"A scalding bath will soon knock that smile from your face, missy," said Mistress Greal on her way to the door. "Bring out your hottest tub, woman," said Melli. "It'll take more than boiling water to kill Maybor's daughter."

"Tawl, go back to Bren," said Jack. "I'll go to Larn on my own."

They were in the stables. The new horses were saddled and ready. Nabber was wiping the sleep from his eyes. The tavern-keeper's handsome son had just returned with the supplies Tawl had asked for, and now, just when they were ready to leave, Jack came out with this.

Every day Tawl learned more about Jack, and every day he realized he'd underestimated him once more.

Tawl shook his head. He didn't trust himself to speak just yet. He knew a genuine offer when he heard one, and he also knew the sound of fear well hidden. Jack couldn't be aware of what he was volunteering to do. Or could he? Tawl didn't want to underestimate him again.

Catching hold of Jack's arm, Tawl guided him into the dark area beneath the hayloft. "Jack, I can't let you go to Larn on your own."

"Do you know what I'm supposed to do when I get there?"

"No."

"Then you can't help me." Jack spoke calmly. "So you might as well return to Bren and try to rescue Melli "

His words sounded rational, but Tawl doubted if Jack actually believed them. He didn't. "It's not as simple as that. Larn is no place for a man to go on his own."

"You went on your own."

"Yes. And look what it did to me. I murdered the one man who could have helped us." Tawl's voice hardened as he spoke. "I can't let you go there alone, Jack. I'm coming with YOU."

A cow lowed gently from behind a wooden stall. Tawl looked at Jack He was already working on his response. Tawl knew what it would be, but didn't give him chance to say it. "Jack, you know what one of the last things Bevlin said to me was?"

Jack shook his head.

"He spoke of you and me. He said, 'There is a link between you, and it is your destiny to help him fulfill his.'" Tawl felt his emotions respond to the words. He could clearly remember Bevlin saying them; his eyes sparkling, his voice strained, his chest rising up and down with the sheer force of the prophecy. For that was what it was: a prophecy, every bit as compelling as Marod's verse. Jack was not the only one forced to live by the words of a dead man.

"But what about Melli, Tawl?" said Jack "What will become of her?"

He had said the one thing that Tawl hoped he wouldn't. It was so much easier to suppress his fears when he kept them all to himself. Now Jack had spoken them out loud, and like a floodgate opened, it let in the swell.

Tawl kicked the stall door. "I don't know what will become of Melli!" he cried. "I don't know. If I go back to Bren now, she might be dead by the time I get there. If I come with you, the risk is even greater. Don't think for one second that I'm not considering Melli. She's why I'm here today. She's why I wake up every morning and breathe. She's the only thing that matters, and right now I'd give anything to be by her side. But I can't. I've got to go to Lam and follow the whole d.a.m.n thing through to the end. Then, and only then, will Melli be truly safe." Tawl was shaking by the time he'd finished. His skin was slick with sweat.

Jack couldn't look at him. He stared at the floor instead. "I'm sorry, Tawl. I know how you feel about Melli."

"Then why are we standing around wasting time? Let's get on the horses and go." Tawl knew he sounded harsh, but he had to leave. The stables were beginning to feel like a prison. "Come on, Nabber," he called, walking over to his latest mount. "Let's get you up here."

Half an hour later they were out of the city. The sun was still up and shining, but to Tawl it made little difference what hour of the day it was. Melli was to the north and he was heading to the south. Everything else paled in comparison to that one irrefutable fact. He had to believe she would be all right until he returned, that somehow time itself would wait for him. It was the only way to keep his sanity and force his horse forward instead of back.

Kylock listened to what Lord Guthry said. The man was concerned about Highwall's lakeborne advances. The siege army had built a huge raft for their largest trebuchet and had spent most of the day launching missiles at the north wall and the palace itself. The two north towers had been damaged and the domed ceiling, which was the palace's greatest weakness, had taken several well-aimed hits.

At times like this Kylock never thought, he simply reacted. "Right, I want the carpenters up on the roof tonight. I want a wooden scaffold built over the dome. I want it strengthened with metal sheets, and I want ten score of archers up there while they work."

"As for the raft-"

"A storm's predicted tomorrow, sire. The lake will be too rough for Highwall to man it."

