."

He covered his face and wept.

After a time, he felt Huard's hand upon his shoulder; after a time more, Prosper lifted his wet face to look up at the priest, who was standing beside him. Though the late afternoon light made the priest's face glow, Prosper's vision was darkened by tears. Prosper whispered, "Can I be saved?"

"Certainly." Huard's voice was reassuringly matter-of-fact. "You know your catechism, Prosper. 'Any man who requests aid of the Mercy of all mercies shall receive it.' Your battle against the demons will not be an easy one, though. I would hate to tell you what sort of disciplines you would have placed me under if, during my four years as a priest-pupil, I had committed half as many crimes against the God as you have managed to commit in the space of two hours."

"I require hard discipline." Prosper had dropped his gaze to the ground and was struggling to keep his breath even. "I see that now – my spirit is in dire peril. . . . Huard, I have no right to ask this of you, but will you help me?"

As he spoke, he shifted himself into the position he now realized he should have fallen into from the moment he passed Huard's threshold: that of a God-cursed man kneeling in petition before a priest who, by the God's Law, was under no obligation to help him – could indeed hand him over to a murderous crowd if he considered it appropriate. Prosper felt again the edge of fear pricking at his skin, and he was staring now with dark wonder upon the words he had spoken in this chamber. Sacred Mystery, he could have died of starvation had not the priest shown mercy upon him, yet he had openly scorned the food of his host. He felt a sickness enter into him.

"Certainly," Huard replied, in as straightforward a manner as before. He eased Prosper back into a sitting position and squatted down beside him. "I am restricted in the help I can give by the God's Law, though. You know the rules on exile, Prosper: I cannot offer you the comfort of the God's presence during your year of exile, neither to hear your confession in the God's name, nor to purify you, nor to allow you to give participation in the worship services. I can offer you advice on discipline should you ask, but I cannot punish you if you break your discipline, nor can I even draw your attention to the fact that you have broken your discipline, unless you ask for further advice from me. Are you willing to listen to my advice under such conditions?"

"Huard, I am a hand's breath from the eternal fire that cannot be quenched." Prosper's voice was hoarse. "If you told me to eat a bag of sugar balls, I would follow your advice."

"You anticipate me." The smile in Huard's tone caused Prosper to lift his eyes, but the priest's expression was serious as he said, "Two disciplines, then, I advise upon you. The first is that you must put aside all thoughts of your priesthood during this exile. Whatever you may be in a year's time, for now you are a temporal man and must engage in behavior appropriate to a temporal man."

"I see," said Prosper slowly. "Eating sugar balls."

"They are a symbol only." The smile had made its way onto Huard's face. "You must eat as a temporal man does, dress as he does, and above all act as he does. You know the catechism, Prosper: one of the greatest crimes a temporal man can commit is to pass judgment upon the spiritual state of his fellow living spirits. If you suspect that someone's spirit is in danger of being demon-infected, then it is your duty to report the matter to me, but otherwise you must in no way try to judge whether anyone you meet is a dutiful servant of the God. Your duty instead is to seek out ways in which you can be of assistance to others, ways that do not require you to judge other people's spiritual states."

"That is good ad—" Prosper caught himself in time and said, in a low voice, "I thank you for giving me this advice, Huard. I will follow the discipline as you have suggested. And the other advice?"

"Concerns your worship discipline. Had you given any thought to that?"

Prosper nodded. "Most of my ponderings on the way here were devoted to that. I thought it best if I adhere more strictly than before to the times of prayer, devoting most of my waking hours to prayer and self-examination—"

He broke off; the priest was shaking his head. Rising to his feet, Huard began using his moistened thumb and forefinger to silence the prayer-lights about the chamber. "Think again, Prosper," he said, as though the man before him were a dull-minded pupil. "How did your demons enter, and what discipline is appropriate to close that path of entrance?"

Prosper shut his eyes, as though preparing himself to pronounce a particularly difficult word in the ancient tongue. He said finally, "My thoughts have been centered too much upon myself. If I engage in long periods of self-examination, my demon of self-focus will take advantage of this fact to pull my thoughts further from other people onto myself."

"Indeed." Huard's voice came through the darkness disembodied, as though he were the God. "Self-examination is one danger; prayer is another. Prosper, the easiest way to allow the demons victory over you is for you to pray to the God."

Prosper's eyes flew open. "But—" He stopped, stilled not by any understanding, but by a warning look from the priest.

While Prosper's eyes had been closed, Huard had changed into the formal robe of the evening service. The robe's gold edging glittered in the last shimmer of the day's light and in the glow of the single prayer-light that remained lit. The priest now held in his hand the purification lamp, unlit. Prosper, staring at it, felt a word welling up within him.

The priest nodded as though Prosper had spoken the word, though of course the word was reserved for use by priests. "I am sorry to say this, Prosper, but I fear that you have been neglecting the discipline of silence. You have all the signs of a man who has talked and talked and talked, whether to his fellow spirits or to the God, and has done no listening for many years. That, more than anything, explains your condition. The demons abhor silence, and they love a mind filled with speech and thoughts and even prayer, provided that the prayer is not balanced by moments of silence when the petitioner awaits the God's response.

"And so the second discipline I place upon you – a harder discipline – is that you do not pray during the coming year. You should speak as little as possible, confine your thoughts to the duties I placed upon you a while ago, and engage in the silence as many times a day as you were planning to talk to the God."

Prosper forced himself to wait before answering. He found himself straining his spirit to do so, like a priest who has forgotten long-ago lessons in the changing vowels of the ancient tongue. He held back until his spirit was beginning to shake from the strain; then he looked up at Huard. In the diffident voice of a pupil to his tutor, he asked, "If I do this, do you believe that I have the strength to drive out my demons so that I can re-enter the God's presence and return to the priesthood?"

Huard was a long time returning his answer. His gaze was upon the shadows on the floor, as though he were judging the moment at which he must enter the sanctuary. Finally he looked up and said, "Do you remember the shortest sentence in the catechism?"

Prosper nodded slowly. "'Trust the God.'"

Huard's hand touched his shoulder briefly, and then the priest was gone, leaving Prosper to the silence of the coming evening.

CHAPTER TWO

"Mystery."

The sacred word, whispered in the ancient tongue, carried to the far reaches of the sanctuary. In the dark, the only sound to be heard was the clinking of the chain of the priest's lamp as the purifying light from it touched the faces of the kneeling worshippers, along with the crackle of the sacred flame burning behind the man-sized God-mask hanging behind Huard. The priest himself, outlined between the God-mask and the darkness of the sanctuary, could barely be seen. His whisper and the lamp were the only evidence that the God's representative stood in this chamber.

Prosper, hidden in a black corner where the purifying light could not reach him, tried to bring his mind to silence. After three months, he still felt uneasy at these services. Partly this was because Huard practiced the modern custom of mixing the sexes at services. Partly, though, it was because he could not rid himself of the feeling that he was breaking the God's Law by being here.

"But I am forbidden to attend services!" he had cried in the early days, when he was still struggling to adopt the discipline of phrasing his protests as questions and requests.

Huard did not admonish him – could not admonish him, by the God's Law – but said only, "In our days together in the training school, I was never able to accept your desire to read more into the God's Law than is found in the text itself. The law on exile says that a God-cursed man may not be purified or give participation at worship. I take this to mean that you cannot recite the names or the prayers. But the first part of the service, the silence, is different. I believe that you would benefit from sharing silence with the other tribal folk."

A good notion, Prosper thought to himself – momentarily slipping in his discipline against passing judgment on Huard – but it would have been easier for him to keep the silence if he had not been attending services with women and children. He let his eyes open momentarily to identify where the distracting noise was coming from. It was not hard to guess, for it came from the same direction every time: in the rows nearest the altar area, where the children knelt.

Today, the front row was filled with four boys wearing identical tunics, clearly of the same family. Prosper – standing rather than kneeling, for this was the only way for him to keep outside of the purifying light – could see the children quite clearly: two boys just above weaning age, a third boy slightly older, and a catechism-aged boy.

The youngest boys, quite naturally, were fidgetting the most during the silence, turning to look at the people behind them and exchanging nudges. The third was better disciplined: he was still, with his head bowed, clearly attempting to silence his spirit in hope that the God would speak to him.

The fourth boy was different. For a start, he had a more dishevelled appearance than even the youngest boys: his tunic was rumpled and crooked, and his hair was uncombed. From long experience of teaching boys this age, Prosper judged him to be of fifteen years, yet the boy looked far from ready for his coming-of-age. The boy sighed heavily at periodic intervals, scuffed his toes against the stone floor, and swung his arms to and fro, jostling his quieter brother.

Prosper saw a stirring in the second row, where some of the women knelt. A fine-boned woman leaned forward and whispered in the boy's ear. He bit his lip and nodded, ceasing to swing his arms or scuff his toes, but even this admonishment could not prevent him from sighing again as the silence progressed.

Prosper knew how he felt. Closing his eyes, he tried again to still the thoughts that scurried about in his mind like restless boy-pupils. At the front of the sanctuary, the sacred flame continued to whisper forth its secrets, almost hidden by the dark mask that represented the God's unknowability. Only a glimpse of the fire upon the altar could be seen through the eye-holes in the mask.

The sacred flame. It had always been the most comforting object in Prosper's life, serving as it did as a visible image of the God, and also as a reminder of that which remained hidden behind the mask of the God's unknowability. To the God's beloved folk, the flame would one day bring light and warmth; to his enemies, the flame would be a fire that could never be quenched.

The flame was one thing more than that, and increasingly Prosper found his thoughts dwelling on that other use of the sacred flame as the months of his exile continued.

When he had expressed a desire to be burned at the end of his exile if the demons were not exorcised, Prosper had intended the statement as no more than a formal gesture of regret. He had not doubted at that time that he would be able to rid himself of his demons. Now, after three months in which he had made little progress, his breath caught tight within him whenever the flame was lit.

More times than he could count, he had watched as men or women were chained to the stone pillar that was erected in every tribal territory for this purpose. Most of the God-cursed were there for twistedness; some were there for other grave crimes against the God, such as atheism or oath-breaking. Some had been placed there for lesser crimes, when discipline had failed to work: crimes such as murder, abuse of power, or impure love.

Always, when Prosper was present, he had been the one to light the torch from the sacred flame and to come forward to set ablaze the wood beneath the God-cursed person's feet. He never delegated the duty; he considered it too sacred an act. This was the priests' final mercy: their last attempt to save the God-cursed from the terrible fate of entering into the God's light when their spiritual condition was so grave that such light could only be an eternal fire for them.

The purification by fire sometimes worked. On a few joyous occasions during his priesthood, Prosper had heard the dying man or woman cry out words which made clear that the brief but intense pain had brought such repentance to the God-cursed that the demons were forced to flee. When that happened – if the God's Law were to be trusted, as surely it was – the God lifted his curse in the last moments of life and welcomed the man or woman into the light that would now bring eternal comfort to the godly spirit.

Prosper was beginning to suspect, though, that even the men and women who were successfully purified through fire might have had a different perspective than their priest on the sacred act they were undergoing.

Staring at the flame, Prosper became aware that his shirt had become covered with sweat and was now clinging to his body. Hastily, he closed his eyes and tried to still his mind. If Prosper could only hear the voice that the flame represented . . .

"Mercy of all mercies, High Judge above all judges, Commander beyond all commanders, Father within all fathers—" Huard's whisper, breaking into the silence, jarred Prosper like a shout. Sighing inwardly, he opened his eyes and then, as quietly as possible, he slipped through the side door. Behind him, the tribal folk began to recite the many names of the Unknowable God, which he was forbidden to speak.

