"Remind me not to invite you to a parley again," I muttered. "You're supposed to go in unarmed."

"I'll be damned if I'll go in unarmed, Tisana!" he swore. "We have no reason to trust these people."

"These people?" I echoed with a smirk. "Don't you think it's about time we gave this guy a name? After all, you have to know who he is-you big cheeses get *235 *44*.

236.

Cheryl Brooks together from time to time and flaunt your wealth, so you must have met him before."

"I am not...certain," Rafe replied warily.

"Oh, come on!" I scoffed. "We know he's unmarried and childless! How many lords fitting that description could there be within this distance? And you know very well which direction we're headed. It won't be giving anything away to tell us that much, because we'll find out soon enough."

"Very well," he said, though I could tell it pained him. "I believe his name is...Brandon."

"Brandon," I repeated. "You see? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Leo chuckled softly, but Rafe was grumbling so loudly I don't think he heard him.

"And what else do you know about Brandon?"

"He is an outlaw!" The words burst from Rafe, as though he'd been holding them in for far too long. "He is responsible for the death of one of my servants, and if either of my boys have been harmed..."

"Yes, yes," I said consolingly. "You'll kill him in a duel or something, won't you? Though, you know, he may hold an even bigger grudge against us for defeating his soldiers and might want to kill you, too." I paused for a moment, thinking I might have inadvertently come up with a way to keep this fight between Rafe and Brandon and leave everyone else out of it. The way I saw it, it concerned them, and no one else. "Tell me something, Rafe, if we could arrange it, do you think you could beat him in a duel?"

"I have no doubt whatsoever," Rafe replied tersely.

"He is a much smaller man than I, and besides, I have justice on my side! The gods will be with me."

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"The gods do not always favor those whose cause is right," Leo pointed out. "It is not unheard of for evil to triumph over good."

"Yeah, Rafe," I chimed in, "sometimes the enemy is a bunch of badasses who don't always fight fair-and Brandon hasn't exactly been fighting fair, has he?"

Rafe stewed on that until we reached the village, and if there was a white flag flying anywhere, I certainly couldn't see it. Not so much as a bedsheet was fluttering in the breeze, and the entire village was silent, without a single soul out on the street. It was obvious that no one wanted any part of a parley.

When we arrived at the heavily barred door to the keep, there was something white on it, all right. Our message to Brandon was nailed to it with the words, "These children are mine!" scrawled across it in red ink.

At least, I hoped it was ink. If it was blood, I didn't want to know whose it was.

Rafe rode Sinjar in for a closer look, though it wasn't necessary, because I could read it myself from six yards away.

"Okay, Tisana," Rafe said quietly as he rode back to Leo and me. "Burn down the door."

I stared at him in frank disbelief. "What? And make myself a target for every archer and swordsman in the place? I don't think so!"

"You are already a target," Leo said, keeping his voice down. "Look up."

Following his gesture, I raised my eyes. Above us, the palisade was bristling with arrows.

"We wish only to speak with Lord Brandon," Leo called out to them.

*237 *44*.

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Cheryl Brooks "Lord Brandon does not wish to speak with you,"

someone called out from above. "Leave while you still have your heads."

"Well, now, there's a nice Utopian spirit!" I said as loudly as I could. "We have always been a peaceful society, with little bloodshed. Why would you change that now?"

"This has never been a true Utopia," another voice answered, this one deep and rasping. "There has always been strife amongst us, else why would each village have a force of fighting men?"

Something told me that this was Lord Brandon speaking. "Good point," I conceded. "Our society is not perfect, as this situation would demonstrate. But, tell me, are the boys unharmed?"

"You may be assured of that," came the reply.

"I can't say as much for the men you sent after us,"

Rafe put in. "They were all slain. Do we have to kill more in order to take back my children?"

"Your children?" the man scoffed. "Prove that they are yours, and I will return them to you."

Rafe was beside himself with fury. "Prove that they are mine?" he bellowed. "When you killed their nurse and stole them from their beds in my house? Stole them from the mother who bore them, and the father who sired them? It is you who should have to prove that they are yours, not I!"

"Much of what you say may be true," Brandon said.

"But not all, for they are my sons, not yours."

