Aureen was the weakness, the most obvious point for betrayal and discovery. She bit her lip, hurting herself just thinking about it. Aureen was all she had left of her old life, the only person who understood her predicament, yet the woman was also her greatest danger.

Sweet Va, what did I do to deserve this?

No one must find out. Ever. She must fight for her son to take his place on the Basalt Throne, no matter who his father was. And if she couldn't be absolutely certain who'd fathered her son, then how would anyone else ever be sure?

Maybe it was time the Vollendorn line came to an end anyway. They were the ones who had acceded to this vile bargain, this so-called Bengorth's Law that gifted one in every set of Lowmian twins to A'Va in exchange for A'Va's guarantee that their corrupted backsides would sit on the Basalt Throne. She was glad she'd cheated Vilmar, and if the Prince-regal was not his son, then Va would thank her for terminating the Regal's bloodline.

Karel had royal blood anyway: hers! And by Vilmar's own admission, Bengorth Vollendorn was a usurper in the first place. She giggled. An Ardronese baby on the Lowmian throne, now that was something to chuckle about. Thank goodness Karel had been tiny when he was born, smaller even than the sister the court knew nothing about, so no one had been suspicious of the early birth.

And that horrid idea of killing twins because one of them was supposed to be a servant of A'Va... that had to stop too. She would stop it. Or her son would when he was old enough.

She was not a Vollendorn and wouldn't be affected by the curse that said disobeying the agreement to kill twins meant the Vollendorn line would die out. Given Vilmar's previous lack of children, it was unlikely her son was a Vollendorn, so he wouldn't die because Bengorth's Law was broken.

Besides, the Law was wicked, so it would be the moral thing not to uphold it, right? Va would protect her. She'd always said her prayers and gone to chapel. Nothing would happen to her son, or to her. A'Va was less than Va the Creator, so how could he possibly know who'd fathered her children when she wasn't sure herself? And if he didn't know Karel might not be a Vollendorn, he wouldn't know Bengorth's Law was broken...

Just when she'd convinced herself that all would turn out well, that she and Prince-regal Karel would be the saviours of Lowmeer, doubts jostled their way back into her skull. Why had she heard nothing from the Pontifect? What if her little Karel was a devil-kin and his sister was the innocent one? What if the Vollendorn line of succession really was protected?

Her head reeled and her stomach heaved, as they always did whenever she tried to think about the paradoxes involved.

Oh, was there ever such a horrible pickle to be in? No, don't think like that, you ninny! You are the Regala. You are a princess of Ardrone. You will not act like a child.

The Pontifect was wise and she was a woman. She would know what to do. And if one of her babies really was a devil-kin, Pontifect Reedling would affect a cure.

Va-damn, I deserve to be the mother of a Regal! It's my reward for all I've suffered.

They had sold herEdwayn, Ryce, Fox, even Saker had been complicitthey had sold her to Lowmeer in exchange for a Summer Seas port, as if she were a roll of silk or a sack of spices! And as far as she knew, they weren't even using the port anyway because Ardrone did not have their spice fleet launched as yet. Consign them all to beggary, she would show them what it was to be a princess of Ardrone. Bengorth's Law would be of no more import than soured curds thrown to the pigs by the time she'd finished.

For a brief moment she was cheered. But then another niggling thought came back, rot itone that had haunted her since she'd borne the twins. What was it she had said in the birthing room when her daughter had been born? She'd been swept along on a wave of pain and despair, terrified that someone would hear and find out that she was giving birth to twins. She'd blurted something out about Fox. Had she said he might be the father of the children? She thought she had. Sweet Va, she couldn't remember. Sorrel had heard, but had Aureen? Had she even been there?

As hard as she tried, she could not recall the details. She'd been too exhausted, too panicked, too irrational at the time. All she knew now was that if Aureen had heard, she might tell someone. She might think it her moral duty to tell.

Oak and acorn, help me, Va...

Just then she heard the scrape of the chambermaidpoor Aureen, demoted to that menial taskraking the coals together to rekindle the warmth of her bedroom fire. The castle was always cold. Not like the palace in Throssel.

She sighed. Almost time to get up. As soon as she'd recovered from the births, she was no longer given the luxury of lying a-bed. The Regal expected her to oversee the care of the royal prince and keep an eye on his wet nurse, and to attend all the royal functions dressed as befitted a regala. Worse, she was expected to share his bed when he so ordered, although that did not happen as often as it had previously. The royal appendage was no longer as enthusiastic as the Regal might have wished, and often, when she was called to his bed, nothing much happened.

No, no more sighs. Subtlety. Be devious. There's more than one way to victory in a battle.

As long as Aureen didn't betray her. Perhaps she should be kinder to the poor woman. "Aureen," she said, pulling back the bed curtains to look out, "I miss the way you brush my hair at night. Maid Klara is not nearly as skilled as you are. She can fetch the coals for the bed warming in the evening and tend the fire instead, while you can attend to my hair. Would you like that?"