Kylock regarded Lord Guthry coolly. "Never, ever interrupt me," he said. Lord Guthry began to speak, but Kylock waved a silencing arm. Apologies held no interest for him. "Now, I want the raft destroyed tonight. As I understand it, the problem is the raft is beyond our firing rangetheir trebuchet can fine twice the distance of ours. So, as soon as it goes dark, I want you to send out two divers under the lake. They will carry skins of lamp oil with them and they'll set the raft alight. Is that understood?" Kylock knew it would be certain suicide for their divers. With his gaze he challenged Lord Guthry to criticize him.

The man didn't have the guts for it. He walked over to the desk and poured himself a cup of wine. Kylock made a mental note of the cup he used and other surfaces he touched.

"Is there anything else, sire?" Guthry asked after draining his cup dry.

"Yes, I heard a report today that thousands of dead fish were floating on the surface of the lake."

Lord Guthry nodded. He was a large man with a red face and graying hair. He had been the late duke's closest military advisor. "Aye. I saw that with my own eyes this morning. Mighty strange it is."

"I don't think there's anything strange about it at all," said Kylock softly. "I think Highwall's poisoning the lake."

"You could be right, sire." Lord Guthry was a man who tended toward caution. "The best thing we can do is warn everyone not to draw from the wells for a few days, just in case. It will give the poison chance to dissipate. There's no possible way that Highwall could have poisoned the entire lake. If they've done anything at all, it's to the water around the sh.o.r.e."

"Yes, you're quite right," Kylock said. He thought for a moment, then added: "I only want the warning pa.s.sed on to the military. There's no need to panic everyone in the city"

"But the women. The children-"

Kylock's hand was on the desk. With one quick movement he overturned it. The wine jug and cups went crashing to the floor. Papers floated slowly down.

Lord Guthry took a step back. The color drained from his face.

Kylock took a quick breath. His gaze flicked over the cups on the floor. No longer could he tell which one belonged to his guest. All of them would have to go. When he spoke, his voice was calm. "Just do as I say. Women and children never won a war."

Oh, how Lord Guthry wanted to speak; the words practically pushed against his lips. But he didn't say anything. He simply bowed and took his leave.

Only when the door shut behind him did Kylock see fit to remove his gloves. With the desk overturned the chamber was in disorder. It disturbed him, and he had to turn his back on the chaos of cups and papers to think clearly. More and more these days, everything had to be perfect for him to concentrate; one fleck of ash on the grate, one curtain fold amiss, and his mind would go no further than the fault.

People disturbed him more than ever, too. All of them were dirty, disgusting. Fingers that picked noses, raised gla.s.ses; hands that held s.e.xual organs to p.i.s.s with, minutes later were cupping the salt. The smell of s.e.x, sweat, and urine could be detected on every palm.

His chambers reeked of Guthry's breath. Of his last meal and his last drink and the slow decay of his teeth. Kylock could hardly bear it. Never again would he let that man enter his private domain.

Catherine was to have stopped all this. Beautiful, innocent Catherine. Only she wasn't innocent. She was a wh.o.r.e, just like every other woman. And she had died a wh.o.r.e's death, and with her went his last hope of salvation.

Or so he had thought until last night.

He had visited Melliandra out of curiosity. She was due to die the next day, and he thought it would be interesting to see fear in her eyes. And indeed it had been. She was more beautiful than he remembered, her eyes large with terror, her bottom lip trembling while she pretended to be brave. But then he had ripped the clothes from her back and everything changed.

The fire glowed on her skin, accentuating her belly's curve. Like a holy statue she was surrounded by light. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s heavy with pregnancy, her stomach swelling with the new life beneath-she was a symbol of the only thing that was good in women: their ability to renew life.

As long as Melliandra was with child, she was beyond all womanly vices. Pure like an angel, she had been cleansed by a force of nature. When she gave birth to her baby, she would give birth to him, as well. Once her womb had been purified by the pa.s.sage of new life, he would take her and be made anew. Melliandra had been sent to him as his savior, and he would use her to wash the sins of his mother away.

Catherine had failed him. His mother's death had left him strangely unmoved. Now more than ever he needed someone to sacrifice herself for him. Life was crowding too close; it teemed, it reeked, it drove him forward into oblivion. He had to start again. His very being must be freshly shaped.

Melliandra would be the vessel in which he cleansed his soul. Her child's life would be short-not even a full step in the dance of fate-but it would live long enough to do what it was conceived for to clear a sacred path for the king.

Seventeen.