This remark fell like a thunderbolt among our little group. My mind raced, trying to piece together what I knew about Rafe's family. Words that Leo had spoken *238 *44*.

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several days before came back to me then. "Her heart is not steadfast," he'd said of Carnita. Oh, surely not...

What did I really know about Carnita, other than what Rafe had told me? Our paths had seldom crossed before this tragedy struck, so I knew almost nothing of her character from firsthand experience. I believed her to be beautiful, vain, and a bit shallow, but still...

"At the last meeting of the cartel," Brandon went on, "I saw these boys and knew they were my own."

"Oh, yeah?" I yelled back. "And how would you know that?"

"Judge for yourselves," Brandon replied.

Slowly, the door to the keep opened, and the two boys emerged, followed by a lean, black-haired man. I could scarcely believe my eyes.

"Rafe!" I exclaimed involuntarily. "This was your little secret? Oh, come on! Did you think I wouldn't notice? They look exactly like him!"

And they did. Rafe was big and broad-shouldered, with curly, dark red hair, while Carnita was a delicate blonde. These boys were as dark and slender as the man who stood beside them-they even had his slightly hooked patrician nose, which was as unlike Rafe's as anyone's could be. They were no more Rafe's children than my own child was.

"What lies did your wife tell you?" Brandon asked Rafe. "She told me many-chief among them that she would not conceive when we lay together-that she was barren. But she lied, for it was not she who was to blame for your lack of children, but yourself.

"I later heard that there were children, but they were kept away whenever the cartel met, and I'd never seen *239 *44*.

240.

Cheryl Brooks them. I assumed, as no doubt others did, that they were your own. But you insisted that they attend the last meeting, didn't you? That was your error. Did she try to convince you not to let them go?"

Rafe's mouth opened, but no sound came forth.

"I thought as much." Brandon's smile was grim and his eyes bleak. "Would you believe that I once loved her?" he asked wistfully. "I did. I loved her beauty and her grace, but she used me, just as she used you, Lord Rafe. She promised to leave you and come to me, but she did not." He smiled bitterly. "My...wealth was not to be compared with yours. She used me to sire her offspring, and she used you for what you could provide. I have-"

he paused there, and his mouth twisted, as though the words tasted almost too foul to utter "-waited for her all these years. Now I realize that with two fine sons to assure the succession and a husband with great wealth, she no longer had a need for me, so I have acted."

I almost felt sorry for Lord Brandon-almost. I believed that he could have gone about this a different way, could have confronted Carnita, or confronted Rafe, and no one would have had to die. All it would have taken would have been a panel of impartial observers, for no one looking at them all together could even begin to doubt whose children they truly were.

Then I realized that Rafe would never have given up his sons without a fight, so someone still might have died as a result of any judgment against him. His children meant a great deal to him, for their very existence promised him the immortality which comes from fathering children, leaving them the legacy of his wealth, his name, and his lands.

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But they were obviously not his, and if Carnita had been questioned, given what Lord Brandon had told us, I doubted that her protests of innocence would have carried much weight. In fact, she'd be lucky if she came out of it alive, which was, perhaps, the reason she had kept her secret and hadn't left Rafe to go to Brandon's village. I doubted that any man would ever trust her again, for, having been unfaithful to one husband, it was very likely that she might betray another. The fact that both of her children appeared to have been fathered by the same man spoke of no other reason than a lack of options, though perhaps she had cared for Brandon a little. Leo hadn't been kidding when he'd remarked that her heart was not steadfast.

Still, I found it difficult to believe that Lord Brandon's heart was as steadfast as he claimed. There were too many other available women, even in this small village.

If he was capable of fathering Carnita's children, then he could just as easily have taken a different wife and had more of his own. There was something else going on here-something that no one was admitting to.

Had Brandon hoped to lure Rafe outside his realm and have him killed? The three men we had fought seemed evidence enough of that. They had been trying to kill us, not frighten us away, and they had all gone straight for Rafe, at least initially. Brandon must have wanted Rafe dead and Carnita free to come to him. He still loved her, or at least wanted her-or Rafe's wealth.

He was lying.

"Lord Brandon," I said loudly, "why take these boys, who are strangers to you? Are you now incapable of fathering children-or of finding another woman to take *241 *45*.