Usually he tried to continue his discipline of silence for the remaining time before the evening meal, but tonight he was too weary and downcast to do so. Instead, rather than let his mind dwell on the discouragements of the day, he busied himself with the tasks that he had volunteered to do as Huard's temporal guest: cleaning ashes out of the central hearth and placing new wood there, scrubbing the cooking pot in the nearby river under the summer moonlight, checking the bedsheets to see whether they needed to be put out for washing the next day. By the time he was through, he could hear the tribal folk emerging from the sanctuary door. As always, Huard lingered in the sanctuary, cleaning behind the altar area and upholding his own discipline of silence.

It was mid-evening by the time he returned. Prosper, who was tenderly carrying an armful of manuscripts to the shelves where they belonged, was careful to say nothing as Huard entered, both because his own discipline demanded it, and because Huard usually preferred to maintain his silence after his return home.

The priest, though, was in one of his chatting moods tonight. "Three confessions from boys," he announced cheerfully. "They always keep me overly long. Oh, to be a boy again and to treat with such seriousness the terrible crime of scuffing one's toes."

The corner of Prosper's mouth turned up; he could guess who had given that confession. "I was wishing tonight that I was a boy also."

"Ah." Huard, pulling off his robe of worship, paused to give one of his opaque looks at Prosper. "Tonight's silence was difficult?"

"As difficult as it has been for the past three months," Prosper said, his voice tight. "I seem doomed to live out all the warnings I gave to you and my other pupils. 'Be sure to practice the ancient tongue daily, for what is learned with ease as a child will be hard to relearn in old age if you forget it.' Do you remember when I said that to you?"

"Quite clearly," said Huard in the ancient tongue, pronouncing his q in the exact manner that he had been taught. "So the language of silence is as hard to relearn?"

"After thirty-five years of talking non-stop? The God, Huard – I don't know how to describe it. Such a simple discipline, I thought, and not one that I need worry about overly much. And so, when the silence came, I either kept my mind on the tutors and pupils who assisted at the service, judging whether they were behaving properly, or else, on the occasions when I was the purifier, I kept my mind on the worshippers, judging whether they were all properly attentive. It did not occur to me that I would become incapable of listening myself."

"Ah, well," said the priest. "It will come back as time passes. You are becoming more attentive in listening to others."

Prosper shook his head. "That is hard enough – to pay as much attention to a person's words as I would if it were a difficult passage in the ancient tongue – but this is far worse. No words have come to me yet, only emptiness. The God who reads all hearts knows that I do not deserve to be spoken to, but still—" He looked over to where Huard was adding new oil to the prayer-light that had remained lit since his arrival. The sight of the candle stilled the demon of fear that was beginning to take hold of Prosper. He said more quietly, "Do you have any advice to offer me on this?"

Huard, putting aside the oil ewer, considered the matter for a moment before saying, "The river may help."

"The river? . . . Oh, the God, yes! I had forgotten that image – I haven't used it since my earliest years of tutoring. I'm not even sure I remember it in full."

"Silence is a river," Huard said promptly. "A river at night, black and fearful, carrying unknown dangers. You must not linger on the shore, nor must you try to swim – that will only carry you back to the shore. Instead, you must fling yourself into the water, and trust the God to take you to where his light is. There you may hear his voice."

"A good im—" He caught himself in time and said, "Thank you; that image is helpful to me. I will know next time to let the river carry me rather than try to swim into the silence through my own efforts."

Nodding contentedly, Huard picked up the globular silver vessel in which the sacred flame had burned and began polishing it in a carefully methodical manner that Prosper had begun to know well. Prosper cocked his ear, and after a moment, carried on the hush of a breeze, he began to hear the noise that Huard had heard: the low hum of the tribal folk gathering for the evening meal.

"Supper is beginning," said Prosper, knowing that in this small matter he could be of assistance to Huard. "Let's join the others."

"It is early yet," said Huard, who did not look up from the purifying lamp. The priest's stomach gave a growl of protest at these words.

"Yes, but I am eager to mix with the others tonight," said Prosper, not meaning the words, but knowing that it was the easiest way to make Huard join him at the feast.

Huard put down the silver lamp with a smile. From the look in his eyes, Prosper knew that he understood the motive of Prosper's words.

Thirty-four years before, Prosper had experienced one of the greatest shocks of his life when he had entered the only private place in his training school – the altar area which no one but vowed priests were permitted to enter – to find huddled under the altar a small, plump boy eating a bag of sugar balls that a soft-hearted woman from the nearby tribe had given him.

Temporal men had burned for less. Prosper had considered himself exceedingly merciful for sentencing the boy only to a week's fast. Not until three months ago, though, had Prosper begun to remember – had allowed himself to remember – what place food held in the hunting tribe in which both he and Huard had been raised.

First came mid-morning meals, when the tribal folk travelled sociably from hut to hut, sampling each other's foods. These were followed by mid-afternoon meals, in which the various groups within the tribe – the mothers, the hunters, the soldiers, the children – gathered separately and discussed, at great length, their favorite meals from the past. Next were the early evening snacks, usually taking place immediately after the service, in which children, in particular, exchanged bags of sweets and engaged in long bargaining over whether two sugar balls equalled one honey cake. And finally, climaxing the day, a three-hour feast between mid-evening and midnight, in which the day's hunting was roasted upon spits, and the delicate dishes that the women had spent most of the day preparing were poured out onto platters for all to admire.

In the midst of the tribe of the Feasters, Huard – inclined by bodily temperament and upbringing to love rich foods and sweets – practiced an austerity that stunned his fellow tribal folk. Every day, he merrily attended the important social events of the day: the mid-morning guesting, the mid-afternoon bonding, the early evening trading, and the late evening feast. He walked amidst wine caskets and sizzling mountain cats and high peaks of sugar balls, admiring them all and contributing his own anecdotes about which foods tasted best.

He ate almost nothing.

Sweets had not passed into his mouth since the day when he reacted to Prosper's stern lecture about the demon of gluttony with tears of repentance. Meat and wine, the staple foods of the tribe, he almost never ate. Beans and vegetables and fruits, which formed the central portion of priests' diet, were not part of the tribe's traditional diet, and Huard had made no suggestion that such foods be added to the tribe. Instead, he existed almost entirely on a small amount of water, a small amount of cheese, and bread imported from the neighboring crop-growing tribe, which was almost always stale and hard by the time it reached the border.

The tribal women – clearly convinced that their portly priest was about to expire from starvation – would periodically leave offerings of meat and wine at Huard's doorstep. Whenever possible, Huard would quietly dispose of these gifts to needy families within the tribe. In cases where such imparting would create hurt feelings, Huard did not spurn the gift but instead invited temporal guests to his home. He would urge these guests to eat helping after helping of the meat and wine, while he himself ate the bare minimum required of a polite host.

After six weeks of watching Huard's dietary habits – which the priest never discussed – Prosper had awakened one morning to the realization that he had been placed under the care of a man who was as gifted in bodily and spiritual discipline as Prosper himself was gifted in tutoring. After that, Prosper had found that his discipline of humility toward the priest was considerably easier.

o—o—o

The smell of roasting deer caused Prosper's stomach to gurgle as he and Huard walked toward the open area where the communal meals were held. Torches stood on poles at the head and foot of each of the trestle tables holding the food, but the torches were barely needed on this moonlit night. Even before he entered the clearing, Prosper could see the piles of pies filled with badger meat, the sticks piercing various types of bird-meat, the trays offering a choice of golden or ruddy wines, and bowls filled with boiled pastries covered with white sugar, a delicacy that Prosper had discovered was the most pleasant aspect of his dietary discipline.

Huard, following his usual custom of ignoring the food until one of the tribal folk dragged him bodily to the serving tables, wandered off to greet some of the hunters and to allow them to describe, in mouth-watering detail, the succulent choices of the night. Prosper carefully wove his way through the tangle of tribal folk sitting on the ground or, in the case of older men and women, on tree stumps. He was trying to still the demon of panic arising within him.

The three-hour feasts had become a time of daily torture for Prosper. Here, as nowhere else, he was forced to accept the truth of what his place was in the tribe. For the moment, he tried to pretend to himself that the other people there were too absorbed in conversation to notice him.

He paused before one of the torches, considering the spectacle before him. It had not taken him many meals here to realize that the demon of gluttony did not trouble him, and that his austere eating habits over the decades had been of no spiritual benefit to him – indeed, had been of benefit to the demons, since his vainglory over his eating habits had increased every time he encountered priests whose bodily temperaments required them to struggle to achieve the discipline that Prosper achieved with ease.

With his indifference to food, Prosper was learning that his real struggle was to concentrate his mind on each day's offerings so that he looked like an ordinary temporal man.

He considered the problem with a focussed spirit, as he would if asked to translate a particularly difficult passage. Only the ill took less than five dishes at his tribe's evening feast; the question was how to fill himself slowly with food so that he had enough room left at the end for the sugar balls and other sweets. He decided finally to begin with the soup: that was usually more broth than meat, and he could dip into it the hard flat-bread that his priestly discipline no longer demanded, but for which he had acquired a peculiar nostalgia.

He picked up one of the glazed bowls and walked over to the simmering cooking pot. The ladle was too hot to touch directly. Pulling a rag from his belt that he kept there for such purposes, he wound the cloth round his hand and began to raise the soup into his bowl.

A jarring blow at his elbow caused him to drop the ladle. He gave an involuntary cry as the burning liquid splashed onto his skin. Turning his head, he saw, without surprise, one of the tribal youths who enjoyed playing this sort of game with him. The youth had his arm wrapped over a friend's shoulder, and both the young men were laughing heartily.

With effort, Prosper turned his thoughts toward fishing the ladle out of the soup into which it had fallen. For several weeks now, he had suspected the youth and his friend of being twisted, for they spent far too much time with each other and far too little time with the other young men. On one terrible night, Prosper had been tortured by temptations to tell Huard of this serious spiritual matter. By morning, though, he was able to chase away the demon of judgment and see the matter clearly. Huard was far too skilled a priest not to know the signs of twistedness. If the youth and his friend had not been formally cursed, it was either because Huard had placed the youths under discipline or because he believed that the demons would leave of their own accord in due time. Or because, quite possibly, Prosper had read the evidence incorrectly. In any case, the matter was a spiritual one, and Prosper would be placing his own spirit in peril if he allowed himself to dwell on it.

The youths were gone and Prosper's hand was scalded by the time he managed to pull out the ladle. Wiping the ladle carefully clean with his rag, he completed the task of filling his bowl. And then, alas, he was faced with his usual daily nightmare: of figuring out which group to join.

The hunters, Prosper had found, simply ignored his presence. Prosper could comfort himself with the knowledge that hunters behaved like that toward everyone; they considered their work to be inferior only to the work of priests, and perhaps not even that. Prosper remembered this well, for his father had been a hunter. His father's pride had demanded that, if his son were determined to be a priest, he should become one in as honorable a fashion as possible, taking his instruction from the High Priest himself. Still, that had been the end of any communication between Prosper and his hunting family.

With bits of hunting lore still trickling through his memory, Prosper had recently attempted to join the hunters on one of their trails, carrying their extra spears as a boy does. The hunters had made no move to stop him, but neither had they acknowledged his presence, and one flung spear – thrown where Prosper would have been if he had not ducked in time – had made clear to the exiled man that his services were not wanted.

The soldiers had been much the same. Normally the most affable of men, always eager to discuss their trade with outsiders, they had taken to unsheathing and polishing their blades on the occasions when Prosper stopped by to ask whether he could be of any assistance in fetching water and doing other small tasks while they practiced their wrestling and swordplay. Prosper, whose training school had been located next to a military yard and who knew what soldiers could do when their tempers were roused, was finding it increasingly difficult to call up the courage to approach that group of men.

The craftsmen were more forthright in their response to his offers of help: Prosper still had a cut on the cheek where a shard of pottery had grazed him. Even the frail and ill of the camp were accustomed to shouting invectives at him when he tried to assist them through his priestly knowledge of healing.

