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  He waited, letting his mind hear the faint reply.

  "Hmmm, unfortunate," Frost said after a time.

  "What?" Rosivok asked, speaking for the others.

  Frost let slip a sigh. "They like it here." He turned to his Subartans. "Build a fire," he said.

  They quickly gathered what twigs and brush they could from the sparse, stunted crop of bushes and trees that grew in the pass. In a moment, the smell and warmth of a small fire filled the air, and the bright light of its flames lit the darkness. Frost concentrated again. He drew on his inner reserves, burning energy more quickly than the fastest runner, the strongest oarsman. He focused the spell and spoke to the fires.

  The flames wavered, then left the pile of twigs and weeds and raced up through the pass, climbing the walls, leaping crevasses, crisscrossing the rocks until the entire chasm seemed to be engulfed. Even the corpses of banshee victims were consumed by the now too-bright, incredibly hot fires that changed colors as they burned in a rainbow spectrum. Inescapable, even for banshees. Yet nothing living was so much as singed.

  After a moment Frost eased, and he began to smile. He stopped feeding energy to the flames and let them die away, until only the small circle of the original fire still flickered at his feet. He staggered and put one hand out to Rosivok, who quickly moved to steady the wizard.

  "They did not like that at all," Frost said, a faint chuckle in his voice. "Especially the ones that perished."

  The ones, he thought, that doubted he could threaten their existence. They had wagered far too much—everything—on that assumption. Such fools, he insisted, were a breed that fate was seldom kind to.

  "We will make camp here," he added, straightening his stance. He moved slowly away and sat on a nearby rock, then took the very large drawstring pouch from his shoulders and began rummaging in it for food and a bladder of water. Thirst and hunger drove him now, an emptiness as deep as the mountain pass. He drank the water, then stuffed his mouth full of dried fish.

  "Tomorrow, we go to Ikaydin," he said, adding nothing, content simply to fill his mouth again, though the thought of the journey made him smile. He had not been to that land in decades. Far too long. And he had every reason to believe that opportunity waited for him there, and just beyond.

  "Ikaydin," Sharryl and Rosivok repeated, though Jaffic kept silent. An uneasy look seemed to cross his features, like the look of a man before a battle, but it faded before Frost could wonder at it long. The three Subartans gathered beside the firelight to open their own pouches. In the nearby hills, crickets began to chirp. Frost let his sight drift upward.

  High above stars gathered around the moon, though there was a slight haze, Frost noticed, now that he looked more closely. Which was an omen not to be ignored, if memory served him now. An omen of stormy weather ahead. . . .

  Chapter II

  Madia fought to pull free of Jolann's clutches, but the woman was older, stronger and half again Madia's weight. She had hold of a handful of Madia's dress just behind the neck and was moving swiftly enough to keep Madia off balance, pulling her, walking her nearly backward. Jolann reached the end of the hallway and marched into the great entry hall. The hard soles of her shoes on the flat stones of the floor echoed off the high stone walls, a report surely heard throughout half the castle.

  Lord Burtoll himself stood waiting by the open door. He seemed disinclined to look at Madia directly as Jolann placed her, swaying and ruffled, precisely in front of him. He was perhaps as old as Madia's father, though not as tall a man, nor as handsome, and not so fine a dresser in his unadorned tunic and leather bonnet. A good man who generally seemed to maintain a degree of humor under most circumstances, though these, Madia observed, were not such.

  "Bring her," Burtoll said in a solemn mutter. He turned and the three of them went into the street, then made their way briskly from the central keep to the manor's main gates. The king's carriage waited just off the bridge, escorted by two mounted men at arms, one on either side. The Lady Anna Renall stood waiting beside the open carriage door. Usually there were half-a-dozen carriages and wagons waiting for their charges, the daughters of the greatest lords of southern Ariman come to learn their lessons from Madam Jolann. This afternoon, however, having been held back until the others were gone, Madia had no company, or comfort.

