It was more obvious still once they reached the marketplace that sprawled in a semicircle around the harbor with its docks and warehouses. Zacharias heard a dozen languages thrown one upon the other and melding together into a babble, but he never heard one clear Wendish word out of that stew. Here, in the port of Sordaia, the north traded with the south but they had journeyed so far into the east that the west, their own land, seemed only a tale told to children. Ships unloaded cloth and spices and precious jade trinkets for the rich beghs of the grasslands, those who cared to trade rather than rob. Timber floated down the river from the northern forests lay stacked, ready for loading, beside fenced yards heaped with fox and bear furs and soft marten pelts. Open sheds sheltered amphorae of grain destined to feed the great city where the Arethousan emperors reigned supreme over their country of heretics.

The slave market was always open.

Even Robert stopped to stare at a line of fair-skinned, redheaded, and entirely naked young women who, roped together, were prodded up onto a platform so buyers could examine them. Jinna merchants with their hair covered, Hessi women with their faces veiled, Arethousan eunuchs with beardless chins, and other folk whose faces and apparel Zacharias did not recognize fondled legs for strength and breasts for firmness, tapped teeth, and studied the lines of palms.

'Must we watch?" demanded Zacharias, sweating heavily, seeing the tears on their faces as their bodies were sold away to new masters. If he stood here any longer, he would have to recall the day it had happened to him. "They don't need onlookers staring at them in their misery!"

They moved on to the wharves where two ships were just mooring as the noon sun began its fall westward. The ships that had ferried Sanglant's army here were already taking on cargo, eager to depart. Robert and Wolfhere went to find the ship-master who had sailed with Sanglant, since the man knew Sordaia well and had promised to recommend honest merchants. Zacharias did not follow them at once, his attention caught by the interplay between a groom and the magnificent gray stallion the man was trying to coax down the gangplank of a newly arrived merchant ship. A step forward was followed by a nervous shy back, while meanwhile a traveler waited impatiently on the deck, eager to disembark but impeded by the skittish horse. The man hopped aside to avoid being kicked.

A westerner, Zacharias thought, noting the light cloak and broad-brimmed hat worn by the waiting traveler. Although not a particularly tall man, his arrogant stance marked him as a person of noble birth, and his robes and the carved ebony staff he leaned on suggested a man of clerical vocation. He had a servant with him, a stocky, stoop-shouldered fellow whose torso was slung about with rolled-up bundles and a small sealed wooden chest, almost too much for a single person to carry. The groom coaxed the stallion forward again. It took a step, snorted, and shied back.

That was enough for the westerner. He made some comment to the groom, and the man, sweating profusely, bobbed his head as though a thousand apologies would not suffice and reined the stallion aside with an effort, the horse sidestepping and tossing its head, restless and unhappy. It was a beautiful beast, not unlike Prince Sanglant in its fierce, masculine beauty, alive to the touch of the wind and the pitch of the ship on the waters as it rubbed up against the pilings. Others had come to watch; such superb creatures were not seen every day. No doubt it was for this reason that women admired Prince Sanglant so very much.

A person bumped into him; it was the heavyset servant from the ship clearing a way through the gathered crowd for his master.

Dressed in clerical robes, the nobleman passed next to Zacharias, the brim of his hat tilted in such a way that the frater got a look at his face: a dark-haired man, clean-shaven like a churchman, with a pursed, judgmental mouth. His gaze swept the crowd, skipping past Zacharias as he moved briskly after his servant.

Was there something familiar about him? Or was it only that any westerner looked familiar in a land filled with barbarians?

The press of the crowd had cut him off from Wolfhere and Robert. He was alone. Ai, God, it was in a place like this that he had been taken by slavers. The shaking hit so suddenly that he thought his feet would drop out from under him. His throat closed tightly and he couldn't draw breath. He swayed, dizzy, and his palms became clammy.

No one else was troubled by the shaking ground. It was only him. Frantically, he plunged through the crowd and, glancing beyond the turbaned heads of Arethousan market-wives and the red caps and ponytails of Jinna merchants, saw Wolfhere pushing his way through the crowd. Robert was nowhere in sight.