Prosper's greatest hope had then dwelt with the children, for he did not think it was vainglory to acknowledge that the God had given him a gift for being able to communicate with the young, especially with the catechism-aged boys whom he had taught for so many years. Children were also less likely to have acquired the deep fear that their elders felt toward the God-cursed. Having run these thoughts through his mind, Prosper had decided that he would be doing the children's parents a service if he helped to keep the children occupied with tales or other light amusements.

A mother screaming in hysteria at the sight of Prosper talking to her young daughter had put an end to this idea. From that moment forward, all of the mothers had kept a careful lookout for him, and children scattered in fear at the sight of him. When Huard began to receive requests from the tribal folk that Prosper be expelled from the territory, Prosper abandoned further attempts to contact the tribal children. It surprised him how much this forced sacrifice cut into him.

Looking over the crowd, he caught sight of Huard, who was cheerfully talking with the chieftain Iolo while dipping his bread into his water to soften it sufficiently to chew. The two men were just a hand's breath away from a badger sizzling over a spit. Prosper felt no desire to join them; Iolo's spear had been the one that had nearly impaled him.

A roar of laughter turned his attention toward a group of young men near the wine caskets. From their gestures, Prosper gathered that his tormenters were spreading the story of the ladle. Prosper sighed, then straightened his spine. Looking at the group, he found it hard to believe that the youths felt shock or fear or dismay as a result of his presence. Nevertheless, it was all too likely that he had harmed at least some of the young men by returning to the tribe. Clearly, his duty lay in visiting the group and seeing whether he could mend matters in any way.

He wove his way round the tribal folk who were seated on the ground. As he approached the young men, the group grew suddenly silent. Several of the youths clutched their spears tighter, and one reached for his dagger. Prosper, feeling the smile beginning to stiffen on his face, asked, "Might I join you?"

There was a pause. The original youth and his friend exchanged some sort of silent message involving raised eyebrows and nods; then the youth silently gestured toward the empty space beside him.

Prosper's smile grew more genuine. He stepped forward – and immediately fell over the spear shaft that the youth's friend had thrust between his feet.

He managed to fall on his hands and knees rather than his face, but his bowl crashed to the ground underneath him, spattering the stew onto his chest and thighs. A few drops landed on the young man with the dagger, who began to curse Prosper roundly with a lengthy description – pulled from the catechism, which he had apparently memorized well – of what happens to the God-cursed after death. Shouts of laughter all but engulfed his words.

Prosper closed his eyes, feeling the demon of anger rushing through his blood. He deserved this, he reminded himself. He deserved much more than this.

During his years as a priest, Prosper had always been reluctant to sentence anyone to exile. He considered such a sentence to be no mercy; everyone knew that more God-cursed men died in exile than survived. Most were slain during the first few days after their expulsion, when their fresh curse-mark made it clear to all who met them that they had recently entered exile. Even after the curse-mark healed, the exiled man or woman would generally wander from territory to territory, living off of the countryside and never staying in any place long, lest the scar left by the curse-mark be noticed and someone should question too closely when the mark had been incised.

Winter was the worst test for the exile. Every spring, during the thaw, hunters and field-hands happened across the frozen bodies of curse-marked men and women who had not survived the snows. Their unpurified corpses, even more than the burnings, helped to keep the Northern Peninsula's people from straying from the God's path.

Prosper did not have the skills to live off of the countryside; if it had not been for the mercy of Martin and Huard, he would have died very quickly during his exile. Even the taunting youths, Prosper reminded himself as he rose to his feet amidst the laughter, granted him mercy by permitting him, however grudgingly, to live amidst them during this year.

With this thought in mind, Prosper managed to make a moderately sincere apology to the dagger owner. Though it took a moment's struggle with his anger demon, he even offered an apology to the spear-owner when the youth demanded one. This provoked another shout of laughter. Prosper departed as quickly as possible, clutching the empty stew bowl.

He was forced to make his way back through the rest of the tribe, enduring the glances of amusement or scorn at his dripping figure. Passing the table, he saw that several bowls of stew lay upon it, but these had ferns placed over their rims, the tribal manner of indicating that the owner had placed the bowl down temporarily and would be returning to reclaim it.

The cooking pot was considerably less full than it had been before. Prosper began to wonder whether he would be able to eat anything at all before the feast ended. Deciding that he needed stronger sustenance than the stew in his refilled bowl, he began to walk toward the wine caskets.

A woman refilling one of the platters with a basket full of sweet-buns blocked his path. She was the woman he had seen earlier at the service, Prosper noted as he came closer, while he mentally counted his heartbeats up to five. He was barely aware that he did so; it was an old discipline, taught to him when he had been a priest-pupil under the High Priest, to prevent him from allowing his idle gaze to linger too long on any woman, lest lustful desires arise. None ever had, but the discipline was so ingrained in him by now that not even his new discipline as a temporal man could make him fully aware of the counting.

The woman, alas, noticed his glance at the fourth heartbeat. He was on the point of passing behind her, and she jerked around, startled. The basket in her hand fell, causing the sweet-buns to roll to the ground.

Prosper felt joy surge through him. Here, at least, he had a clear excuse to be of assistance to another living spirit. Quickly placing his bowl aside and covering the rim with a fern, he rushed over to where the woman was trying to gather some sweet-buns that had rolled away.

"Allow me to assist you," said Prosper, kneeling down beside her.

The woman rose rapidly to her feet and said breathlessly, "Please, there's no need—"

"It is a pleasure," said Prosper, trying to sound as cheerful as Huard as he reached over for a sweet-bun that was nudging the woman's foot. "I'm used to picking objects off the ground; I was quite clumsy as a boy. Once I dropped a purification lamp during the middle of service, and the worshippers were so frightened that they—"

He stopped. It is difficult to speak when a blade-tip is pressed against your throat.

Prosper was on his haunches, leaning forward; he resisted the impulse to jerk back and cry out to Huard for help. The priest could not help him in this. Though none of the tribal folk had yet dared to displease their priest by killing Prosper, it remained their right under the God's Law to do so. Feeling very much like an ant that has a boot-heel hovering over it, Prosper raised his eyes.

Above him, standing a foot ahead of the woman, was the honey-skinned soldier whom Prosper faintly remembered seeing on his first day's return to the territory. The man's battle-scarred hand was holding the sword hilt with a looseness that betokened experience. His dark eyes were as cold as the Black River. Prosper, feeling sweat begin to trickle between his throat and the blade, resisted the impulse to swallow.

The dark-eyed soldier said, in a voice as low as distant thunder, "Stay away from my wife, demon-man."

Prosper felt the rumble of his own distant thunder; he quickly closed his eyes. He must not think of his own pain, he remembered as he tried to chase back the demons of anger and fear. He must think of the pain of others. He opened his eyes again. Behind the man, the woman was clutching at her basket; the lines of her face were drawn taut. He had frightened her, Prosper realized. The man had every reason to be angry.

"I apologize for my ill behavior, madam," he said, trying not to move his throat overly much as he spoke. "I ought not to have come upon you so abruptly. I hope that you and your husband will accept my—"

He closed his mouth. Blood trickled down his throat from where the blade had pressed in. The dark-eyed soldier said, in a voice more rumbling than before, "One word more, and you die."

Prosper closed his eyes again and wondered whether his discipline permitted him a prayer to the God at a juncture like this. He suspected that such a prayer would receive no answer.

Then, with a swiftness akin to that of the God, Huard appeared at the side of the woman. Ignoring Prosper and the soldier as though they were not there, he said to the woman, "Is it true what I've heard, Charity, that you cooked today's sugar balls? I cannot tell you how many compliments I have heard on them! Is the secret in the honey, or do you perhaps boil the pastries for a minute longer than is usual—"

The soldier, seemingly unwilling to shed blood in a priest's presence, silently withdrew his blade from Prosper's windpipe and carefully wiped off the small amount of blood at the tip before sheathing his sword. Prosper, who was beginning to shake, waited until the soldier had joined the debate as to whether bumblebee honey or flower-bee honey was best used on sugar balls; then he arose and shakily returned to the table.

Given the events of the meal so far, he was almost surprised to find the bowl just as he had left it, rather than overturned in the dirt. He put the fern aside and then, feeling that he could not make it as far as the wine without bodily renewal, lifted the bowl to his lips.

His mouth stopped at the rim of the bowl. He had filled the bowl halfway, but now it was brimming over the rim. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward to sniff the stew.

A short time later he knelt in the wet grass of the riverbank, watching under moonlight as the urine-soaked stew disappeared into the black waters. Pain was washing over him in unending waves.

It had been like this every night for three months. He told himself that the torment he was enduring was small in comparison to the destruction he had inflicted upon those under his priestly care for the past forty-four years, but he seemed unable to clear his spirit tonight, as he had succeeded on all previous nights. He reached down to wash the bowl, feeling the chill water tug at his hand.

It took a great deal of courage for him to return to the cooking pot for a fourth bowl. He managed it only by remembering an old discipline, not used since priest-pupil days, of watching his footsteps and thinking of nothing except the next step he was going to take. Thus he was in front of the cooking pot and already reaching out with his bowl before he noticed the boy crouched behind the enormous pot.

The boy was hidden in shadow from the moonlight and the torches. Prosper was only able to see the outline of his upturned face from the glowing embers beneath the cooking pot. The boy whispered, "Don't tell him I'm here."

Prosper frowned, saying, "Don't tell who?" Then, too late, he recognized who the boy was.

He turned his head swiftly. Marching toward the pot, his sword unsheathed, was the dark-eyed soldier. Prosper's hand shook, and the bowl fell irretrievably into the pot. The soldier had threatened to kill him if Prosper spoke to his wife. What would the soldier do when he discovered this God-cursed man talking to his eldest son? Prosper began to think that the High Priest had not been so merciful when he declined to send Prosper to the fire of purification.

Fortunately, Prosper was not forced to decide whether his temporal duties required him to report the boy's location. Sighting Prosper next to the pot, the soldier frowned and veered his path away, in the direction of the military yard. "Orel!" the man shouted. "Orel, where are you?"

The boy, peering round the side of the pot, waited until the soldier had disappeared behind the hut that served as an armory before he rose to his feet. Seen in torchlight, he proved to be honey-colored like his father, with blue eyes like his mother. Wine juice was drying in the corner of his grimy face, and his hair remained as dishevelled as it had been during the service. He emitted a long sigh.

Amused, Prosper fought to retain his stern expression. "Your punishment won't be any lighter if you delay it, you know," he warned the boy.

"Oh, I haven't done anything wrong, truly," said the boy Orel. "It's just that Father wants me to show off the dagger skills I learned at the yard today."

"And you don't care for weapon-play?" Prosper felt immediate empathy. He could remember avoiding hunting lessons with his own father.

Orel seemed surprised by the question. "Of course I like it. I'm going to be a soldier, like Father is." Then, seeing Prosper's brow crease with puzzlement, he explained, "It's just that I don't like to do soldiering all the time. I want to talk to Huard so that I can ask him questions about the God's Law."

"Well," said Prosper, looking over the boy again and deciding that his original estimate of Orel's age had been correct, "you could ask Huard about that at your next catechism lesson."

Orel shook his head. "Huard lets all of us boys learn at our own pace, and I learned the catechism twice as quickly as the other boys did. I asked my father if I could continue taking lessons in the God's Language, because I enjoyed learning that."

"And he said no." It was a struggle at this point for Prosper to keep judgment of the father's actions out of his voice, but he succeeded.

"He said that if I wanted to become a priest, he'd be glad to send me to your training school, but that a temporal boy doesn't need any more scribe-learning than is necessary to master the catechism."

Prosper wrestled to hold several emotions in check, the foremost of which was the one raised by the realization that this boy knew who he was. Turning his attention to the demon of judgment, he waited until he had battled it back to a sufficient distance before saying, in a carefully neutral voice, "That may be true of most temporal boys, but I have known some who benefitted from further instruction. When I was young, a chieftain's son came to stay at the training school for a year. He had planned to become a priest, but he soon realized that his true vocation was to take up the work of his father. Even so, he often told me in later years that his year at the training school was the most valuable of his life, partly because of the discipline he learned while studying the ancient tongue."