  "Why have I been forced to wait so long?" Lady Anna asked as they neared, in an aggrieved, demanding tone.

  "Dear Anna," Lord Burtoll began, straightening his tunic with an air of purpose. "You must tell the king that while I will uphold my oath to him with my very life, and while I consider him the most worthy monarch in all the realm, I cannot allow his daughter to return within these walls!"

  Lady Anna looked from Lord Burtoll to Madam Jolann, all insistence gone from her face, replaced by a painful, almost pleading expression. Jolann, for her part, was apparently in no mood to offer any help.

  "She has disrupted lessons too many times to count," Jolann said, "as you and the king are both aware. She does poorly in her studies, much more poorly than the bright young girl that once graced these rooms, and she encourages others to do the same. Today, during lessons in caring for battle wounds, she explained that there would be no need for such learning if a knight inept enough to become wounded could only have the decency to finish the job and get himself killed! Task her on the ruling of a household, and she will say that is what people like myself are for. She will not read aloud without making up some of the words to suit her own humorous purposes, and she constantly conspires to mock not only myself but every lord and lady she—"

  "She stirs the other girls, my daughter as well," Lord Burtoll said, interrupting Jolann, who was turning red and growing quite loud. "She refuses to quit with her stories of fortune and lust and strange adventures. She has listened well to the tales the minstrels and jongleurs tell in private company, to the boasting of troubadours and the knights of the castle, and I care not to speculate on how this has come to pass. I insist, however, that my daughter not be subjected to such, as do the lords who send the other girls."

  Lady Anna stood stiffly, eyes avoiding everyone in the sudden silence. Then she glanced at Madia wearing a look less of pain and more of exhaustion, of defeat. Madia grinned in spite of herself. Lord Burtoll had never seen the wild looks on the other girl's faces; he didn't know how popular such tales and antics had made Madia. And probably Anna didn't, either. They never would.

  "I will inform her father," Anna said, bowing her head, then taking Madia's hand. It wasn't fair to Anna, Madia thought, who lately had to endure such complaints on a regular basis, and who in turn had to endure the king's requests that Anna help do something about it. She was really the best lady Madia had had in recent memory, the only one Madia had been able to talk to since she was a child. Reform was something Madia had certainly considered, but it just didn't seem awfully practical. Not yet, anyway.

  "What have you to add to this?" Anna asked, and Madia realized the question was addressed to her.

  "I am sorry," Madia said, folding her hands in front of her, bowing her head.

  "She said as much this Monday," Lord Burtoll grumbled. "Just the same way."

  "And the week before and the week before," Jolann added.

  The knight nearest the gathering chuckled softly.

  Both women and Lord Burtoll glared up at him, and he reined his mount back just a step.

  "I will inform the king," Anna said, curtseying abruptly and taking Madia by the arm. "In detail. Get in," she said.

  As the carriage turned and headed out, not a word was said.

  "I really am sorry. That I made the lord so mad, I mean," Madia said, noting how upset Anna continued to appear.

  "Yes," Anna said, "so am I."

  The coachman drove the carriage over the wide wooden bridge that crossed Lord Burtoll's dry moat, then he turned and headed down the road, toward the great walled city of Kamrit, and Lord Kelren Andarys, King of Ariman. The worst, Madia thought, was yet to come.


  * * *

  The city rose up over the fields before them, until its long stone walls and high towers eclipsed their view of the sea beyond. They passed by the main gateway, which consisted of portcullises and a drawbridge that stood between two massive towers, each with projecting becs. Instead, the carriage entered through the southern gate, part of the double walls and gates added by Madia's father some years ago. Here, away from the central market square and main guild halls, the streets were less busy.

  Above them, on the second and third floors of houses, women with children beside them looked out to watch the small procession as it headed toward the castle. The children called out, and their mothers hushed them. Madia paid them little mind. She did not live among them; she lived just ahead, in the safety and seclusion of Kamrit Castle.