8.

Messages

Fritillary Reedling, elected head of Va-faith, stared at the pile of coded reports on the desk in her office. The Pontifect's Palace, situated on the hill with the loveliest view in all Vavala City, was well-appointed and well-staffed with competent clerics and clerks, but nonetheless, there never appeared to be an end to the depressing litany of disasters needing her attention.

In the northern lands, rulers bickered because their share of prosperity had diminished now that Lowmian sea trade challenged the profitability of Pashalin mastodon caravans over the ice. Instead of seeking solutions, rulers blamed one another. Sometimes her ire at their pettiness left her speechless.

Then there was the Regality of Lowmeer, where the Horned Death blossomed in pockets, killing in horrible ways like the sorcerers of ancient legends. Worse even than that was the connection between the Horned Death and twins, which had led the Dire Sweepers to murder the latter at birth. When she thought of the man who commanded them, the so-called Dyer, her heart shrivelled.

Perhaps he wasn't that man from her past who haunted herno, who taunted her through her memories. She'd loved him once. Va, how she'd loved him! The touch of his fingers roving over her body shivering her skin, the whispered words of intimacy in her ear delighting her...

Perhaps a killer of children.

No, not him. Surely not.

She had loved his gentle ways once...

She jerked herself back to the present and considered Ardrone instead, where Prime Valerian Fox was in open rebellion. He ignored her directives, preached against Shenat teachings which had their origin in the northern hills of Ardrone, built stone chapels where once there had been only Shenat oak shrines, and encouraged clerics and congregations to believe that the Way of the Oak was an archaic and superstitious form of nature worship that had no place in modern Va-faith. When she'd asked the King to curb his appointed Prime, Edwayn had sent a polite but dismissive reply.

Pox on the royal beef-wit!

But fiddle-me-witless, what can I do? She hadn't appointed the Ardronese Prime and she couldn't dismiss him, an irritating exception that dated back to the early days of a weak Pontificate and a particularly obstreperous and powerful monarch. If the Ardronese Prime had the support of King Edwayn, she was powerless to do anything to thwart him. Her more Shenat interpretation of Va-faith could be superseded by stone buildings and set rituals intoned by clerics who knew nothing of nature and cared even less.

All she could hope for was that Saker had influenced Prince Ryce enough during his time there as tutor to ensure the future might be different.

She leant back in her chair and stared out of the window. Even with her huge network of spies and agents, she couldn't explain the multiple sources of rot corrupting good folk, turning peaceable villagers into armed bands bent on attacking supposed enemies, changing pious men and women into malefactors. She could believe Prime Valerian Fox was the moving force behind itbut he was just one man and from all reports he spent most of his time in the Ardronese capital city, Throssel. How could he possibly orchestrate the widespread unrest, some of it violent, that was occurring?

Va-faith underplays the concept of A'Va nowadays. Perhaps we should take the idea of an anti-god more seriously. Perhaps A'Va was the origin of legends about sorcerers...

With a sudden rage born of her frustration, she scattered all the papers from her desk to the floor with one sweep of her arm. It didn't make her feel any better.

Sighing, she took the last letter she'd had from Saker Rampion out of her pocket. Secretary Barden had translated the code words for her, but even then its scribbled contents didn't seem to make much sense. He'd written it just prior to sailing out of Ustgrind to the Spicerie on a Lowmian ship, which was unbelievably absurd, but then he'd spoken of Va-forsaken "plumes". That couldn't be right, surely. Feathers? The idea was ridiculous. She and Barden had decided that Saker had mixed up the code.

And yet, there was Saker's witchery, his strange affinity to birds. She'd never heard of anyone else being granted such an odd gift.

These are weird times.

Turning back to the letter, she read on. He mentioned a lascar's dagger influencing events, which made her wonderin horrorif the malignancies manifesting themselves in Ardrone and Lowmeer were a result of a sorcerous contamination from the Va-forsaken Hemisphere.

She continued to read. "The woman we spoke of once, named Redwing, is on her way to you with a child, bearing a letter from me with more detail of all this. Listen carefully to all she has to say; it is of grave import to the future of Lowmeer..."

Redwing. Sorrel Redwing. The glamoured handmaiden. But why would Saker send her to Vavalawith a child? Whose child? And more importantly, why had she not arrived in Vavala? The letter was dated seventy days ago. The woman could have walked to Vavala from Ustgrind in that time!

She began to pace the room, long agitated strides across the flagstone floor, the parchment crumpled into a small hard ball in her hand. She knew every word of it, none of it a help, and she could think of no logical reason why Saker Rampion would want to sail to the Summer Seas. To accept that there could be a sorcerous cause made her break into a cold sweat.