"Discipline?" said Orel, as though this were a word foreign to him.

"Yes, because the ancient form of the God's Language is considerably more difficult than the modern form. The spelling, grammar, and especially the pronunciation make it a great challenge to any pupil. The purpose of studying the ancient tongue, you see, is not to be able to read ancient manuscripts, though that is a side benefit. The main benefit is to discipline the mind, which in turn leads to discipline of spirit."

The boy looked as delighted as though Prosper had just offered him a bag full of sugar balls. "Do you think that Huard would teach me the ancient tongue if I asked?"

"Perhaps." Prosper had been trying to make up his mind about several matters, the main question being whether he was likely to live to the dawn if the dark-eyed soldier discovered that a God-cursed man had been talking to his son. Then it occurred to him that this risk might be part of his new discipline. He said firmly, "I have more time to spare than Huard does. I would be glad to teach you the ancient tongue. With your father's permission," he added as the boy's face lit up.

Orel's expression fell. After a moment he said, "My father has often said that I need more discipline."

"I can imagine," replied Prosper dryly, letting his gaze run over the boy's crumpled clothes. "Your leisure time is in the early evening, I take it? Then, if your father gives you permission to attend lessons with me, come to Huard's hut after tomorrow's evening service, and we will begin. Arrive punctually," he added, with as much sternness as he could manage with his suddenly buoyant spirit.

Orel, biting his lip as though his smile might spread too far if he failed to catch it back, began to dart away. Then he turned back suddenly, his gaze lowering to take in Prosper's stew-strewn clothing. After a moment, he reached out his hand and said hesitantly, "I have an extra sugar ball if you want it."

The sugar ball in Orel's hand was mashed, sticky, and grimy with dirt. Prosper took it from him with the same wonder and gratitude that he would have reserved for an offering of the sacred flame.

CHAPTER THREE

The following evening found Prosper kneeling by the bank of the river, contemplating the swift current.

The Black River, the tribal folk called it; it was named for the black rocks in the riverbed. On a day like this, when the river sparkled with sunshine, it was hard to think of it as black. The sun was still well above the horizon; the year was near midsummer, and dusk would not come until around the time of the evening meal.

He had forgotten to try the image of the river during the evening service, he realized. His thoughts had been wholly upon the boy scuffing his toes in the front row of the sanctuary. Prosper had been trying to read into the boy's movements knowledge of his new pupil. Only halfway through the silence did the demon of fear attack him, and now he was struggling to keep it at bay. The father would impress upon Orel what sort of man his prospective tutor was. Yet surely if the boy came, there could be no question of him turning from Prosper in horror.

He wondered why the prospect of these lessons had come to mean so much to him. It was easy enough to guess the answer, and he tried to focus his mind on ways to hide his eagerness from the boy. A pupil must never know whether his teacher enjoyed the teaching or hated it; a teacher's pleasure or pain was of no importance.

It came to Prosper that if he had been thinking in this manner upon his arrival at the camp, it would never have occurred to him to dwell upon his own pain at the chieftain's rejection. It was a new thought. He put the revelation aside in his mind to discuss it with Huard when he next asked the priest's advice on matters of discipline.

A soft step rustled through the grass nearby. Prosper rose and turned to see Orel standing next to Huard's doorway, looking hesitant. "It's all right," the boy said, before Prosper could ask. "I can take lessons from you."

Prosper tried to ignore the rush of relief that surged through him. Orel appeared more shy than before; there seemed no doubt he had received instructions from his father on what dangers might arise from a God-cursed man. Given the father's sentiments, the boy was probably now convinced that he was about to be murdered or ravished.

"You understand that I am under the curse?" Prosper said, trying to keep his voice level.

Orel nodded. "I saw you arrive, the first day. And my mother told me to stay away from you."

Prosper frowned. "Are you in the habit of disregarding your mother's warnings?"

Orel looked down at the grass and began scuffing it with his toes. "Not usually. But a priest's orders come first, don't they? Huard taught us in catechism class that we should help those in need, even if we think they're the God's enemies. And if you teach me, you'll be doing a service to the God, won't you? And that will help drive the demons from you."

Prosper reflected that Orel had learned his catechism well. "Very well," he said, trying to keep the joy out of his voice. "Since your father has overruled your mother, I'll overlook your initial disobedience to her. Come over here."

Orel did so promptly, which was a good sign. Prosper, watching Orel's slouched posture as he walked, waited until Orel was standing beside him before he took the boy by the shoulders and said, "Stand up straight."

Orel did so, looking up at Prosper with puzzlement. Prosper ran his hand through the boy's tousled hair. "Your hair is not combed," he observed.

"No," said Orel, looking even more puzzled at this elementary observation.

"Tomorrow, when you arrive for lessons, I expect your hair to be combed, your clothes to be neat, your shoes to be dust-free, your fingernails to be trimmed, and your face to be some color other than that disgusting grime-grey. Have a sugar ball."

As he spoke, he stooped and retrieved from the riverbank the bag of sugar balls that he had saved from the previous night's meal. He had already decided that, since he was taking the boy away from the time that he would normally spend playing with other boys, it would be too great a sacrifice to require him to give up the evenings' sweet-sharing as well. Besides, Prosper had relearned by now the proper tribal manner by which to bind oneself to another person.

The boy began to speak, then thought the better of it and was silent as he and Prosper made their way through the balls in the bag. Only once the bag was folded and put aside did Orel ask, "How does combing my hair help me to learn the ancient tongue?"

"It is part of the discipline I am teaching you. If you are careless in matters concerning the body, you will become careless in matters concerning the mind. Why do you think it is that Huard is always so neat in his appearance? He did not look that way when he first arrived at my school, I can assure you."

Orel considered this fact as he licked the sugar from his fingers; his face was caked with the white crystals. Prosper resisted an impulse to wipe the boy's mouth for him. Instead he said, "Now clean your hands and face, please."

Orel stooped obediently and dipped his hands so briefly into the river that Prosper sighed and crouched down on the grassy bank beside him. "Wash them thoroughly," he said. "You will be touching valuable manuscripts." He doused his own hands in the water as demonstration.

Orel, watching him, said, "Nobody can be so dirty that they need that much washing."

"The washing is not merely for the body but for the mind as well," Prosper told him. "Huard will no doubt have taught you the prayers to say before memorizing passages of the God's Law. Even manuscripts that deal with temporal matters require that sort of cleansing of the mind."

Orel looked skeptical. Touching the boy's face to remind him of the dirt there, Prosper said, "Before Huard begins any service, he spends several minutes purifying himself, so that both his body and his spirit will be clean when he enters the sanctuary. The first time he entered the altar area, he had to undergo a day and night of full-body purification. The purification helped to still his spirit, so that he was ready to accept any message the God might send him when he was lighting the sacred flame. It is the same with those of us who are temporal: we must take a few minutes before beginning language lessons to still our minds, so that we can enter fully into what we are taught. As you grow older, you may find your own method for stilling your mind. Washing is the one I use."

"Oh." Orel looked down at the water, leaping and tugging at the riverside plants, then plunged his head suddenly into the water. He emerged as wet as a fish, shaking his hair so that droplets spattered onto Prosper.

Prosper fought to hold back his laughter. "I did not mean for you to wash yourself that thoroughly."

Orel looked at him with surprise. "But you said that, the first time, Huard purified his whole body. I'd wash all of myself, but Huard said not to bathe here; the current is too strong. . . . Why are you smiling?"

"Because Huard's predecessor gave me the same teaching when I was a boy. In fact, he gave a thundering lecture to me when he found me trying to venture into the water when I was six. He told me how my body would be pulled away from the tribal territory and end up buried under a rock, so that I would die unpurified by a priest. It was quite an effective lecture; I was terrified to go near the river for weeks after that."

"Huard wasn't that frightening. But in the catechism class, he did have us memorize the passage in the law against self-slaying, about how willful recklessness leading to death can be considered self-slaying. He didn't say anything about the river, but we were sitting on the riverbank that day, and he kept tossing branches into the water and watching them be sucked under by the current."

Prosper reflected, not for the first time, that Huard's indirect methods of instilling discipline could be quite as effective as his own. He was tempted to hand Orel over to Huard for his language lessons. But the truth was – and Prosper again hoped that he was not engaging in vainglory in believing this – that none of the priests who had taught at Prosper's school over the years had ever been able to match him in his ability to impress upon boys the difficult spellings and vowel changes and grammatical forms and nightmarish pronunciations of the ancient tongue. True, the language was not an end in itself, but learning it properly was.

The sunlight's slant had deepened, sending bright rays into Prosper's eyes. He winced, then helped Orel to his feet and led the way to Huard's hut. As they reached the doorway, Orel hesitated. He looked up at his teacher and said, "This is like when Huard goes behind the God-mask and lights the sacred flame, isn't it?"

"It is."

Orel made an attempt to press down the tangle of wet hair at the back of his head, then looked up again at Prosper. "Tomorrow I'll make sure my hair is combed," he said.

Prosper did laugh then. Smoothing the boy's hair down with his hand, he guided him into the hut and into the back chamber, where the scrolls lay open, awaiting teacher and pupil.

o—o—o

During his years at the training school, Prosper had sometimes visited the nearby military yard to watch the soldiers there do mock battle. He had no intrinsic interest in the skills of warfare, but as City Priest he had sometimes been asked by the priest who had care over the soldiers to intervene in important disciplinary cases. Over the years, Prosper had found that he could learn much about the spiritual state of temporal men and women by observing them at their work. Now, shoving aside all temptation to ascertain the spiritual state of the boys doing mock battle before him, Prosper set out to discern what could be told of the states of their minds.

Dust scattered into the morning light as men and boys practiced their fighting skills in the small military yard of the Feasters. The two youngest boys of Orel's family were wrestling in a corner with each other, like mountain cubs at play. Orel's father had disappeared into the nearby armory with the tribe's smith, who had once flung a horseshoe at Prosper. Prosper barely noticed the father's departure, however. His gaze was upon a battle taking place near the tribe's stone pillar.

The younger of the boys in the battle was of about age ten, two years short of his catechism lessons. He had already learned enough of the God's Language to be able to participate in the recital of names, for Prosper had heard him begin his recital during the brief interval that it took each day for Prosper to slide his way carefully out the side door of the sanctuary. The boy's pronunciation of the names was atrocious, but Prosper guessed, as he watched the battle, that this was due to a lack of gift for languages rather than due to a lack of concentration, for the younger boy was now so intent on his work that he squinted his eyes and flared his nostrils.

The older boy was a different matter. His stance and position of blade were sloppy – even Prosper, uneducated in warfare, could tell as much. The older boy had a tendency to become distracted from the battle, though his occasional moments of clarity showed that he was by far the more skilled of the two boys in swordplay. The end result was that the younger boy was besting the older in two battles out of three. Prosper frowned.

At that moment, the older boy caught sight of him and lost all interest in what he was doing. If the younger boy had not been as alert as he was, his blade would have cut into the older boy's arm. The older boy, quite unaware of this, turned his head and said something briefly to the younger boy. Clearly relieved to be rid of so lackadaisical an opponent, the younger boy turned away in search of a fresh partner.

Now free of his younger brother, Orel came running forward, not bothering to sheathe his sword. As he reached Prosper, he asked breathlessly, "Did you wish to speak with me?"

"Not especially. I am sorry to see that your lessons with me have been wasted."

The shock on the boy's face was so sharp that Prosper's newly disciplined spirit immediately sent out a cry of warning. Quickly Prosper reached forward and laid a reassuring hand on Orel's shoulder.

"I spoke with undue harshness," he said. "What I meant to say was that I wish you would put to use the training I have been giving you in discipline. You were not focussing your full mind on your work there."

The boy was clearly startled at this criticism. After a moment, though, his face cleared and he boasted, "I was remembering the verb forms you had me memorize."