Zacharias raised a trembling hand, meaning to call out, but no words came.

Wolfhere's expression changed as abruptly as an avalanche alters the side of a hill. His eyes widened in surprise, eyebrows lifting. His seamed face opened with a glimpse of panic, or joy, before closing tight into a stony mask as he turned, saw Zacharias, and shoved through the crowd toward him.

Zacharias' heart was pounding so hard he was out of breath. He could not fight against the crowd as it shoved him away from Wolf-here. The stallion trumpeted in fury and fear, and he was half spun about by the force of a man knocking into him in time to see the horse break away from the hapless groom. With a graceful leap, the stallion plunged down the gangplank and landed in the midst of the crowd, trampling a hapless bystander. People screamed and scattered.

Zacharias yelped out loud, too terrified to move. The crowd surged around him as people fought to get out of the way of the frenzied horse, now bucking and kicking like a demon.

'Fool of a groom!" Wolfhere, emerging from the mob, grabbed hold of Zacharias' wrist. "He should have waited until evening and peace- ' The next word lodged in his throat. Only a croak came out. "God help us!"

Screaming, the stallion reared. It had cleared the space around it, although a dozen people lay on the ground, some stirring and crawling away, others lying motionless where they had fallen. Blood smeared the stones. The groom was shouting to his fellows on the ship, and they had brought rope, but they didn't leap into the fray quickly enough.

Because one bold soul strode forward to confront the gray stallion. One person was eager to test herself against the wild creature that now terrorized the docks. One small, stubborn, and recklessly foolhardy child too spoiled to understand the meaning of caution or the strength of an animal many times her size and vastly more powerful.

'Blessing!" Wolfhere was trapped behind a brace of brawny sailors loudly laying bets on whether the girl would go down under the horse's hooves.

'Brother Lupus!" cried a voice triumphantly from behind Zacha-rias. "I have tracked you down at last!"

I O Sanglant's surprise, the Arethousan governor did not greet her visitors at the marble portico to the governor's palace house but made them wait in the sun without offering them even the shade provided by the colonnade that ran along the forecourt. A smooth-cheeked eunuch, declared-in Arethousan-that he had to properly learn their names and titles before they could be announced to the Most Exalted Lady Eudokia.

'We're being snubbed," murmured Sapientia, her skin flushed either from heat or annoyance. "Treated as if we're impoverished supplicants! Made to stand out in the sun like commoners! The governor should have met us personally and escorted us in!" *

'Hush." In truth Sanglant did not know what to make of the eunuch's supercilious attitude, looking them over as though they were a prize lot of horses brought in for the master of the house to consider buying. Sapientia quieted, still fuming. "Heribert, I pray you, do what you can."

While Heribert haggled with the eunuch in Arethousan, Sanglant glanced at the other companions he had chosen to accompany him: Lady Bertha, because she had insisted on coming, Captain Istvan because he had traveled to Arethousan towns before, three young lords who had the sense to remain silent, Hathui, and twenty of his most levelheaded soldiers. All sweated profusely. It was nearing midday, when the sun's hammer seemed doubly strong. Bertha winked at him. She alone seemed to be enjoying herself.

No doubt the heat accounted for Heribert's rising anger as he and the eunuch, looking cool in his linen robe and jeweled slippers, descended into a snappish disagreement. It ended when the eunuch retreated through the doors.

'What were you arguing about?" Sanglant asked when Heribert returned to him.

'The title by which you and Princess Sapientia will be introduced to the governor, my lord prince. The chamberlain insisted that the word meaning 'lord' and 'lady' will do, a title I refused to accept. We struck a bargain. The soldiers will remain outside, in decent shade, within shouting distance, and you and Her Highness shall be referred to as 'princeps.''

'Ah."

'Do not trust the Arethousans, my lord prince. They are devious, greedy, and will flatter you while they steal your purse. Rank means everything to them. Bargain where you must, but do not give way in any matter that will make you seem low in their eyes."

'Why do we accept these insults?" demanded Sapientia. "We should just leave!"