If there was anything in life worse than traveling, Nabber couldn't think of it. He had a lot of time to try, too. For nearly nine weeks now he'd sat on the back of Tawl's horse, spending his mornings wishing for midday and spending his days wishing for dark. And never had there been a less profitable, less comfortable, and less interesting thing to do.

Tawl set a hard pace--especially after Toolay-and it was up every morning before dawn, riding long hard hours until noon, then half a day more until dusk. It was enough to kill a man.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they were traveling through lands exotic and unfamiliar; there would be scenery to appreciate, strange creatures to pocket, and new food to stuff in his pack. As it was, they were making their way down the barren peninsula north of Rorn, and there was nothing more interesting than ground rats and rocks. It was a sad testament to a man when all he had in his pocket was a large rodent and a chunk of limestone.

It was high time they reached Rorn. If they didn't get there soon, Nabber was quite sure he'd go under the barrel. Or was it over it? Well, one way or other there'd be a barrel in his future and he'd very probably end up dead in it. According to Swift, guilt wasn't the only thing that could be the death of a pocket. Lack of practice was another. "A pocket who loses his feel might as well hit himself over the head with a mallet, " Swift would say. "Either that or wait till the bailiffs do it for him. " Losing your feel was the one thing that kept pockets awake at night. Fear of it sent them out onto the streets in sickness, bad weather, and plague. A pocket simply couldn't function unless he had his feel.

Nabber had intended to get some practice in Toolaystay a few days, do a little pocketing, add to his dwindling contingency-but Tawl had put a stop to that. One mention of Melli in danger and the knight had turned into a demon. He'd had them out of the city in no time, galloping through the streets without as much as a please or thank-you to anyone. It had been the same ever since. If they came to a river, then they'd cross it then and there, not bothering to trek downstream and look for a bridge. If there was a ditch, they'd jump it; if there was a tavern, they'd ride right past it. When they met other travelers, Tawl would ask them if they had news of the duke's widow, and when they didn't, he just turned his horse and moved on.

He hardly talked at all. Anything that might slow him down was not tolerated. There was no washing, no cooking, no resting. There was riding and sleeping and nothing else.

At least they hadn't heard from Skaythe in the past few weeks. Tawl must have aimed a decent arrow, for there had been no sign of old Bad Leg since the night on the bluff. A fact that pleased Nabber no end: his arm was only now out of the sling and he didn't fancy having to put it back there any time soon. He'd had enough of splints, bandages, and slings to last a lifetime. The only good thing about being injured was the brandy, and they'd run out of that two days past Toolay.

Nabber looked up at the sky. There was no time like midmorning for outstaying its welcome. It had been midmorning for the better part of a day now-Nabber was sure of it.

He let his gaze drop down onto the horizon. He was sick of blue skies and eastern breezes, sick of rocks and hills and dust. Just as he was about to direct his gaze elsewhere, he spotted a speck of white in the distance. A speck of white with the ocean as its backdrop.

"Rorn!" he cried. "Tawl, it's Rorn." Tawl nodded. "We'll be there by tonight."

Nabber could hardly believe it. Over the past few days, they'd traveled through a few villages and seen a good number of people on the road, but nothing prepared him for Rorn's closeness. "None of this seems familiar, Tawl," he said.

"We've traveled close to the coast this time. When we left all those months back, we went straight up the middle. That's where most of the towns and villages are. There's little but hills this way."

"You can say that again." Nabber beamed at the back of Tawl's head. Now that he'd seen the city, he felt like jumping off the horse and running all the way to the sea. Rorn was his home; it was where his business a.s.sociates lurked, where Swift held court, and where he knew every street, alleyway, and crevice.

"We'll stop here," shouted Tawl to Jack.

Was it midday already? What had happened to midmorning? Nabber tapped on Tawl's shoulder. "I could manage a bit further before we stopped."

Tawl laughed: his first in a long time. "Either my hearing's going, or someone s.n.a.t.c.hed Nabber away in the night and replaced him with you, instead. Since when did you start volunteering to spend more time in the saddle?" As he spoke, Tawl guided his horse from the track. There was a stretch of gra.s.s on the sheltered side of the hill and he headed toward it.

"Ain't no pixies taken me," said Nabber, sliding off the horse. "Just thought I'd do my bit, that's all. It'll be the last time I do a good deed, I can tell you." Nabber sorted through the items in his sack-he was now reduced to a truly pathetic selection-and picked out a stale honeycake to munch on. "Some people ought to learn to be a bit more grateful."