"That won't do," replied Prosper, letting his hand fall. "If you're thinking of language lessons during swordplay, you'll soon be thinking of swordplay lessons during your time at language. Whatever you do – be it scribe-learning or battle preparation or a mundane task such as fetching water for the soldiers – you must give your whole mind to the task. Otherwise, your ill discipline in one aspect of life will affect your discipline in other aspects."

"Oh." Orel's face brightened. "It's like combing my hair."

Prosper nearly sent up a prayer to the God in thankfulness for being given such a bright pupil. He stopped himself in time, though, from breaking his discipline of worship. "Exactly so. Now seek out your brother again and see whether you can give as much concentration to your task as he was."

"All right." But Orel did not seem inclined to move. He scuffed his toes on the ground for a moment before catching himself. Prosper, watching him dip his head shyly, was pleased to note that Orel was indeed keeping his hair combed and his appearance neat, even when at energetic battle work. Prosper had to resist an impulse to reach out and smooth down a bit of hair that had flown free as Orel ran toward him.

Orel said, without looking up, "I was wondering . . . When you leave the service this evening, at the recital of names, could I come with you? I've finished my vocabulary memorization – not only the ones you asked me to memorize, but the rest of the words as well. I can recite all of the ancient words now."

"Not all of them," said Prosper. "There remains one word which neither you nor I are permitted to speak. You may hear it at the worship service, if you give your full attention to it."

Orel looked up then. Prosper was pleased to see that the boy seemed properly abashed. Placing his hand once more on Orel's shoulder, Prosper said gently, "No, you may not neglect your worship discipline in favor of your lessons, but I will look forward to hearing your recital tonight. —See, your father is searching for you."

Orel looked over his shoulder at the same moment that his father, emerging from the armory, caught sight of the boy. The father frowned and took a step forward, only to be distracted at that moment by his two youngest sons, who came tumbling over and clung to his legs, like puppies seeking to be petted. Orel, seeing that he had been granted a moment's reprieve, looked back at Prosper and said quickly, "When you become a priest again, may I come to one of your services and listen to you say the sacred word?"

"Perhaps," Prosper replied non-committally. "Go now; your father looks as though he wishes to slice me open with his blade for interrupting your swordplay."

He spoke lightly, but the words were no exaggeration. Prosper was becoming alarmed by the look that Orel's father was giving him as the soldier sought to free himself from the embrace of his affectionate sons. Orel turned and ran to his father. As he did so, the father spoke sharply to him, in words that were lost amidst the tumult of the military yard, but which clearly chastened the boy.

Prosper decided that it would be politic to remove himself at this point, and he swiftly stepped behind the stone pillar. After a moment, however, he could not resist the impulse to look back at the military yard to see how matters were going between father and son. He found that the man and boy were now on the point of doing sword-battle against each other. Orel's eyes were narrow with concentration, and his sword was in the proper position for preparation.

Prosper felt something brush his arm. He turned to see that Huard was also watching the military yard. The priest, Prosper decided, must have had a particularly difficult struggle to keep discipline during the mid-morning meal-hostings, for he was sipping at a cup of water, as he was wont to do at moments of greatest stress.

Huard said nothing about this, though, remarking only, "A few years ago, I asked Iolo to teach me swordplay. I thought that the exercise would keep my body slender and that it would be good for me to know inwardly some of the duties of temporal men."

"Were you an apt pupil?" Prosper asked.

Huard smiled. "After the first lesson, Iolo told me that some men were meant to be temporal and some men were meant to be spiritual, and that I should stick with the discipline that suited my spirit best."

Prosper laughed. He found it easy to do so these days; the lesson time with Orel had lifted his spirits to a degree that he could not have imagined earlier in the summer. Turning his gaze back to the military yard where the man and boy were continuing to clash swords against each other, Prosper said, "There was a time when I would have thrown scorn upon you for spending your energy in temporal activities, but the truth is, Huard, it now seems a shame to me that temporal boys such as Orel do not normally receive the benefits of scribe-learning to the extent that priest-pupils do. If I had been aware of this fact in past years, I would have encouraged more temporal boys to spend time at the training school."

Huard shook his head. "I fear that would be like sending a hunting-boy to learn spear-throwing from a soldier. The hunting-boy is likely to learn much about how to kill an enemy on the field, but he will be left with no notion of how to kill a mountain cat. . . . I agree with you about the need to offer more learning to temporal boys, and I am sorry that I do not have the time to give such training myself. I suspect, though, that it is just as well. I think that such a task should be left to a temporal man, who knows from his own experience what aspects of scribe-learning are needful for a temporal life."

"Perhaps Orel will become such a man," Prosper murmured, his gaze still focussed upon the boy. "As for disciplines that suit one's spirit, I find that my present discipline fits me very well. I trust that you agree."

The priest was slow in replying. He took several sips of water before saying, "It was a risk, you know, for me to give you permission to resume teaching."

"Yes, I realize that, and I am grateful," said Prosper, his gaze still upon Orel and his father. "My demon of judgment had centered its destruction upon the priest-pupils whom I taught. I had fears myself that it might gain stronger hold over me when I began teaching Orel. As it is . . . It is hard to describe the difference, Huard. In the old days, if a priest-pupil took half the time that I would in memorizing a vocabulary list, I would say to myself, 'This boy lacks discipline of mind; therefore it is likely that he lacks spiritual discipline.' And I would go searching for flaws in his spiritual state so that I could chastise him for them. I can see quite clearly now how my native demon worked. Yet when Orel was slow this week in memorizing his vocabulary, I thought only to myself, 'This boy lacks discipline of mind. Perhaps it would be best to start him on the verb forms.' And I set aside all concerns as to whether Orel was drawing closer to the God through his work. I didn't even try to compare Orel's progress with my own when I was his age."

"I am glad to hear that," said Huard. "I had hoped that it might be that way for you. Some men who are tempted toward demonic judgment in spiritual matters find it far easier to resist such temptation in temporal matters."

"Oh, I will have to rid myself of my demon of judgment as far as spiritual matters are concerned as well, of course. That is necessary before I reapply for the priesthood." Prosper's mind was only half on what he was saying. He was waiting in suspense as Orel's father turned his sword in such a manner that Prosper was convinced – in one heart-clenching moment – that the boy's sword-arm would be severed. Instead, Orel's father neatly disarmed the boy. Orel, with that look of eager curiosity which Prosper had begun to know well, began to pour out what Prosper guessed were questions about how his father had achieved the disarming.

Beside him, Huard said, "You are certainly focussing a great deal of attention on your lessons with Orel."

"Yes," said Prosper with a smile. Then something about Huard's voice reached him, and he turned to look at the priest. Huard was not looking his way, but he was sipping from his cup as though his life depended on it.

"Huard," Prosper said, "do you have any advice to give me concerning my lessons with Orel?"

The priest lowered his cup. He said, "I remember clearly the speech you once gave to all of us priest-pupils in my time. It was when we were discussing the law on marriage. You said that even a man entering into purified love with his wife must never forget the God. If he did, his lovemaking would become demonic."

Prosper said slowly, "I have a faint memory of that lecture, but I'm not sure how it's applicable here."

"You went on to say that it was even more important for those of us whose work required us to care for a number of people – priests and chieftains and commanders – never to become too absorbed in one person, for dire consequences could result."

"Too much time?" Prosper frowned. "Huard, I only spend two hours of the day with Orel—"

"—and spend much of the remainder of the day preparing for his lessons or wandering over to this yard to watch him at his duties."

Prosper found that he was having to turn aside a prickly desire to become angry. "Huard, you've taught catechism classes; you know how much work it takes to prepare for them. As for unfortunate consequences—"

"'Dire' is the word you used when you taught me. You cited the example of a priest who, spending all of his time taking the confessions of one woman under his care, found himself unable to resist the demon of impure love when it came in temptation. You said that such a man had to be burned. . . . You are shaking your head."

"Not at your advice," Prosper said quickly. "I am simply saddened that other priests have been burdened with temptations that I have been spared. In all my years as priest, I've never been troubled by lustful desires. I suppose I owe that fact to the good fortune of having taken my vows of service to the God at an early age, before desires normally arise. Still," he added thoughtfully, "I see what you are saying: you are concerned that I am spending time with Orel as a way to become intimate with his mother. Huard, I assure you, I've had no contact with either of Orel's parents since the teaching began. Indeed, I have been feeling guilt over that fact. I really ought to have visited them before now, to let them know how their son is progressing."

Huard sighed. He still had not looked Prosper's way. "Prosper, I truly do not know which demon will decide to take advantage of your new duties to attack you in a way that you do not expect. I do remember, though, that you once told me that the surest way to know of a change in a person's spiritual condition is to note any changes in his regular routine."

"Yes?" said Prosper and waited, but the priest did not speak further. After a moment, Prosper realized that, under the God's Law, Huard was not permitted to speak further.

Hearing the first faint fanfare of fear, Prosper put his mind to the task of discerning what warning Huard was giving him. It did not take him long. "I have broken my discipline of silence," he said slowly. "Huard, I am sorry. There were times when, as a priest, I cut back on my worship discipline in order to devote more time to my lessons with my priest-pupils. I should have realized that it would be dangerous to my spirit if I did so during my year of exile. The truth is, though," he added, his mouth taking on a rueful smile, "that it is easier to listen to someone who speaks to you."

Huard did not smile in return. "Do not forget that the God is speaking to you continuously, Prosper, even during your exile; you have simply closed yourself to his voice. You will be able to hear him if you listen carefully."

"Our fellow living spirits are voices for the God as well," Prosper reminded him.

"Certainly, and I have been pleased by how far your discipline has carried you in enabling you to listen carefully to Orel's needs. Do not forget the God's needs, though. Remember the husband and his demonic lovemaking."

Prosper shook his head. "I understand now what you're telling me, Huard. I should never have allowed my discipline of reaching out to Orel in his need to interfere with my worship discipline. I will return to my discipline of silence immediately. As for the time I spend with Orel—"

He stopped abruptly; out of the corner of his eye, he had seen a flash of light, accompanied by a cry. He turned in time to see the sword that Orel's father had been wielding spin to the ground, blown aside by Orel's successful completion of the maneuver that his father had just taught him. For a moment, father and son alike looked stunned. Then Orel gave a whoop of delight and dropped his sword, rushing into his father's awaiting arms.

Huard's voice said, "I am going now to Iolo's hut. He wounded his arm while hunting yesterday. Will you come with me and help me apply the healing herbs?"

"Yes, certainly," said Prosper. He was smiling, watching the boy joyfully embrace his father, and he was thinking that this would mean he must change his lesson plans again. When discipline was rewarded by the acquisition of new skills, that was the right time in which to undertake harder disciplines which might daunt the pupil if introduced at times of discouragement. Tonight, he thought, he would set Orel to the difficult task of beginning to learn the ancient pronunciation, a task that had caused more than one of Prosper's pupils to beg to be released from his training as a priest. Somehow, Prosper doubted that Orel would seek to be released from his temporal lessons. Prosper's smile deepened.

He did not hear the priest leave. Nor did he see Huard's frown.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Again," said Prosper.

He and Orel were seated in the corner of Huard's inner chamber, settled upon seat cushions with the scroll unrolled on a low table before them. It was a position that Prosper would once have thought far too indulgent for proper discipline in scribe-training, but with his newly heightened awareness of what his pupil needed, he had realized that the boy associated seat-cushions with the years he had spent sitting on the ground, watching his father demonstrate proper battle maneuvers. Thus Orel was far more alert while sitting upon cushions than he was when seated at the table.

"I don't understand why it matters whether I pronounce it correctly," complained the boy. "Nobody speaks the ancient tongue any more."

"It matters because, if you are to do a task, you should do it as well as you can, rather than willfully adopt errors. At sword-play, would you teach yourself to disarm an opponent, but neglect to teach yourself to kill him, just because killing him was more difficult?"

"But I can't say it!"

"You can. Try again."