'We'll need the assistance of the governor to fully equip ourselves for a trip into the grasslands," said Sanglant, rather tired of having to point this out to Sapientia once again. "We'll need guides as well."

'Don't we have Bulkezu for a guide?" she retorted. "Is that not why you spared his life?"

'I would not put my trust in him alone, but I promise you, Sister, he will serve us in the end. As for the governor, we must travel as diplomatically as we can. Better we leave no trouble in our wake that we must deal with on our way back."

The heavy doors opened silently, hauled back by unseen figures, and the eunuch reappeared, his jade-green robes swirling about his legs as he indicated that they could follow him. Once within the palace, the heat became bearable. Marble floors graced the colonnades. The palace had the appearance of great wealth considering its location in a frontier trading town. They passed several courtyards with fountains running merrily and glimpsed chambers fitted with gold-and-ivory ornamentation and jewel-studded divans. Finally, they entered a shaded arbor overgrown by thick grapevines and screened off by cunningly worked lattices. A dozen soldiers stood at guard, holding spears. A trio of eunuchs whispered in one shadowy corner beside a table laden with wine and fruit. Two slaves worked fans on either side of a couch, whose occupant reclined at leisure, eyeing them as though they were toads got in where they did not belong. She was past the prime of life, with gray showing in her elaborate coiffure and two coarse black hairs growing out of her chin, but the precious rings on her stubby fingers and the gleam of gold weighing heavily at her neck indicated her rank. A simple gold circlet crowned her head.

Sanglant could get no good idea of her height or shape because of the light blanket draped over her form. For all he knew, she could have been a lamia, hiding a serpent's body where her legs were supposed to be. Certainly she had no welcoming smile in her expression, nor did her tiny molelike eyes examine him with interest, only with contempt.

Two rickety stools had been placed before her, the kind of seat a stable boy might sit on while milking his cows. "Are we meant to sit on those?" hissed Sapientia. "Surely there is another couch," said Sanglant to Heribert before he turned to the eunuch who had led him in. He knew how to edge his smile into a threat. He knew how to step forward in a manner that was not aggressive but made best use of his size. He knew how to loom. "I cannot sit on such a humble seat, but I can stand over my dear cousin, the Exalted Lady Eudokia, if need be."

Of course, it did not do for him to seem so large and threatening and the governor to seem an invalid in his presence. A pair of servants lugged in a second couch and set it down at a discreet distance from the governor.

Sapientia sat first, at the head. Sanglant waited until Bertha and Captain Istvan took the stools, on either side, and the others ranged behind him in an orderly half circle appropriate to their respective stations before seating himself at the foot of the couch. It was so low that he had to stretch out his long legs, an obstacle for the eunuchs hurrying forward to offer wine.

Despite his thirst, he could barely drink the noxious combination that tasted like pitch, resin, and plaster mixed into a nasty brew. Abruptly, the governor spoke. She had a remarkably mellow voice, quite at odds with the unpleasant lineaments of her face, and it was impossible to tell from her tone what manner of words she uttered. Heribert flushed, hot color in his cheeks.

'So speaks the Most Exalted Lady, Eudokia," he said, stalwartly forcing a placid expression onto his face. " 'I am duty bound to give a courteous reception to those of noble blood who come to my province. I know you are the daughter of Princess Sophia, my cousin, who was exiled to the barbarian kingdoms because of her sins. Yet how can I entertain in good faith the children of a master who has most impiously invaded lands in Aosta long sworn to serve the Most Just and Holy Emperor of Arethousa, my kinsman? This hostile invader has captured the holy city of Darre which rightfully belongs to those of us who profess the true faith. He has forced my countryfolk into exile. He has burned cities who pledge their faith to the Most Just and Holy Emperor, he has massacred loyal citizens. He sends his heretic priests to roam in our westernmost province of Dalmiaka, plotting what manner of evil and mischief I cannot guess.'"

