It's good and warm under the tick and we don't have to get out of bed yet, she thought, putting one hand under her cheek.

She could hear the boards squeak and the pad of feet over their heads; watch was just changing; It'll still be dark, except for the part of the sky that's sort of glowing silver, where the sun will come up. The wind always dropped this early so the Zingas Vetri wasn't making much way against the current. The hull whispered to her through the floor and the pillow and the bones of her hand. Like she's saying "Going, going, I'm going." Shift.

Scrape. I like that. I feel funny. Full, kind of.

She dozed, then snapped awake when she felt a trickle of moisture on her leg. I haven't wet the bed since I was a baby!

she thought indignantly. But it didn't feel like... She put a hand down to feel, then looked at her hand. Red. It was red. She reached down again, pressed herself, brought the hand out; this time the whole palm was covered."Khyd-hird!" She scrambled up and threw herself at the door of the cabin, crying with terror. The wood boomed under her fists and feet, and the feel of blood suddenly gushing down her legs lent the strength of panic. "Khyd-hird!" Francosz tumbled out of the featherbed behind her, asking what was wrong.

She burst through, staggering as the latch opened, to see Shkai'ra half out of bed with her sword already unsheathed, Megan up and reaching for her knives. "I'm bleeding!" she cried.

"I'm bleeding! Am I going to die? I'm all bloody. I... I..."

Shkai'ra took her by the shoulders and shook her. "Hush.

Where are you hurt? Tell me. "

"I... between... between..." Sova sobbed and looked at her shift that had red patches on it. "Between my legs. I'm all bloody between my legs."

Shkai'ra stopped and looked at her. "Between your legs," she said. "Girl, you've just become a woman." She snorted. "Put a clout on, get washed up."

Sova looked at her, bewildered. "A, a woman? But I'm bleeding."

The Kommanza stopped in the act of sheathing her sword and turned up the light; lamplight rippled on the pale skin of her shoulders and arms. She turned, blinking in bewilderment.

"Look, kyd, I told you-" She stopped, turned to Megan. "You told me they had some strange customs, kh'eeredo, but-"

Megan put her knives down and padded over. "She's a Thane, Shkai'ra. They don't think women should know where babies come from until they have them. The Lady's truth, I'm not exaggerating. She doesn't know what's happening."

"Right. You mean I have to explain to the brat? Oh, sheepshit.

Look," Shkai'ra said to the girl. "It'll happen every month. You'll bleed. Every woman does, until they're past their middle years. I do it, Megan does-did it, you're not sick. You're not wounded, you're not sick, you're not going to die. It means that you canbear, so you have to be careful when you fuck or you'll get pregnant."

Sova stood looking at her, her mouth open, her bloodied hand still held out. "But, but... This happens to you?" Behind her, Francosz snorted, "Girl's stuff." And went back to bed.

Shkai'ra settled back onto the bunk, glancing out the window.

"Glitch take it, false dawn. Not much use going back to sleep."

Sova stood, with tears in her eyes. "Please," she whispered.

Megan sighed and flopped down on the bed behind Shkai'ra.

"I don't think you've really grasped the extent of the ignorance you're dealing with, akribhan, ' she said. Her face remained calm, but a hint of malicious amusement flickered in the depths of her eyes. "You were the one who wanted to bring them along.

They're your apprentices, so..."

The Kommanza groaned and reached out to guide Sova to her bunk. "Wait a minute, sit on this." She handed the girl a washcloth, rose and soaked another. "Right, pull up your shift and wipe yourself off with this one." Sova took the cloth, cringing. Megan studied the boards of the ceiling as if she'd never seen them before.

Cursing under her breath, Shkai'ra rummaged through a chest of gear set into the wall. "Sheepshit, where...bowstrings, wax, whetstone, armor-lacquer, birthherb, fuck it, sponges-"

She looked over her shoulder; Sova blushed furiously and covered herself with the cloth. "No, get it all or you'll smell."

Shkai'ra picked up a sponge, drew her knife from the weapons belt and began to trim it, explaining the use of the sponge with a few blunt words. "You're smaller and you'll have a light flow for the first year or so, so we'll cut this down..." She paused to consider her handiwork. "Good. Now, do you do it or do you want me to?"

Wide-eyed, Sova snatched at the sponge and waited. "Aren't you... aren't you going to turn around?" she stammered. Shkai'ra threw up her hands in bafflement. Megan looked intently at hernails.

"You can make do with one. You take it out when it's soaked, every three hours or so at first; clean it in cold water-every time, hear me? Leave it and you get sick, it rots. Two is better.

That way you'll be able to clean the one and wear the other. It shouldn't last more than six or seven days, if it does tell me. You may get pains in your belly; the best cure's hard exercise, or so they always told me. And-" She turned; Sova was standing with the stained and wadded shift clutched before her. "No problems?"

A shake of the head.

"You're sure? Good." She sighed again. "Here's a clean shift.

Here's the other sponge." Shkai'ra paused, tossing a leather pouch up and down in one palm. "Look, you're a virgin, nia?"