Orel leaned forward over the scroll, his hair touching the soft fuzz beginning to appear on his cheek, which was otherwise as smooth as a maiden's. He bit his lip, which was the color of winter berries, and then said aloud, "'The ancient lands were destroyed by the demons, but the Mercy above all mercies will assist us to destroy our demons before they destroy us. In order to receive the God's assistance, we must kiet our minds—"

"No. Try again."

Orel sighed and leaned back against the wall, his shoulder brushing against his tutor's shoulder. "Sir, it's so late – I'm already missing the evening meal, and Father will wonder why I'm late tonight. He may come looking for me."

"Let him come. I will tell him that he had best give up training you in swordplay, because you do not have the strength to hold a sword when you are weary."

Orel groaned and leaned forward again. "'In order to receive the God's assistance, you must kiet—"

"No. You are not listening. 'Quiet,' not kiet."

"I'm trying!" The boy's voice was strained. "I hear what you say, and I try to say it, but my mouth won't speak the word properly."

"That is because you are trying to speak the word through your own effort. Listen to the meaning of the passage, not just the letters. 'You must quiet your mind and receive the God's training in silence.' Quiet your mind; do not attempt to think about what you are doing. Simply listen to the word I say, and repeat it. Quiet."

"Kiet."

"Quiet."

"Kiet."

"Listen. Quiet."

"K-kwiet."

"Very close. Now try it in the sentence. Do not think; merely still your mind. 'To receive the God's assistance—'"

"'You must kiet your—' Oh, Prosper, I can't do it."

"Very well." Prosper's voice turned cold. "If you cannot do it, then there is no need for me to train you further. We have reached your limits. Leave now."

Orel had been sagging back against the wall, his eyes closed. Now he jerked upright and stared at Prosper with wide eyes. "You can't send me away," he whispered. "I'm making such progress. You said so yourself."

"You are not here to learn a language; you are here to learn discipline. If you have no discipline – if you are unwilling to strain beyond the limits you believe that you have, are unwilling to hold that sword for a minute longer than your body bids you to hold it – then you are of no use on the field of battle against demons. What sort of soldier, when battle-weary and torn with wounds, drops his sword and tells the comrades he was defending, 'I'm too tired. I've missed my supper. I can't do this, so I must leave you to die'?"

The boy's face was white. In the silence that followed, Prosper entered into his own silence, listening, as Huard had trained him to do, for the warning he would receive that he was being too harsh on the boy.

The warning came. Proper slid his arm over the boy's shoulders and said gently, "You are a very fine pupil indeed – I would not press you so hard if I did not believe that you are able to go beyond the limits that most boys would have reached by this time. There is a reason that I am pressing you now, when you are so tired. You must trust me in this matter."

Some of the color returned to Orel's face, and Prosper had a moment to reflect that Huard, quite unintentionally, had given training to his exiled guest which was enabling Prosper to be a better teacher than he had been for many years. Then the boy closed his eyes, let out his breath slowly, and said, with a voice clear and bright, like that of a sword moving in a beautiful arc, "'The ancient lands were destroyed by the demons, but the Mercy above all mercies will assist us to destroy our demons before they destroy us. In order to receive the God's assistance, we must quiet our minds—' Prosper, I did it!" His face alight, Orel flung his arms around his teacher.

Prosper smiled as he enfolded the boy's warm body into his embrace. "It happens that way sometimes, when the body and mind are weary. We have no strength then for any thoughts or fears, and so the God is able to enter into us at such moments and take us beyond what we can normally achieve."

"And that's why you wanted me to stay late. I'm sorry; I should have trusted you." The boy pulled back just enough to lean his head against Prosper's shoulder. Prosper kept his arm around the boy as he smiled in the dim light of the autumn evening. He had often thought that men not trained as priests, who received their chief pleasures from the body, must feel this way when they lay in love with their wives: the exultation at the end of an act of love, driving out all thoughts except for that of the beloved. Or so Prosper had been told by men who spoke to him in confession, seeking reassurance that it was normal at such times to lose thought even of the God. For truly, Prosper thought, training a pupil is an act of love, and as much a service to the God as a married man's act of purified love with his wife.

Bad training, on the other hand – he followed further this path of thought – was like impure lusts, when a man slept with a woman without seeking to purify his act through a priest's blessing. Selfish training, where the teacher cared more for his own self-importance than for the progress of the pupil, was far worse: it was like twisted lust, a terrible parody of purified love. Such twistedness in teaching, Prosper was coming to recognize, had begun to destroy even that which was at the center of his vocation as a priest: his ability to train priest-pupils. It would have destroyed his abilities as a teacher in the end if he had not been fortunate enough to be placed under the curse.

Smiling at this paradoxical thought, Prosper said, "You have done very well indeed during the past three months. It is time that your father saw how you have progressed. I'll go home with you tonight, both to apologize for your lateness and also to show your father—"

"No!"

The boy's cry was so deep that Prosper felt the reverberation of it through Orel's body, which was pressed against his. Prosper tried to turn his head to look at Orel's face, but the boy had his face pressed against Prosper's shoulder.

Orel said, "No, you shouldn't bother him; he's very busy at the moment. I think it would be best to wait until you've finished training me. That way he can see the complete results—"

"Orel," Prosper said, and at that single word, the boy fell silent. Faintly through the window where dusk was drawing its shade upon the world came the sound of feasting, but Prosper scarcely noticed it. His mind was on the boy snuggled against him.

He said slowly, "You came to me the evening that you were to ask your father's permission to train with me. You told me that evening that you could train with me. But you did not tell me: Did your father grant you permission to do this?"

Orel was silent a moment. Prosper could feel the warmth of his breath making its way through Prosper's shirt. Then the boy burst out, "He wouldn't understand! If I'd told him, he would never have let me come, and he'd have been watching me to ensure I didn't come near you. It didn't do any harm to tell him Huard was giving me extra catechism lessons—"

"Orel." Prosper's voice was hard this time. There was an aching arising in him that he could not fully understand, but he dared not give thought to it – his thoughts must be on the boy at this moment. "You are speaking as a child. Where is the discipline that you have received in these lessons? Remain silent a moment, then reply to me as you would if explaining why you had not completed a lesson I had given you."

The pause lasted a long while. When he finally spoke again, the boy did so in a low voice. "Sir, I apologize. It was wrong of me to lie to my father, and it was wrong of me to have let you think that my father had given me permission for training. I not only endangered my own spirit through such an act; I also brought danger upon you and Huard, for my father might have thought that both of you had conspired to help me in this deception."

"Good. That is well spoken." Prosper was having a difficult time keeping his voice level, and he was beginning to think that it might be important to understand why. If only he were granted a moment for silence . . . "You know what you must do now?"

"I must tell my father and ask his pardon. I must follow his command, whatever it may be. Oh, but Prosper, I can't! He'll tell me that I must never see you again!"

Orel's face, as he raised it from Prosper's shoulder, was as white as a demon's. He was biting his berry-red lip in an attempt to keep his chin from trembling. Prosper felt the words the boy had spoken resound through his own body as though he himself had spoken them. It was becoming more urgent to understand why the boy's anguish was communicating itself so deeply to him, the teacher.

He knew, of course, what he was witnessing. No teacher of five years, much less thirty-five years, could have missed the signs. It happened sometimes with the more sensitive pupils: an early awakening of love, too early to take the form of desire, whether pure or impure. It was simply the knowledge that another person in the world was of such high importance that the person deserved to receive the sort of worship that would normally be offered up only to the God.

The priests were divided on how such childish loving should be regarded. Some priests, such as Martin, saw it as a godly sign that the boy was developing impulses toward love that would, in the normal course of time, eventually develop into the love a young man holds for the woman he is to marry. During his years of priesthood, Prosper had always taken the opposing view: he believed that children's love could easily lead to impure love, or even – since it was often directed by a boy toward his male teacher – to the horrors of twisted lust. Thus Prosper had always taken pains, whenever he noticed such love developing in a pupil toward him, to discourage it with severity.

And yet he felt no such impulse now – indeed, he felt quite the opposite desire. Was this a godly sign, or was some demon working within him that he had not yet known? Bewildered, Prosper tried to pull himself back from Orel as he said, "Your coming-of-age rite is in the spring; you would have had to have ended your lessons with me then in any case. Perhaps your father will allow you to study the ancient tongue under Huard until that time—"

"But I want you!" Orel flung his arms around Prosper, almost strangling him in his embrace. Muffled by Prosper's shirt, he said, "I love you. I love you."

Orel's head was brushing against Prosper's face. He thought to himself that he should at least give the boy a light kiss on the head to indicate that affection between a teacher and his pupil was a natural and indeed a godly thing. And if the boy lifted his face then, perhaps it would do no ill to kiss him on the forehead as well, for surely the boy seemed to require such comfort, trembling as he now was in Prosper's arms. And if kissed on the forehead, the boy would come to no harm if he were kissed on the lips—

It was then that Prosper saw his hidden demon and named it for what it was.

"No!" Prosper jerked himself out of the boy's grasp and rose, stumbling backwards. The suddenness of this rising caused the chamber to swim in his vision. He saw a demon-white boy, and near him a single candle lit against the coming dark.

"What's wrong?" Orel jumped to his feet and came over to hold Prosper's arm. "Are you ill?"

"Don't touch me," Prosper begged in a hoarse voice. He staggered backwards and found himself trapped by the bed behind him.

"Why not? Sir, you are ill; let me help you to bed—"

"No!"

The cry stopped Orel short, as he was reaching out to touch Prosper again. For a moment the boy remained motionless; then his face changed.

"Oh, no," he said. "Oh, sir, I didn't mean that. When I said I loved you— I don't love you like that, sir, truly I don't!"

He put out his hand tentatively, as though testing the edge of a blade, and as his hand fell onto Prosper's bare arm, Prosper released a groan. The desire was clawing at him now; he could feel the stiff ache of his need. With a wordless cry of revulsion, Prosper shoved aside the bed and staggered toward the door.

"Sir, truly I'm not twisted – truly! . . . Am I?" The final words of the boy's plaintive plea echoed in Prosper's mind as he stumbled out into the coolness of the dying day.

o—o—o

An hour later, Prosper was trying to remember the lessons he had given to priest-pupils about how to kneel on the bare floor for hours without feeling pain.

"Give all the chambers of your mind over to the God," he had told them. "You will find that you have no chamber left for thoughts of bodily discomfort."

Easy enough to say to a healthy young boy, his mind and body at an age when they are biddable to instruction. But Prosper – fifty-seven years old, with a mind cursed with demons and filled with prayers that he was forbidden to speak – was finding it impossible to ignore the pain shooting through his knees or the trembling of his weary legs. He closed his eyes and tried to still his thoughts, but with no success.

The sanctuary was dark but for the flicker of prayer-lights. Tomorrow morning, Huard would randomly select one of the candles, bracket it into his purification lamp, and use it to purify any individuals who had need of it. Then it would be taken to the altar area, where it would be used to light the sacred flame and afterwards to purify the worshippers as a whole. At the end of the service, the prayer-light would be quenched, a visible sign to the worshippers that the Unknowable God had answered a prayer.

Prosper wondered whether the prayer-light he had lit the hour before would be the one Huard selected tomorrow. His increasing fear was that the single prayer he had been pouring forth to the God would not be answered.

He heard the creak of the main sanctuary doors, then a footstep, and then, through his closed eyelids, he saw the glow of a lamp. There was a click as the lamp was set upon the gift-offering table nearby. A footstep fell beside him.

Taking a deep breath, Prosper said without opening his eyes, "Huard, I do not know whether the God's Law permits this, but if it does, I ask you to burn me tonight. I now know that the demons are too strong for me, and I dare not allow myself to live any longer, lest I cause greater destruction."

"Why do you believe that the demons are too strong?"

Huard's voice was colder than Prosper had ever known it. Prosper opened his eyes to see his former pupil standing in front of him, his face as hard as winter ice.