Sapientia had got so red that she looked fit to swoon, but Sanglant laughed curtly, laying a steadying hand on her arm. "If that is to be our welcome, Heribert, then I pray you let her exalted ladyship know our response." A eunuch bowed before him, offering him more wine, but he waved him away. "My father did not invade Aosta. The embattled citizens begged him to save them from murderers and bandits. The rightful queen was assaulted in her own palace by usurpers, so it came to my father to restore to her what had been stolen from her by rebels and traitors. Your most exalted emperor would have done the same thing to lords who had sworn fealty to him and then revolted against him. Furthermore, it is well known that all of Aosta once knelt before the Emperor Taillefer, whose greatness is known even into the east. It is only in later years that it came under the hand of the east. The folk of the south speak the same language as those of the north. They belong as one kingdom, not sundered into many."

The Most Exalted Lady Eudokia raised her thick eyebrows. She had rouge-reddened cheeks, not enough to disguise her age, but her hands were as soft and white as a girl's, as though she had done nothing more strenuous in her life than dip them in rose-scented baths.

'With what force of ships will your master defend the south?" she asked through Heribert. "Last year he rode south from Darre with his wife and all his army, his Wendish and his Varrens, with Aostans and Karronish, yet he could not take one small city. His soldiers are gluttons and drunks. They run from mice. What will they do when my cousin the Most Just and Holy Emperor sends troops against your master to take back what he has stolen?"

'Well, then, you shall see the worth of Wendish soldiers, will you not? I have fully eight hundreds of good, tried soldiers at my back, encamped outside the city. We will willingly take the field against your own troops if you are impatient to test our strength."

She gestured to her servants, who hurried forward with a platter of peeled grapes. She chose among them, popping the most succulent into her mouth. As she chewed, her cunning gaze flicked from San-giant to Sapientia and back again. No wind stirred the arbor except that created by the slaves, who were dripping with sweat. The heat was bearable mostly because he was not moving. Oddly enough, his irritation with his host's arrogance made him patient, although Sapientia shifted restlessly, gulping at the wine and then wincing at its wicked bite.

'Let me speak bluntly." Lady Eudokia waited for Heribert to translate before she went on. "Why are you here? If you had wanted another princess for your master, you would have traveled to Are-thousa, for it is only the Most Just and Holy Emperor who can dispose of his cousins and sisters and daughters. In any case, it is well known that your master married the Aostan widow. I have not heard that your people follow the idolatrous Jinna custom of marrying more than one spouse at a time, or is it possible that you are still as barbaric as the Ungrians?"

Captain Istvan snorted audibly, but said nothing.

'Perhaps it is you who wish a princess for your own bed," she went on, confronting Sanglant with her gaze but still refusing to use his name or dignify him with any kind of title.

'I am already married," he said sweetly, "or else surely I would ask for your hand in marriage, Lady Eudokia."

Was that amusement or anger that made her lips twitch? She beckoned for the servant and ate another dozen grapes before indicating that the man should offer the platter to her guests. Sapientia ate* eagerly, but Sanglant waved him away.

'Then what brings you here? Have you come to embrace the true faith and cast aside the apostate heresy that the Dariyan clerics preach?"

'Outrageous!" exclaimed Sapientia, a grape poised before her lips. "Do you not suppose," Sanglant murmured, "that there stand among the servants one who can understand Wendish? Do not be incautious."

'Oh!" She studied the attendant servants as if she could puzzle out their linguistic skills simply by the cut of their faces. "How do I respond, my lord prince?" asked Heribert. "Say this, Heribert." Battling with wits he found himself nervous, palms damp. He smoothed his tunic over his thighs, the movement draining off a sliver of his tension, and continued. "Most Exalted Lady Eudokia. What do you know of sorcery?"

Sapientia turned to him, startled, and grasped his wrist, but Eudokia, amazingly, chuckled. She clapped her plump hands. A eunuch bowed before her while she whispered into his ear. He left the arbor by a side door.

They waited in silence while the servants brought around grapes, figs, and sliced apples, still moist. Sanglant touched nothing. A sense of foreboding crept along his spine like the brush of venomous fingers. He shifted, marking Lady Bertha and seeing that she, too, sat erect, watchful, ready, as did Captain Istvan. The Eagle, Hathui, dipped her chin to show that she was alert. Sapientia nibbled anxiously on grapes, frowning between bites.