I hope you're seasick, Saker, she muttered uncharitably, and rang the bell for Secretary Barden. She started to run through the list of things she'd considered doing next, involving everyone from the numerous princes of the northern states, to Prime Mulhafen of Lowmeer, Prince Ryce of Ardrone of course, then there was the bastard who commanded the Dire Sweepers.

It was several moments before she realised that Barden was unusually tardy at answering the summons. True, his arthritic knees and considerable age did mean he wasn't ever quick, but he was usually more prompt than this. She crossed to open the door between his anteroom and her apartments. Peering around, she was just in time to see a man in the uniform of a Vavala guard on his way out, while Barden was standing beside his table with a bemused expression on his face. He was holding a small unwrapped package in his hand.

"What is it?" she asked.

He looked up. "A delivery. Addressed to you."

"From?"

"I don't know." He picked up a blade from his table and began to cut the fastenings along one side. "Waxed and sewnand there was an outer skin as well." He indicated the remains of the outer cover on the table. "Been a long time in transit, I'd say. Resembles a dog turd left in the sun. The guards didn't know who it was for until they unwrapped that and saw your name on the inside."

"The messenger didn't say who it was for?"

"The messenger," he said dryly, "was a very large seabird with a nasty temper. It broke a finger of the guard who was untying this from its leg, and almost took out the eye of another."

A shiver brushed her skin from the back of her neck to her feet like icy fingers. Va-forsaken sorcery or Va-cherished witchery? She no longer knew.

Saker, damn you...

"Then I know just who it's from," she said calmly. "Give it here, Barden. Let's see what marvellous tale of his doings he has to tell this timeand it had better be good."

9.

The Gaunt Recruiter

Gerelda knocked on the door of the rectory next to the Needlewhin Chapel and inhaled deeply. She wasn't disappointed; the aroma that filled her nostrils was one of baking.

The door opened almost immediately, revealing Herbrobert Cranesbill, Needlewhin's cleric.

"Baked apples," she said.

The large man in the doorway raised a questioning eyebrow.

She took a deep breath. "In... hot treacle sauce."

"And the spice?" Herbrobert asked.

She hazarded a guess. "Cloves?"

"Just one."

"Expensive! On a cleric's stipend? Really H'robert! The Pontifect would be scandalised."

"Fiddle! Nothing short of holding an orgy in a shrine would raise as much as an eyebrow of hers, I swear. Anyway, the cloves were gifted by a passing trader."

"Oh, so just bribery then?" she asked with a grin.

"Bribery?" He snorted. "To do what? Say a prayer for the fellow?"

"To cook him a sumptuous meal, I imagine."

"Ah, well. Perhaps. And I demand a price from you too, Gerelda. The name of the ingredient you've missed."

"Hmm. Knowing the cook, probably sultanas, although I can't smell them." She grinned. "It's good to see you, H'robert!"

"Come in, come in, afore the neighbours see me hugging my favourite proctor!"

She stepped inside; he closed the door and enveloped her in his enormous arms. A moment later it was the turn of his husband, Rock Speedwell. She was tall, but both men towered over her. It had always amused her these two muscular, broad-shouldered fellows with hands and feet like shovels were both named after delicate pink alpine flowers. Not for the first time she reflected that Shenat naming could be disastrous.

"We knew you must be coming," Rock said. "The Pontifect's office sent a letter here for you. It arrived last week and we immediately aired the spare bed!" He took the letter from where it was sitting on the mantel and gave it to her.

She broke the seal and opened up the single sheet, signed with the Pontifect's scrawled initials and stamped with her seal. The note was terse: "Return to Vavala as soon as possible. Don't go to Sistia." She blinked, trying to read something more into the message than it stated, and failing.

Folding up the sheet and tucking it into her sleeve, she said, "I was hoping to rest my mount a day or two; now it seems I'll have to leave for Vavala tomorrow, first light."

"The chapel can lend you a hack. There's a gelding that'll be happy to get some exercise," he offered.

She nodded, quelling her irritation at the thought of having to ride an unknown horse. And Va only knew when she'd be able to get her own mount back. Pox on you, Fritillary. "I'm afraid I'll have to do just that."

"Anyway, you'll eat well tonight. You know what Rock's like."

She did too. He'd been a baker once, until his lungs gave out. Now he just cooked for Herbrobert and himself.

"We have a lot to tell you," Rock said.

"By which you mean...?"

Herbrobert gave a rueful smile. "By which we mean things we want you to pass on to the Pontifect."

Halfway through their supper, they were interrupted by a thunderous knocking at the door, followed by someone frantically calling Herbrobert's name. Gerelda jumped up to grab her swordbelt even before Herbrobert was out of his chair.

"Jumpy, aren't you?" Rock asked as Herbrobert went to the door.

"That's panic I hear," she said, buckling on the belt.

"That's the town cooper, Jemony. Phlegmatic sort of fellow usually, so you are probably right." He started to wheeze.