"You know why," Prosper whispered. "You tried to warn me – the God help me, I treated your warning lightly, as I treated all the warnings that Martin gave me during his years of disciplining me. And yet I should have known. . . . I should have known. I have burned so many men and women over the years for twistedness – have heard the horrors of their witness, have given them the only hope remaining to them, the fire of purification."

"Is fire the only answer?" Huard's voice remained cold.

"I don't know." Prosper hid his face in his hands, trying to gather his twirling thoughts into one place so that he could make sense of his reasoning. "Perhaps not; perhaps I was too harsh in my judgment of them. If so, I know why. All these years I have been twisted, feeling secret and demonic lusts for the pupils I tutored. No wonder I judged other men and women too harshly, whether for twistedness or for other crimes against the God. I would not face the fact that I was a greater horror than any of the living spirits I judged."

He raised his face. This time it was difficult to see the priest, for Prosper's eyes were darkened by tears. "The fire," Prosper whispered. "Please. It is the only hope I have left."

"No fire," said Huard. "Prosper, you must listen to me—"

He stopped; Prosper had stumbled to his feet and was backing into the dark corner, his chest heaving from the shock. "No," whispered Prosper. "No fire. You are right, of course. I have been avoiding that knowledge as well – have been avoiding it ever since my first day here. Purification is too great a mercy for me, even by fire. For one such as myself, who has allowed demons so great to use me for destruction, there can be no mercy. It must be an unpurified death. I must dwell eternally in the God's burning flames."

"Prosper, be silent a moment and listen to me—"

"It is all right," said Prosper, his voice beginning to turn to sobs. "I will not seek an unpurified death at the hands of others. I see that would be wrong – to require them to take the guilt of my death upon themselves. I will burn unpurified in any case; it makes no difference. If I cannot serve the God in any other way, I can at least rid this world of my repulsive, monstrous, twisted self—"

As he spoke, Prosper began to edge his way toward the side door, his feet sliding along the stones smoothly as though led by an inner force. Already, Prosper's mind was reaching ahead. The armory was closed for the night. He could use one of Huard's meat-knives, but that would entangle the priest in his death. The river, then; there was an appropriateness to that choice. On a moonless night like this, it would not take long for the dark current to bring his end.

"Corrupt," he heard his voice choke out. "Wholly corrupt, unworthy of purification. How could I return to the priesthood with these demons inside me? I should not even be polluting this sanctuary. I must go to where the unquenchable fire awaits me—"

"Mystery."

The whisper cut through Prosper's words like a shout. On the point of racing from the sanctuary, Prosper felt his body jerked back by the sacred word as though he were on a leash. For a breathless moment, he stood in balance, feeling the demons tug at him. Then long custom took hold of him, and he fell to his knees.

He heard footsteps softly approach him. Then Huard whispered once more, as though afraid that Prosper had not heard him properly the first time, "Mystery."

Mystery. He had not been listening during this past hour, as his discipline demanded; he had only been talking to the God. Yet how could he listen now? The God would not speak to such as him—

Mystery. He had allowed himself to speak again; he must stop speaking his thoughts and remain silent. He tried, but felt images of what had happened between himself and Orel begin to crowd into his mind. He gave an involuntary whimper.

"Listen." Huard's voice was soft as he touched Prosper's bowed head.

Prosper tried again. He could feel the weariness now, the pain beginning to shoot like blades through his legs, the trembling that made him feel that he could not remain as he was for a moment longer.

"I'm tired," he whispered.

"You are allowing yourself to think; remain silent. Listen again."

He tried. He could hear the soft crackle of the prayer-lights; he could imagine the one he had lit being brought forward to the altar, where it would be used to light the sacred flame—

The sacred flame. Purification to the God's beloved folk, torture to his enemies. The God's fire would burn him for eternity; the pain he felt then would be immense in comparison to what he felt now, shaking and sweating—

"You are not listening. Try again."

"I can't. I can't!"

"You can; still your mind. Empty it of all thoughts. Await the Mystery."

His eyes were still closed. He could see only darkness. Darkness . . . that was what he sought. Not the flame, the visible sign of the God, but the darkness that represented that which was unknowable. No knowledge he held of the God could save him now; only that which was not known to him, the Mercy of all mercies that lay in the darkness beyond man's knowledge. . . .

The darkness was silent. He let the silence take him in, like a current leading him into a river to drown. He did not resist it. Perhaps, then, this was the God's mercy: the Mystery would take him into the unquenchable fire, so that he might feel the Mystery's peace in the moment before his pain began, never to end.

He was thinking again; he could feel the thoughts dragging him back toward the shore. With a sigh, he released his hold on himself, and on his life, as he awaited the God's response.

When he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness, and he could feel his body falling. Falling, and falling.

CHAPTER FIVE

He awoke to the sound of fire. It crackled close by his head, and it took him a moment to garner the courage to open his eyes in order to see what it would be like, this fire that would be with him for eternity.

He found himself lying in a bed. Next to him flickered a prayer-light, quite ordinary in appearance. Then Prosper turned his head and realized where he was.

Huard, seeing his movement, turned away from the basin where he had been wringing out a rag. He walked over and placed the rag upon Prosper's head. The coolness washed over Prosper as if he had been dipped in a river.

As though no pause had taken place in their conversation, Huard asked, "Did the God speak to you?"

Prosper stared at Huard for a moment; then his breath caught in his throat. "Yes," he whispered, feeling wonder tremble through his body as he remembered. "He told me not to fear. He told me that he loved me." Prosper stared a moment longer at the priest, then turned his gaze toward the prayer-light near his head. He said softly, "How can the God love one such as myself?"

"Are you ready to listen to the answer?" Huard's voice was no longer hard, merely inquisitive.

Prosper looked back at the priest. His own body seemed light, as though it could have lifted into the air had not the blankets been holding him down. He felt more like a God-loving spirit than a temporal creature. "Yes," he said, "I am ready to listen."

"Prosper, you are not twisted."

Prosper tried to understand this, failed, and gave up the struggle to master the matter without further instruction. "I am not twisted," he agreed, like a pupil reciting a text he is not yet mature enough to understand.

Huard smiled. He nudged Prosper over in the bed and then sat down next to him, his large body pressing against Prosper's. Prosper lay where he was, feeling Huard's hip against his own, feeling too Huard's palm as the priest laid his hand upon Prosper's. The priest said nothing, and after a moment it occurred to Prosper to wonder why, if he had lusted after all of his priest-pupils, he had not noticed any desire for Huard during these weeks of close living – did not feel any desire even now whilst Huard's body was so close to his.

He said slowly, "I had not felt twisted desires before tonight, had I?"

"It may be that you felt them momentarily," Huard responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "Prosper, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when you told me that you had never felt lustful desires during your time as a priest. If that had been true, you would have been a bodiless spirit rather than a living creature. More likely you felt momentary desires, either for your pupils or for other priests or for the temporal women and men to whom you served as confessor. But you were so convinced that a godly person like you could not feel such desires that you thrust the knowledge from your mind. It was part of the demonism in you – not the brief desires, which are a normal occurrence, especially in times of hardship such as you are undergoing at present. The demonism came from believing that you were immune from the temptations that normal men experience. Do you remember the first words you spoke to me when I came to your training school?"

"Yes," said Prosper, again speaking slowly, for his mind seemed to be gradually rising out of darkness. "I speak it to all of my priest-pupils. 'You must not believe that you are in any way superior to the men and women whom you will serve for the God, for you are filled with as many demon-temptations as they are.'"

"Some teachers," said Huard, still holding Prosper's hand, "are better teachers than they are pupils. They speak words of wisdom that they themselves do not heed – or so a teacher once told me." He smiled.

"Then the fact that I recognized my desire for Orel—"

"Is a sign of returning godliness, rather than the opposite. Yes." Huard reached forward and pulled the cloth from Prosper's forehead. "Mind you, the fault in what happened tonight is as much mine as yours. I knew that it was likely that your awakening awareness of the evil impulses within you would cause you to confront demons that you had not previously recognized, though they had always pulled at you. If you had had true twistedness – a lifelong desire to lie with men or boys – then I would certainly have addressed the matter through your discipline before this, and would have trained you to turn your desires toward women or toward celibacy, whichever the case seemed to merit. Cursing twisted persons is almost never necessary, I have found. But precisely because I knew that you had no more twisted desires than the normal man does, I didn't think to forewarn you about how to react when you were tempted to act on erotic desires whose action would cause you to break the God's Law. It is easy enough to discipline oneself in such matters, if you are prepared beforehand."

"Yes," said Prosper. "I taught you that as well." He gave a sigh as he wiped the dampness from his forehead. "What a fool I was to think that I could live without the demon-temptations of an ordinary man. I had convinced myself that I had only two choices: to live a life as demon-free as the God's life or to be demon-filled beyond saving. And that allowed my native demon a new way to attack me: I cast judgment upon myself tonight, rather than trust you and the Unknowable God to care for my spirit." He looked up at Huard, his gaze now steady upon the priest's. "I'll never be entirely free of my demon of judgment, will I?"

"No more than I will ever be entirely free of my native demon," his teacher replied. "Though I am no longer the prisoner of gluttony, I must do battle with it for the rest of my life." Then, seeing Prosper's forehead crease, he added quietly, "You have the strength to do battle with your demons, Prosper. Believe that when I say it now, as you would not have believed it if I had told you earlier. You had to come by that knowledge yourself, in a moment when it seemed you could go no further—"

"And I felt myself too tired to go on." Prosper gave a short laugh as he raised himself into a sitting position on the bed. The lightness had gone, but the weariness he felt now was like the weariness he always felt at the end of a long and profitable lesson with a pupil: the weariness of shining success.

Huard, who had been smiling, turned suddenly sober in expression. He cocked his head at his former teacher and said, "One question you have not asked me which you should have asked when I entered the sanctuary – should have asked before you ever fled from this chamber."

The pain, coming as it did at a time when he was so open to new sensations, cut into Prosper like the blade of a new sword, but he did not allow himself to flinch. "Orel," he said in a hushed voice. "Is he hurt?"

"He was greatly troubled when he found me, but I was able to calm him. I explained to him that you were afflicted by a demon of fear that came upon you in moments of heightened emotion, such as you had undoubtedly felt upon learning of Orel's affection for you. I assured Orel that your fear in no way arose from a belief that he was twisted."

"A demon of fear," said Prosper softly. "Yes, you warned me against that as well, just as I have warned pupils over the years not to allow fear to overcome their battles with learning. If I had only listened to the advice I gave to you and my other pupils, I would have known that fleeing this chamber was the worst possible action I could take – it leads to greater demons entering into one, such as—" He hesitated.

"Such as the temptation to commit the crime of slaying oneself," said Huard solemnly. "I trust that you realize now what a grave crime you were about to commit – not only against the God, who gave you the body that you were about to desecrate, but also against Orel, who would surely have blamed himself for your death, no matter what I told him."

"Yes," whispered Prosper, and was silent for a long while afterwards.

The priest's door was open to the evening. Prosper could hear the chatter of the tribe's men, women, and children as they passed nearby, on their way to the midnight service. Huard, hearing the same noise, rose and began to disgown in preparation for placing the black robe of the Mystery upon himself.

Prosper settled back into the cushions of the soft bed. The silence that was upon him now seemed too precious to break by attending the service and listening to words. He could not help thinking, though, of the boys whose voices he had heard amidst the crowd. "Huard," he said, "you told me once that I had a gift for teaching."

"You are the best teacher I have ever had the honor to meet," Huard replied quietly. "I know that my judgment on this is shared by others. If you don't trust me, ask one of your priest-pupils when you return to your training school."

"I will not be returning to the training school." Prosper's voice seemed to echo through the stillness of the chamber. He felt oddly calm as he raised his gaze to be level with Huard's. "I can never be a priest again. I see that now."

o—o—o

The morning sun rippled sparks of light upon the river passing Huard's doorway. Huard leaned forward and splashed the coolness of the water upon his face, drying away the sweat of the morning. A breeze teased at his hair, cooling the water further.