The eunuchs returned. One waited in the corner while the other knelt before Lady Eudokia, pale golden robes rustling into folds around him. He held a lidded ceramic pot. Lady Eudokia began to hum, slipping sideways into a wordless chant, as she removed the lid and slowly lowered her hand into the pot. Was that a bead of sweat on the eunuch's face, trickling alongside his nose? Probably it was only the heat.

'God Above!" whispered Sapientia, hand tightening on Sanglant's wrist as Lady Eudokia removed her hand from the pot.

A banded asp twisted upward to encircle her wrist. It reared its head back, hood flaring, and struck the hapless eunuch on the forearm.

Sapientia gasped. One of the lordlings shrieked. The pot slipped from the servant's hands and shattered on the floor, shards scattering everywhere. He cried out, choking, as he slapped a hand over the bite, but already the flesh swelled horribly, a red mortification creeping onto the offended hand. Lady Bertha and Captain Istvan leaped to their feet, but Sanglant raised a hand to caution them, and they paused with knives half drawn, unwilling to sit down again but respecting Sanglant's command.

One of the other eunuchs hurried over with an uncovered pot into which Lady Eudokia gently deposited the writhing snake. He clapped a lid over it and placed the pot on the floor beside the stricken man, who was gasping for breath as a drop of blood squeezed out of his right eye. The noise of his labored breathing and his whimpering moans was the only sound in the arbor except for the wheeze of the bellows worked by the slaves. The sleeve of his robe, covering the bitten arm, had gone tight because of swelling flesh.

'Basil." The green-robed eunuch padded forward and offered Lady Eudokia a gold cup and a shallow bowl filled with fragrant herbs. She took hold of the stem in her right hand and with her left sprinkled crushed herbs into the cup while muttering all the while words whose meaning Sanglant did not understand.

'Beroush. Beroush... keddish gedoul." She switched into the familiar cadences of Arethousan, and Heribert bent down to whisper a translation.

'I invoke and beseech you, in the name of the seven blessed angels, in the name of the blessed Daisan who rebuked the poisonous serpents, let this become a cup of healing and cleansing, let the one who drinks from it be cured of poison. I adjure you, holy one, nameless one. Quickly! Quickly!'"

The stricken eunuch collapsed onto his back, clawing at his throat as beads of blood dripped out of the side of his mouth. His arm had grown to monstrous proportions, swollen all the way to the shoulder, and his face, too, had begun to swell. Sanglant had never seen poison work so fast.

Basil knelt beside his fellow eunuch and captured his head between his hands, prying his teeth open so Lady Eudokia could let droplets fall into the man's mouth. He thrashed weakly, fading, as blood leaked from his eyes like tears. Stilled, and went limp.

'He's dead," whispered Sapientia.

'No," said Sanglant. "He is still breathing."

Lady Eudokia poured the rest of the wine into her servant's slack mouth, although most of it slipped down his cheeks to stream away along the cracks in the flagstones. Already his face looked less swollen, and the wine had washed away the last of the blood, red drowning red.

'Sorcery," said Lady Bertha. "Look at his hand."

'Sorcery," said Lady Eudokia, although it wasn't clear if she were responding to Bertha's comment. Heribert kept up a running translation. "I am familiar with sorcery, son of Henry. It runs in the blood of the women of my house, but we do not spend it unwisely, because sorcery exacts other costs, not so evident to you now but dangerous just the same. Is it sorcery you have come for?"

'You are not alone in commanding sorcery, Most Exalted Lady. Not every person who wields such powers uses them wisely, or well, or to the advantage of humankind."

'An odd notion, Prince Sanglant. I use sorcery to the advantage of my family. Why should I use it to benefit others, who might be my enemies? Have you come to seek help from me against your barbarian magi? I will not interfere in quarrels that are beneath my notice." "What if this one is not beneath your notice? Sorcery can be harnessed in many ways. Its effects can cause tremors far beyond its point of origin. Do you know of the ones we call the mathematici, who weave threads of starlight into crowns formed of stone?"