  The castle itself was triangular in shape, with two of its sides forming the city walls nearest the sea. Two separate wards stood within the walls, along with accommodations in the castle's six towers and four gate houses, and the great hall. Only once had the city come under siege, and never had the walls been breached.

  As they drew nearer, freemen and serfs alike took pause, acknowledging the presence of their princess. Madia, for all the fuss, ignored them—all of them, that is, except a young knight on horseback, young Calif, son of Baron Durun and heir to his fair lands, a knight who until this coming winter served in King Andarys' army, and who was at the moment waiting just outside the castle's gate.

  Sir Calif, dressed in full armor and carrying his helmet under one arm, nodded slowly from atop his mount. "Good day, my lady," he said, grinning too much like a boy.

  Madia leaned out while the carriage waited for the gate to be drawn up. "Good day," she said, smiling precisely, winsomely. She had only met him two nights before, when they were introduced at the minstrel performances, though she had seen him about, his eyes set in her direction, several times before that. Their conversation that evening had done much to define the meaning behind his gaze.

  "Have you nothing else to say to me?" she invited him.

  He bowed. "You are the most magnificent woman in all Ariman," he told her. She had heard these words from other men many times before; still, from some men, they never seemed to grow stale. "Thank you," she said.

  "I feared you would not speak to me," he replied, and Madia recalled the suggestions he had made late in the evening, both of them drunk on the king's best ale, suggestions no nobleman of any station should have made to the daughter of the king. There had been one particularly daring, inexcusable description involving several tender parts of her person and his deepest imaginings. But Madia could excuse a great deal under certain circumstances, and she found daring a stimulating quality in a man.

  "Then you remember?" she said.

  The coachman called the horses forward again.

  "Need I apologize, my lady?" Calif asked, moving with the carriage.

  He didn't look nearly so embarrassed as he should, Madia thought, though she knew she was guilty of the same. "Not as yet," she told him.

  He nudged his horse again to keep along side. "Perhaps I will see you again." He grinned, dimples and all. "Perhaps tonight?"

  "There is a chance we might happen upon one another, in the inner courtyard, just after the sun has gone—" She felt Anna's elbow nudge her ribs as Sir Calif nodded and turned his mount. The carriage passed behind the castle wall. When they stopped, the soldier on Madia's side dismounted and opened the carriage door. Lady Anna scowled at him and pulled it shut again.

  "This is not wise," she whispered. "You would do well to keep your silence in public, even in front of your guards and the coachman. the king will not tolerate much more of this behavior, as he has made very clear. To both of us! He cannot tolerate it."

  "We have had this talk before," Madia said, turning away from her.

  "You choose not to see the position you are putting him in. But people ask how he can control a kingdom when he cannot control his own daughter. You have made your father a laughingstock. If you don't care what all Ariman thinks of you, you might at least consider him!"

  "He can fend well enough for himself!" Madia said. "And I don't care what anybody thinks of me. They ought to learn what I think of them! Dullards, fools and cowards, all but a few. Followers of followers, with not a notion among them. I am not ready to choose their lives as mine."

  "You have a duty, my lady. You owe—"

  "All my life I have been told of my great, boundless debt, to the serfs and lords and barons and merchants and gentry, to the memory of a mother I never even knew, to my good and honorable father. But what of me, Anna? I owe something to myself as well. And that is the debt I chose to pay first." She fixed Anna with a straight look, one she knew would be understood. Lady Anna looked away, hands tight together on her lap for a moment.

  "I must report what has happened at Lord Burtoll's house. Your father will want to speak to you."

  "I know," Madia said, feeling a twinge of penitence, a feeling that did not bear close scrutiny; she had never been very close to her father—or he had never managed to become very close to her—but she bore him no ill will, and she liked the Lady Anna much more than she wanted to admit.

  Still, doing anyone's bidding was something that worked much better as theory than practice. "He will get over it," she said, "as he always does."

  "Not always," Anna said. She opened the door and got out without another word.