"Yes!" Sova whispered, struggling gratefully into the shift; it was an old shirt of Shkai'ra's, and hung past her knees.

"Oh, well, then you won't need this." She tossed the bag one more time. "Even on your safe days, there's a risk, so you make a tea of this and drink it afterwards to make sure it doesn't catch..." She looked into blank bewilderment, and her confidence faltered. "You don't know about safe days?" A shake of the girl's head. "Baiwun hammer me flat, you know about fucking, don't you? I mean, you've seen grown-ups doing it?"

"It's... it's a bad word," Sova said, stress taking years off her voice. "One of the gardeners used it, but Mama slapped me when I asked her what it meant."

Shkai'ra slumped back to the bunk and gently hammered the heels of her hands on her temples. "Kh'eeredo!" she said. "Help!"

Megan took pity on her. "Sova, people say 'fucking' when they mean having sex with someone, making love." She narrowed her eyes at Shkai'ra. "Of course you only have to worry about getting pregnant if you have sex with a man. Thanes think that even pleasing yourself with your hand is wrong."Sova gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, I'd never do that!" Megan shook her head thoughtfully.

"Why not? Anyway, the bleeding is a sign that your body is ready to carry a child. Your eggs are ripening."

"Like a chicken?" Sova sat down with a thump. Francosz stuck his head in the door.

"What's like a chicken?" he asked. Megan started laughing and threw herself back on the pillows.

"Shkai'ra, I'll take turns with you, but what he knows he probably learned whispered behind the barn and it's likely wrong. You'll have to tell him too!"

"Tell me what?" Francosz said.

"Out!" Shkai'ra said, pushing him with the flat of a hand.

Over one shoulder. "All right, I'll see to it." Megan climbed out of the bunk and knelt by Sova, putting a hand on her shoulder. The girl jumped and froze.

Megan sighed. Is she never going to cease being afraid of me ? "Welcome to womanhood, little sister." The Zak hugged her formally, touched the top of her head and her chin. "This is the point where you really start growing up."

Sova looked at her wide-eyed. "Does... does this happen to you, too?" Then flinched as if expecting to get hit. Megan settled back on her heels.

"It used to. I had a baby too big for me and now I don't bleed anymore, and I can't have children." She looked away. "That wont happen to you, Sovee."

Sova stared at her, wide-eyed. "Why did you call me that?

How did you know?" She edged backward an inch. Megan blinked, then got up and sat down at the table.

"It's Thanish, isn't it? Means little one? Nothing magical about it." Sova stared, then nodded. I understand, I think. Butwhy are you being nice to me?

The murmuring outside the door stopped and Shkai'ra walked back through the door, shaking her head.

"Knows what goes where and nothing else," she said dazedly.

"This is strange."

F'TALEZON, THE DRAGON'SNEST.

WOYVODAANA AVRITHA'S CHAMBERS.

LATE EVENING, TENTH IRON CYCLE,.

TWENTY-SECOND DAY.

"You are so beautiful, Avritha." Habiku murmured in her ear afterward. He ran his hands down her smooth skin, felt his own drained satisfaction, watching the light from the fire flicker on her pale breasts. Her skin was slick with sweat and the long black hairs of the sable furs they lay in clung to them. Her head was flung back, her hair as glossy a black as the furs, flowing over his arm.

They were lying in the bedbox, an eight-foot circle of Ibresian mahogany, carved in the shape of a dragon biting its own tail, filled with brushed-cotton feather quilts, linen sheets and furs.

For a moment he luxuriated in the sheer wastage of making love in sable, staining the priceless, lustrous mats sewn from hundreds of the six-inch furs. They came from the cold forests northeast of F'talezon, vast beyond imagining, that stretched north to the Dead Land and the ruined cities. He imagined trappers leaving their lonely shacks, dark little woods-Zak in ragged quilted parkas, skiing their traplines in hunger and fear of white tiger and Ri and the winter wolf packs. Then trudging through blizzards with mittened hands jammed into their armpits, pulling their sledges of sable and ermine to the trading posts, canoemen fighting the white water with the bales...

And all so I can ruin their work in a moment's passion, he thought, shivering, and said again, "So beautiful."

"Hmmm. And you are so warm." She turned into his shoulder, twined her fingers in the mat of brown curls on hischest, nuzzling close, her long nails scratching his skin. "You are so good to me," she whispered and licked the corner of his jaw under the ear. "I need you." The room seemed to press around her. Cover the floor with rugs and furs, hang satin tented from the ceiling, light candles to give a glow, put braziers behind the jadite fretwork screens until they shone comforting red... and it was still a stone box chiseled into the side of the riven mountain.

Old, so old its markings bore traces of the tunneling-machines of the ancients, who had cut stone with rays of light. And cold, cold...

He gathered her into his arms and whispered, "I love you."

My dear, he thought. You are very good in bed, but you are too tiring to love. You ask far too much for the snippets of power you give out. But you'll never find out that I'm lying to you.

She raised her head off his shoulder and looked into his face.

"Habiku, there's something wrong that you're not telling me. I'm no shrinking violet to be protected. Tell me, love."