Her color changed. Like the man bitten by the snake, her skin flushed and a tremor passed through her body. She dropped the cup, which landed squarely on the body of the prone eunuch before rolling off his chest to ring as it struck stone. The bitten eunuch groaned and sat up, rubbing his arm.

A door opened and closed, and a young eunuch in gold robes hurried in to whisper a message into Basil's ear. Basil, in turn, bent down to speak to the lady. Her color restored, she nodded and spoke a command.

'Go, now." Basil's green robes flared as he stepped away from the couch. "A suite has been made ready. You can retire there. We will call you when it is time to dine." "But-" Sapientia rose.

'Nay, Sister, let us do as we are bid. The army should be safely settled in by now, with a market close at hand. We must be patient." "It could be a trap!" she muttered.

He bent close, to whisper in her ear. "I think we can fight our way free of a palace protected by slippered eunuchs."

'Bayan never insulted the worth of the Arethousan legions. He fought them once. Have you?"

Stung, Sanglant turned away from her and walked after the eunuch. The others followed obediently, murmuring together.

Basil showed them into two adjoining rooms which opened onto a porch looking over a sere garden. A fountain burbled merrily out in the sun. The spray made rainbows, quickly wicked away. A bed of rosemary was the only ornament; other plots of earth lay barren.

Within the suite a small group of attendants loitered and with gestures offered to bathe their hands and feet, to set up a chessboard, to settle them on divans piled with pillows so that they could rest. Silken tapestries graced the walls, depicting scenes of elaborate feasts and girls picking flowers.

'What do you make of it?" Heribert asked.

'My sister, or these handsome rooms?"

Heribert raised an eyebrow, wickedly, but shook his head. "Which man was bitten by the snake?" he asked. "Nay, I refer to the Most Exalted Lady Eudokia."

'I expect that the walls, and the servants, have ears. If I were the master of this house, I would make sure that at least one among these attendants could speak Wendish."

He sat down on one of the couches, stretching out amongst the pillows, yawning. All that sun, riding up to the palace, had made him tired, and he did not plot intrigue well when he was tired. It was easier to fight.

He dozed fitfully, waking frequently while around him his retinue talked quietly among themselves or napped. Breschius played chess with Lady Bertha. Sapientia snored softly. Flashes of dream brightened and faded as he twisted in and out of sleep. Liath weaving light among standing stones. Severed threads curling and writhing like beheaded snakes, like the serpent winding its way up Eudokia's wrist. Bells. An arrow flowering into flame. Bayan, dead, and Sapientia walking in chains, a prisoner. Who had done this to her?

He started awake, troubled and restless, and this time got to his feet. Walking outside, he staggered when he hit the sunlight; in the shady arbor, he had forgotten its strength. Hathui strolled up beside him.

'By the fountain we are surely safe from listening ears, my lord prince."

The fountain's spray beckoned. He sat on the lip of the fountain and let the cooling mist float over him, beads collecting on his neck, sliding under the heavy torque, moistening his lips and hands. Hathui followed, shading her eyes with an arm. The rest of them prudently waited in the shade, watching him-or still sleeping away the heat of the day.

'Do you think she knows of the Seven Sleepers?" Hathui asked once she stood within the corona of the fountain's noisy spray. "Or is in league with them?"

'I don't know. The church condemned the mathematici a hundred years ago. I do not know if the Arethousan patriarch did the same.

Perhaps Brother Breschius knows. I suppose it will be difficult to tease out the truth."

'Do you think the asp was really poisonous?"

He laughed. "It seemed poisonous enough to me. Just as well I left my daughter back at the fort for safekeeping, since she would insist on handling the serpent herself. The question we must ask is whether it was magic, or herb-craft, that saved the eunuch. We cannot trust the Arethousans, nor should we try to bring them into affairs they are better left out of. If it's true that my father wars against their agents and vassals in southern Aosta, then they will either seek to hinder us in order to harm him, or they will help us hoping to weaken him."

'You would rather trust to barbarians and pagans, my lord prince? To these Kerayit that Brother Breschius speaks of?"

'They have less to gain whether we succeed or fail, do they not?"

'Yet how do we find them?"