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Cheryl Brooks to wife? You have taken them from the only home they have ever known. Do you expect them to react to this outrage with love and devotion?"

"They will adjust," he replied, ignoring my earlier question.

"I believe we should ask the boys what they would wish," Leo said evenly. "They should have a choice."

"They have no say in the matter!" Brandon exploded.

"I am their father!"

"But Carnita is their mother," I returned, "and has an equal claim to them." I stared at him intently. No, the boys weren't the only things he wanted-perhaps, not even the most important. "You still want her, don't you? When you saw these boys, you knew you still had a chance. You hoped to lure Rafe out and kill him, or else hold Carnita's children hostage until she relented and came to you."

I may have gone too far, for Brandon's fists were clenched, as well as his teeth, and he was drawing his sword. I knew I had to act quickly, or all was lost. With a swift, but intense gaze, I heated the sword in Brandon's hand to an uncomfortable temperature. Unfortunately, the doors to the keep stood open behind him, and he had only to slip back inside with the boys. Dropping his red-hot sword, he began to make for the door, so I did as Rafe had asked initially and ignited it.

Unable to return to the keep and unable to wield his sword, Brandon made a grab for the boys, missing them entirely, because Rafe had called to them, and they came running. Brandon was quick to pursue them, but not quick enough, for I did something then that I'd sworn I would never do-I set him on fire. It was only his cloak, *242 *45*.

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but it was enough to slow him down. Craynolt rose to the occasion and flew at Brandon with his talons spread wide. Brandon had the presence of mind to scream at his archers not to fire at us for fear of hitting the boys, which at least proved that he cared for their safety and said a great deal for his motives.

With all these diversions, the boys had time to scramble aboard our extra horses, and we set off at a gallop through the slushy snow, making for the forest. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see the pursuit come storming through the burning gates-and it was a rather larger army than we'd faced before, at least twenty or so mounted men, all brandishing swords or bows. I did a few quick, mental calculations and decided that there was simply no way we were going to be able to elude them for long. Our horses were rested, but not fresh, and we now had the boys to consider. What Rafe or Leo were thinking, I couldn't have said, but Gerald was screaming at me from inside my cloak.

"Can't this bloody horse go any faster?" he squealed, for as I might have expected, the other horses were outrunning Morgana, and we were bringing up the rear.

"We're gonna get creamed!"

"Shut up, Gerald!" I shot back at him. "Come up with a plan, and do it quick! I'm fresh out of ideas!"

"Shoot fire at them!" he responded immediately.

"Lots and lots of fireballs! I've seen you do it, Tisana, so I know you can!"

"I don't know how long I can keep it up, though," I replied. "And I don't want to kill anyone!"

"Yes, but they don't know that!" Gerald reminded me. "Just scare the pants off them!"

*243 *45*.

244.

Cheryl Brooks With a quick word to Morgana to please not make any sudden turns, I looked back over my shoulder again and fired.

The first shot exploded on the ground and took out three of them at once. It was a desperate measure, but it still made me sick to think about it-and the possible repercussions weren't much better. "Oh, God, Gerald, they're gonna burn me at the stake for this!"

"Are you kidding?" Gerald said earnestly. "And risk having you blast them to bits? No way! Keep going, Tisana! You're doing great!"

I launched another attack, this time bringing down the four lead horsemen who rode abreast of each other.

Pretty soon, the trees would become so dense that they would be riding single file, and I wouldn't be able to get many of them at a time, so I knew I had to get them as quickly as I could. I sent another round at them, noting that Craynolt had abandoned his attack on Brandon and was now swooping in and flying right into the faces of the men who were in hot pursuit.

I kept firing, but, unfortunately, I didn't appear to be stopping them well enough, because they were still gaining on us.

"Hit a tree!" Gerald suggested helpfully. "Make one fall down in front of them!"

"I don't think I can do that, Gerald!"

"Oh, yes, you can!" he assured me. "Come on, Tisana! Go for it!"

Picking a random tree to blast while looking over your shoulder from the back of a horse while galloping through the forest isn't as easy as it sounds, but I gave it a try, anyway, actually managing to hit a branch, which *244 *45*.