He rolled over and pulled her on top of him, touching and kissing until she writhed against him, then she stopped his hand as it slid up her thigh. "Don't distract me, dear. You haven't answered."

He kissed her, then put one hand behind his head. Do this right, he told himself. Cuddling an angry Avritha is like cuddling her namesake, a viper. "I didn't want to tell you," he confessed sheepishly. "Well... you know the favor you did for me, beautiful lady?"

She propped her chin in her hands, braced on his chest and tilted her head. "Which one, my darling?"

"The protection you gave me for one of my important cargoes..." He trailed off.

I received my own report on that fiasco, she thought. But I was ignoring it. What will your excuse be, hmmm? I'll have to make you work very hard for my forgiveness. She ran a finger down his face and squirmed against him. He wasn't ready yet."The marines and so forth," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. That little favor cost me, she thought. The steelspring was worth as much as these furs but it would be ungenteel to mention it, especially to a ClawPrince.

"It was lost to river pirates, Rilla Shadows'Shade, I'm afraid to say."

"Lost? And the marines?"

"Set free to walk home." He looked down and sighed. "I suggested to their commander that they be punished for giving it up so easily, but that's for you to say, dearling."

"I'll look into it." If that was what you call giving up easily, love... "As far as the law goes, it is her company, and the deceased owner was very careful to keep most of my influences out of it. I could mention it to Ranion, but he's been otherwise occupied and might get annoyed." She watched his eyes flicker as she said that. Fear Ranion, my dear, and love me, that will do you most good. "I've only been able to help you find the loopholes. Why was it so important that you protect that cargo?"

"Ah. Well." He smoothed her hair back away from her face, cupping her cheek. "The former owner, Whitlock, isn't deceased."

Her eyes narrowed almost to slits as he ran his fingers gentry down her neck. Your act is slipping, Smoothtongue, she thought. There's a note of sincerity there that wasn't before.

She held her silence, almost forcing him to go on. "That cargo...

well, it was necessary to ensure that the former owner remained the former owner."

"Ah. Rand? The Jade Button of the Third Rank? Rather soon for a second accident; still, they know how to handle things, in Rand... and she's not a Prince and Heir, after all. Nobody would notice. Poor love, it must have been a large cargo, to persuade a Third Rank to interest himself in a merchant's affairs." A frown.

"The RiverBlade people are going to be very annoyed at losing the steelspring." F'talezon had a monopoly on those; only Zak mindsmiths could forge the sealed perfection of those coils.Habiku nuzzled his head into the curve of her shoulder to hide the shock in his eyes. Her sweat smelled different from other women's, of the rare spices served at the DragonLord's table, and the Haian coconut oil she used to keep wrinkles out of her skin.

Bitch, bitch! he thought. She was a Zak noble, not a sheltered Enchian raised in women's quarters. Uen's scheme had recreated itself in her mind on a casual suggestion. Don't anger her.

He turned his face back toward her. She smiled down at him, then her face went blank. With a tickle along his spine he recognized her gift. "Habiku Smoothtongue, become cage dweller. The door is sealed. The iron locked around your height."

He shivered and swallowed, breaking out in new sweat but with fear rather than passion, wanting to look away from the eerie sight of her speaking without knowing what she said, hearing doom fall in that flat, even tone from her beautiful lips. Avritha's power was prophecy. More often then not she was right. She blinked and was back again. "Of course, the favors... Habiku, dear. You have that look on your face. Did I prophesy? What did I say?"

He pulled a smile out of somewhere and put it on. "Oh, something about me being iron." Metaphorical, of course. She doesn't need to see much to tell me that I'm in a cage of sorts.

Once she is dead, I'll be free of my troubles. It's all trickery anyway, witch tricks that a five-year-old could see through.

"Iron enough, my love."

She wiggled against him again and her smile grew. "Iron indeed." She stretched luxuriously, putting her hand on him.

Give me your warmth, dear."

"There is nothing I would enjoy more, my darling." He cradled her in one arm and began stroking her from neck to thighs, brushing careful fingertips over her nipples. Purr, you bitch. Then I'll ask.

"Mmm. That... that is so good." He blew a soft breath into the hollow of her neck and his tongue chased his fingertips down her body."Love?" His voice was muffled against her belly. "Could I ask you a favor?"

"Hmmm?" She grabbed him by the hair and pushed him lower.

"Could you use your influence with the Rand? You have power." He slid down and caught her wrists in his hands, kissing each palm, then licked along her sweetly curling pubic hair. You please me well, so far, ClawPrince, she thought. Try harder.

"Hmmm. Kiss me there, love. Hard. Mmm. I'm afraid I can't do that, dear. No, don't stop. My husband might notice if I deal with the Rand directly. Yes. That's right. Please me well, darling."

He ran his tongue along her folds, feeling the world drop away from him, fear clenching his stomach. She's never said no, before. Dark Lord. Dark Lord. I have to convince her. She's never refused me before. Perhaps she's just teasing me. Bitch, he thought as he kissed her lovingly. Bitch.

ON THE RIVER BETWEEN NYSNY TVER AND RAND.

FALSE DAWN, TENTH IRON CYCLE,.