Jack tied his horse to a rock and came to join him. "Any more of those in your sack?" he said, pointing at the honeycake.

"Seeing as it's you that's asking, Jack, and not a certain thankless knight who's currently unbuckling the saddle from his horse"-Nabber threw a withering look Tawl's way"then I think I can manage one." He rooted once more and came out with the last edible thing he had on him-not counting the ground rat, of course. "Here you go. Just pick off the hairs and it'll be as right as rain."

Jack brushed the cake against his leg. "So you've never been this way before?"

"No. Me and Tawl went another way last time." Nabber looked into the distance. Rorn had somehow disappeared into thin air.

"Is this way quicker?"

"There's not a lot in it," said Tawl, coming up to join them. He gave Jack a searching look. "As the crow flies, this way is shorter, but you've got the hills to contend with. The other route is longer-"

"But you've got people to contend with," finished Jack. Tawl didn't bother to contradict him. "Just being cautious, that's all."

"Cautious of what?" asked Nabber. He hated conversations that beat around bushes.

There it was again! That glance swapped between Jack and Tawl. The same one that always appeared when there was talk of danger. Nabber wasn't going to let the matter drop, though. Those two could trade looks until their eyelashes fell out for all he cared. If there were dangers, he needed to know about them. "Who exactly are you trying to avoid, Tawl? Is it Skaythe?"

Tawl shrugged. "Yes."

"But there's more, isn't there?" said Jack. "It's not really about Skaythe. It's about how he found us in the first place. About who told him where to look."

Nabber had the distinct feeling that he might as well be invisible at this point. Somehow he'd been squeezed out of his own conversation. This was between Tawl and Jack now.

Tawl turned to look at the way they'd come. Hills and more hills. "If Skaythe is alive, he'll find us again. If he's dead, they'll send someone else."

"Baralis?"

"And Larn. They're probably working together." Tawl's voice betrayed the strain of the journey. "I've seen those seers. I know what they can do. Their powers are neither superst.i.tion nor legend. They're real, and the priests know how to exploit them."

"So they'll be tracking us?"

"You, Jack. They'll be tracking you." Tawl spun around to face him. "They'll know everything by now-Marod's prophecy, what it means, the fact you're on your way. They know you're coming to destroy them, and they're not about to sit back and let that happen."

Jack's face was pale. Nabber couldn't understand why Tawl was being so hard on him.

"I'm not a fool, Tawl," he said. "Don't you think I know the risks? Or did you think I just followed you to go on a grand adventure?"

The two men had been drawing nearer with every word and they were now only a breath apart.

"Why don't you tell me why you came?" said Tawl.

"I came because I have to." A long moment pa.s.sed. "I was born for it."

Nabber shivered. At that moment the breeze from the ocean was as good as a blade. No one moved. Jack and Tawl stood opposite each other. Nabber began to understand what had pa.s.sed between the two: it was a test. Tawl had been testing Jack.

Nabber knew all about men's pride and standoffs. He knew that no man wanted to back down to another. Swift himself had said, "Back down to a man and you'll spend the rest of your days regretting it." Now Tawl and Jack had reached such an impa.s.se. If someone didn't do something, those two would be standing there until Rorn sank into the sea. And there was no way Nabber was going to let that happen. No, sir. Rorn was no good to him underwater.

Reaching in his sack, he pulled out his darning needle. Lock-breaker, weapon, gold-tester, and insect-impaler: Nabber never went anywhere without it. He cut across to the horses, smiled sweetly at Tawl's gelding, whispered, "this is for all those hours of torture," and thrust the needle into the horse's flank.

The horse reared up and began bucking. It squealed like a pig. Snapping back its head, it pulled its reins free of the rock.

The deadlock was broken. Tawl leapt forward. Jack followed after him. The horse galloped down the hillside. Nabber shouted, "I'll keep an eye on things here." He patted Jack's horse on the nose and then settled down to wait.

"His Highness has been in to see her just this morning, my lord," said mistress Greal.

"How long did he spend with her?" asked Baralis. "Less than an hour."

Baralis didn't like this one little bit. Kylock was visiting Maybor's daughter on an almost daily basis. This meant trouble. He walked across the room, thinking. With the iron shutters drawn over the windows, his chambers were as dark as night. A fistful of candles burned on the desk, but they did little except send shadows into the gloom. "Next time he calls upon the lady, I would appreciate it if you could . . . "

Mistress Greal leapt into the pause. "Keep an ear to things. "