An arm touched his as Prosper bent forward and joined him, splashing water into his eyes to take away the dryness of the night. Huard smiled at him, saying, "I was beginning to wonder whether you would sleep through the noonday service."

"The rest did me good." Prosper leaned back, staring up at the branches against the sky, wondering why he had never noticed the beauty of their interlacing curves, like a fine scribe's hand in a manuscript. "Was that voice of Orel's father that woke me?"

Huard nodded. "Orel told him last night that you had been training him. Botolf was much bewildered – he said that what Orel told him made no sense, for during the past three months the boy's swordsmanship had improved fourfold. Botolf was sure that the godliness Orel had received from learning his catechism was the cause. Botolf was even more bewildered when I explained to him that your training was the cause of his son's increased discipline." The plump priest sat back on his haunches, looking for all the world like a tamed wolf sitting contentedly beside a hearthfire. "Botolf tells me that he wishes Orel's brothers to attend your school for temporal boys when it is opened next spring."

Prosper was still a moment, feeling the cool breeze tickle his face. Then he suddenly ducked his head and plunged it into the water.

He surfaced shaking his hair as a wolf-dog shakes his fur after a bath, sending water splattering onto Huard. The priest laughed. "You look like a boy."

"I feel like a boy. Like a thirteen-year-old boy. Do you understand why?" Smiling, Prosper turned his head toward the priest.

"Indeed," Huard replied. "A new beginning." The priest lifted his head, scenting the air, then said, "Botolf left us a gift-offering for our trouble. Shall we indulge our stomachs in a most unpriestly fashion?"

Laughing, Prosper helped Huard to rise from the sun-bright grass. They passed back into the coolness of the hut. There, on the table, were two bags, neatly labelled in Orel's careful scribe-hand, "To Huard, with love," and "To Prosper, with love." Huard opened the bag, inspected it, and sighed before pouring its contents into Prosper's bag. Prosper caught a glimpse of the sweets within.

"Some disciplines," said the priest mournfully, "require greater sacrifice than others." He turned aside, poured wine into two cups, then turned back to Prosper, who was still staring down at the lettering on the bag, touching the word "love."

"Did you hear what I said?" Huard asked.

Without looking up, Prosper replied, "Quite. Quiet. Quench. Quiescent. Does that answer your question?" Then, as Huard laughed and handed him his cup, Prosper said, "I was listening, but your words touched off a thought in my mind. I was trying to decide whether it was a blessing or a tragedy that I became a priest."

Huard, turning aside to check the sacred instruments that had been polished overnight, said, "And what have you decided?"

"It is difficult to tell. If I had become a priest later in my life, after I had been trained in the discipline as you have been training me, would I have had the strength to control my native demon? One thing I do know: my decision to become a priest at thirteen destroyed that path as a vocation for me. I was too young, too undisciplined, sought out too little spiritual oversight in my formative years. Under those conditions, my demon grew too strong, and though I believe that I now have control enough over it to lead the life of a man of temporal affairs, I do not believe that it would ever be wise for me to have spiritual supervision over anyone again."

Huard opened the purification lamp, cleaned out the ashes from the previous fire, and touched the prayer-light that had been flickering in his hut for six months. "That is reason enough for you to regret having become a priest. Why do you think you may have been blessed by your life's work?"

"Because, though it was not the right vocation for me, somehow, through the God's blessing, I found through it the path to my true vocation. All those years I spent teaching priest-pupils, thinking of teaching as no more than a means to the higher end of supervising the spiritual lives of priests in making, were years when I developed my native gift – a gift which, if I had not become a priest, I might never have recognized. It is odd," he reflected, looking over at Huard, who was lifting the top half of the purification lamp. "It now seems to me that all the happenings I underwent during those years – even the terrible destruction I caused upon the bodies and spirits of those who were under my care – were only preparations for this moment when I would begin my true service to the God."

"Even so," said Huard, turning again toward the shelf of sacred objects, "it must have been a difficult decision for you to make."

"It was," said Prosper, his eye following the path of the tiny, shining prayer-light as Huard used it to light the lamp. "That was why your use of the word 'sacrifice' triggered this thought. I would not have believed, three months ago, that I would have the strength to make such a decision – to give up the work to which I have devoted forty-four years and in which I have found my deepest devotion to the God. Yet oddly enough, that seems part of the preparation. It is necessary to make that sacrifice so that—"

He stopped abruptly, having realized what Huard was doing. The priest, carefully lowering the lid of the purification lamp, said without looking his way, "Do you remember what you told me on the day that you advised me to give up sweets for the remainder of my life?"

"Quite well," Prosper said, his eye on the purification lamp, which was now sending out the God-mask in the form of mask-shaped lights glowing upon the chamber walls. "I told it to all of my pupils, at some point in their training. 'The brightest purification of all is not fire, but a willing sacrifice.'" Without awaiting the command, he knelt and silenced his mind.

Huard stepping forward with the lamp, held it briefly above his former teacher, and then brought the lamp down before Prosper's face so that the light shown into Prosper's eyes. The priest twirled the chain, causing the light to spin dizzily about. As he slowly encircled the lamp around Prosper, he said, "With the God's light, I purify this man of any remaining demons, beyond that which afflict all God-loving men. With this light I signify that this man is once more the God's beloved and may enter into the God's presence. Yet it is not I who purifies this man, but the man himself, for only the demon-filled man has the power to drive out his own demons." The formal words complete, Huard withdrew the lamp and waited.

Prosper, his mind so still that he did not notice the pain shooting through his legs as he knelt upon the ground, lifted his head to look at the priest. If Huard had expected to hear him ask questions about why his sentence of exile had been lifted early, he was disappointed, for Prosper's mind was not on the purification he had undergone. His spirit's vision was focussed on more important matters.

"The sacrifice," he said. "Did it work?"

Huard smiled as he set the lamp aside. "I wondered when you would ask. I didn't tell you before, because it would not have assisted in your discipline, but I am afraid that I am one of the rare boys who thrived under the overly harsh discipline you placed upon your priest-pupils. If you had not advised me to sacrifice my love of sweets to the God, I fear that I would never have gained the discipline necessary to become a priest."

He reached down, helping Prosper to his feet as a teacher helps his pupil. "A debt repaid," he said. "Thank you for offering me the opportunity to give back to you what you gave to me."

o—o—o

To Huard:

I am enclosing this short note within my longer letter concerning Prosper's exile. You may wish to read the longer letter to Prosper, so that he can know the nature of my concern for his spirit. I would ask that you keep the contents of this shorter note private, as though you had received it under the lock of confession.

I have advised the High Priest, and he agrees with me on this matter, that Prosper should not be permitted to re-enter the priesthood. His demonic acts have occurred over too long a period and are too grave to allow for that. I had planned to tell Prosper of the High Priest's decision before he left for his exile, so that he would hold no false hopes in the coming year, but it occurs to me that this may be an occasion when the "brightest purification" could be put to use. (You will know what I mean, having been taught by Prosper.) If this occurs and is effective in making Prosper no more demon-filled than the average man, then you have the High Priest's permission to end the exile early.

But of course such a sacrifice would need to be given willingly, without compulsion. That is my second reason for sending Prosper to you. I know your tact; I know that you can subtly offer Prosper the opportunity to make his sacrifice without in any way coercing him to do so.

I hope you share my belief that this deception is in no way demonic. Rather, I believe, you and I will thus be serving as tools for the God who guides us to the path that is right for us, in ways that can never be knowable.

In trust of that Mystery which can never be fully named,

Martin

o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Upcoming fiction ===

LAW OF VENGEANCE

Excerpt

For many years, I have wished to make a memoir of my life to pass on to future generations of Emorians who desire to learn what it means to have complete dedication to the Chara and his law. This is not to be the memoir I intended, but I find the time passing slowly here in the Chara's dungeon, and I would rather spend my days thinking of what has happened than of what is to come. For in one month's time I will taken before the Chara so that he may pass judgment on me. After that – for we Emorians move swiftly in these matters – I will be taken to the execution yard, and my head will be sliced off.

It is a gentler punishment, says the Chara, than I deserve.

He told me this last night when he came to see me. He stood at one end of the cell, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded, and wearing the cold smile I knew he had learned from me. His tunic-flap was pinned shut with his royal emblem brooch depicting the Balance of Judgment, the Heart of Mercy, and the Sword of Vengeance. He has worn the brooch nearly every day since I gave it to him when he was a boy, but I knew from his look that he had worn it this time in mockery.

Mockery is an activity in which he has had much practice since my arrest. He has commanded me to address him as Peter, since I was always reluctant to presume on our friendship and address my ruler in so familiar a fashion. By the same token, he calls me Lord Carle, though I am no longer a council lord and will soon be nothing more than a court case that may interest future generations, since I am the first man in four hundred years to be charged with this particular crime.

The Chara Peter says that I ought to be happy to die in such a manner, since I have never loved anything more than the law books. He is right that I love the law, just as I have always loved the embodiment of the law, the Chara, who keeps this land alive through his judgment of the Emorian people. But it was not until my arrest that I realized what I love as much as the Chara and his law: the man named Peter, who for the past twenty-two years has been to me the son I never had.

o—o—o

For notices of new fiction, please subscribe to the updates e-mail list or blog feed:

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o—o—o

o—o—o

o—o—o

=== Back matter ===

CREDITS

Law Links editor: Kathleen Livingston.

Law Links editorial assistant and mathematics consultant: Jo/e Noakes.

Law Links science consultant: Parhelion.

Blood Vow editors: Katharine Bond, Kathleen Livingston, Parhelion, and Tracy Shaw.

Blood Vow editorial assistants: Isha, Lyn, Nigel Puerasch, Suza, and Theresa.

Blood Vow science consultants: Parhelion and Maureen Lycaon.

Re-creation editor: Parhelion.

Bard of Pain editors: K. M. Frontain and Maureen Lycaon.

Mystery editor: K. M. Frontain.

Cover design and interior design: Dusk Peterson.

Cover art: Detail from A Prize for the Artists' Corps (Wine), by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912). An exotically-dressed young man offers a cup of wine.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

Law Links: November 1995 to November 2009 (composition).

Blood Vow: August 1995 to March 1996 (composition; the short story on which it was based was composed in 1979), February 2008 (list edition), July 2008 (Web edition and booktrailer), and July 2009 (Kindle e-book edition).

"Re-creation": November 2008 (composition), December 2008 (list edition and Web edition), and December 2010 (e-book editions).

"Bard of Pain": June 2002 (composition and list edition), May 2006 (Web edition), October 2007 (audio book edition, e-book editions [various formats], and booktrailer), March 2008 (Kindle e-book edition), and May 2008 (braille and DAISY editions).

"Mystery": March 2001 (composition) and June 2002 (list edition and Web edition).

The Three Lands Omnibus: 2011 edition in April 2011 (e-book editions).

MORE WRITINGS BY DUSK PETERSON

For Dusk Peterson's e-books, online fiction and nonfiction, and series resources, please visit:

duskpeterson.com

For notices of new fiction, please subscribe to the updates e-mail list or blog feed:

duskpeterson.com/lists.htm

Author's contact information:

duskpeterson.com/#contact

Table of Contents

Law Links 1: God of Vengeance

Law Links 2: The Sword

Law Links 3: God of Mercy

Law Links 4: The Bird

Law Links 5: God of Judgment

Law Links 6: The Balance

Blood Vow 1: The Gods' Land

Blood Vow 2: Land of the Chara

Blood Vow 3: The Look of the Chara

Blood Vow 4: Land of the Jackal

Blood Vow 5: The Eyes of the Jackal

Blood Vow 6: The God's Land

Re-creation

Bard of Pain 1: The Darkness

Bard of Pain 2: The Fire

Mystery

Law of Vengeance: Excerpt

Credits

Publication history

More writings by Dusk Peterson