  * * *

  Madia arrived at her chambers alone and began sorting through clothing, looking for something appropriate to wear. She wanted to appear as sweet and charming as possible when her father summoned her to his chambers. She wished to avoid too childish a look, as he had recently made a habit of describing her actions as hopelessly immature, yet she could not appear too womanly, either, too old and . . . responsible. Or overripe, for that matter—at eighteen she was already past the age when most girls were wed, and she had no wish to remind him. She needed to look young and proper, shy and needing, yet somewhat sure of herself; she needed to look as much like her mother's paintings as she possibly could.

  She chose a long burgundy-colored velvet tunic and skirt, embroidered and drawn at the waist, then chose a small veil. She undressed, washed her face and hands in the basin near her bed, and put scent under her arms and neck, then paused to check her body for bruises. She had taken a pair of awkward falls the day before during her lessons at swordsmanship. Inexcusable, both of them. Her talents with a short sword were legend, or at least she liked to think they were. But her latest tutor acted so differently from the last few that she had been unable to establish a rhythm; in fact, she'd been made a fool of—a condition made all the more untenable by this new instructor's lack of skills. He was no better than the last, and only barely capable of teaching others.

  She would do better next time, of course. Truth be told, she could hold her own against all but the king's finest swordsman—a boast her father found of little value.

  She looked over her legs and arms, then felt where she couldn't see and found a tender spot on her right buttock. A dark line, she saw then, turning back just far enough, straining her eyes and posture. The bruise ran horizontally across three or four inches to nearly her hip, the mark of her new tutor's sword. He had slapped her with the blade's flat side, laughing as he did, she recalled. A minor humiliation she would somehow repay. . . .

  Minimal damage, she thought, straightening up, deciding the rest of her skin and figure was in order; this, too, was the stuff of legend, or at least that was what many of the king's finest knights and nobles had led her to believe. She had no wish to diminish herself in their eyes, or Sir Calif's eyes, in particular.

  As she finished dressing, she heard a knock followed by the voice of Sir Tristan, the king's seneschal, just outside her door. "Speak," she said.

  "You are to meet with your father prior to the meal," he said through the door. "Present yourself in the great hall at once."

&nb
sp; "The great hall?" Madia said, looking up, staring at the door. There was no answer. The seneschal had gone, perhaps, or he had nothing more to say. He knew just as she did that there was no reason for her father to see her at court, in public. He never discussed personal matters in that way.

  Unless there was some function she was not aware of. Visitors, possibly, or an outing? And if so, the evening might be consumed by related activities that would leave little time for private scolding and hand wringing. Tomorrow, the both of them about in the castle all day, she was sure to hear more than her fill, but by then her father would have softened at least somewhat on the matter of Lord Burtoll's complaints.

  She really would have to hold her tongue a bit more in the future, she decided, or at least try. She opened the door and found the seneschal still there, tall and bearded, and old, though she was not sure of his age exactly; he had a low voice that he never raised, never seemed to need to. Tristan had been seneschal to Madia's grandfather, King Hual Andarys, when he brought peace to Neleva and conquered all the lands north to the Ikaydin Plateau. He had served Kelren since the old king's death and, as anyone would tell, had served him well. She looked at him now, his face firmly set with its common lines, eyes unreadable. "What is it?"

  "I would have a word with you," he said, facing her now with a coldness she could not defend against. She was used to men looking at her, but not like this. There was nothing adversarial in his manner, past or present, more a silent lack of deference. He had never spoken much to little Madia; he had never been a friend.

  "Is my father well?" she asked.

  "Yes. I would speak of something else."

  "Please."

  "Were you to attend court more often, and take a proper interest in the daily affairs of your father, you would know that he is not without troubles these days. Messengers tell of the desert tribes massing beyond the Kaya Desert, of their preparations for a war that may come to us. And there is unrest in the north, talk of Lord Ivran of Bouren and his son secretly plotting with the other great lords against your father's crown, and for unknown reasons."