'I expect you're saying that to ease my guilt.'

'No, truly, Lady. The commander wanders at night too, and he won't consent to a guard, even when the king orders it. If we're out with you we have an excuse to keep an eye on him.'

'I see,' Fire said, perhaps a bit sardonically. 'Fewer guards tonight,' she added, but Musa ignored this and woke as many as she'd woken the night before.

'It's orders,' Musa said, as the men sat up blearily and strapped on their weapons.

'And if the commander doesn't follow the king's orders, why should you follow the commander's?'

Her question generated more than one set of raised eyebrows. 'Lady,' Musa said, 'the soldiers in this army would follow the commander off a cliff if he asked it.'

Fire was beginning to feel irritable. 'How old are you, Musa?'

'Thirty-one.'

'Then the commander should be a child to you.'

'And you an infant, Lady,' Musa said dryly, surprising a smile onto Fire's face. 'We're ready. You lead the way.'

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SHE HEADED TOWARD the same mound of rock she'd climbed earlier, because it would bring her closer to the sky and because she sensed it would also bring her guard closer to the insomniac they weren't supposed to be guarding. He was among those boulders somewhere, and the rise was broad enough that they could share it without meeting.

She found a high, flat rock to sit on. Her guard scattered themselves around her. She closed her eyes and let the night wash over her, hoping that after this she'd be weary enough for sleep.

She didn't move at the sense of Brigan's approach, but at the retreat of her guard she opened her eyes. He'd propped himself against a rock several paces from her. He was looking at the stars.

'Lady,' he said in greeting.

'Lord Prince,' she said, quietly.

He leaned there for a moment, gaze tilted upward, and Fire wondered if this was to be the extent of their conversation. 'Your horse is named Small,' he said finally, startling her with the randomness of it.

'Yes.'

'Mine is named Big.'

And now Fire was smiling. 'The black mare? Is she very big?'

'Not to my eyes,' Brigan said, 'but I did not name her.'

Fire remembered the source of Small's name. Indeed, she could never forget the man Cansrel had abused for her sake. 'An animal smuggler gave Small his name. A brutish man called Cutter. He thought any horse that didn't respond well to flogging was small-minded. '

'Ah. Cutter,' Brigan said, as if he knew the man; which, after all, should not be surprising, as Cansrel and Nax had probably shared suppliers. 'Well, I've seen what your horse is capable of. Obviously he's not small-minded.'

It was a dirty trick, his continued kindness to her horse. Fire took a moment to swallow her grat.i.tude, all out of proportion, she knew, because she was lonesome. She decided to change the subject. 'You can't sleep?'

He turned his face away from her, laughed shortly. 'Sometimes at night my head spins.'

'Dreams?'

'I don't get close enough to sleep for that. Worries.'

Cansrel used to lull her to sleep sometimes, on sleepless nights. If Brigan would ever let her, if he would ever in a million years, she could ease his worries for him; she could help the commander of the King's Army fall asleep. It would be an honourable use of her power, a practical one. But she knew better than to suggest it.

'And you?' Brigan said. 'You seem to do a lot of nighttime rambling.'

'I have bad dreams.'

'Dreams of pretend terrors? Or things that are true?'

'True,' she said, 'always. I've always had dreams of horrible things that are true.'

He was quiet. He rubbed the back of his head. 'It's hard to wake from a nightmare when the nightmare is real,' he said, his mind giving her nothing, still, of what he was feeling; but in his voice and his words she heard a thing that felt like sympathy.

'Good night to you, Lady,' he said a moment later. He turned and retreated to the lower ground of the camp.

Her guard trickled into place around her. She raised her face to the stars again and closed her eyes.

AFTER ABOUT A week of riding with the First Branch, Fire fell into a routine - if a continuum of unsettling experiences could be called a routine.

Watch out! She thought to her guards one morning at breakfast as they wrestled a man to the ground who'd come running at her with a sword. She thought to her guards one morning at breakfast as they wrestled a man to the ground who'd come running at her with a sword. Here comes another fellow with the same idea. Oh, dear Here comes another fellow with the same idea. Oh, dear, she added. I also sense a pack of wolf monsters at our western side. I also sense a pack of wolf monsters at our western side.

'Inform one of the hunting captains of the wolves, if you please, Lady,' Musa gasped, yanking at her quarry's feet and yelling at three or four guards to go punch the new attacker in the nose.

It was hard on Fire never to be allowed to be alone. Even on nights when sleep felt near, she continued her late walks with her guard, because it was the closest she could get to solitude. Most nights she crossed paths with the commander and they exchanged a few quiet lines of conversation. He was surprisingly easy to talk to.

'You let some men through your mental defences intentionally, Lady,' Brigan said to her one night. 'Don't you?'

'Some of them take me by surprise,' she said, her back resting against rock and her eyes on the sky.

'Yes, all right,' he said. 'But when a soldier marches across the entire camp with his hand on his knife and his mind wide open, you know he's coming, and in most cases you could change his intentions and turn him around if you wanted to. If that man tries to attack you, it's because you've allowed it.'

The rock on which Fire sat fit the curve of her body; she could fall asleep here. She closed her eyes and considered how to admit to him that he was right. 'I do turn a lot of men around, just as you say, and the occasional woman. My guard never even knows about them. But those are the ones who only want to look or touch or tell me things - the ones who are simply overcome, or think they love me, and are gentle in their feelings.' She hesitated. 'The ones who hate me and truly want to hurt me - yes, you're right. Sometimes I let the most malevolent men attack me. If they attack me they'll end up gaoled, and gaol is the only place other than death where they'll no longer be a danger to me. Your army's too big, Lord Prince,' she said, glancing at him. 'Too many people for me to manage all at once. I need to protect myself however I can.'

Brigan humphed. 'I don't disagree. Your guard is more than competent. As long as you can stomach the danger of it.'

'I suppose I should be more used to the feeling of danger by now,' she said. 'But it is unnerving sometimes.'

'I understand you crossed paths with Mydogg and Murgda as you left my mother's fortress in the spring,' he said. 'Did they feel dangerous to you?'

Fire remembered that unsettling double gaze. 'Obscurely. I couldn't quantify it if you asked me to, but yes, they felt dangerous.'

He paused. 'There's going to be a war,' he said quietly, 'and at the end of it I don't know who'll be king. Mydogg's a cold and greedy man and a tyrant. Gentian's worse than a tyrant, because he's also a fool. Nash is the best of the three, no contest. He can be thoughtless; he's impulsive. But he's fair and he's not motivated by self-interest, and he has a mind for peace, and flashes of wisdom sometimes-' He broke off, and when he spoke again, he sounded rather hopeless. 'There's going to be a war, Lady, and the waste of life will be terrible.'

Fire sat in silence. She hadn't expected the conversation to take such a serious turn, but it didn't surprise her. In this kingdom no one was many steps removed from grave thoughts, and this man fewer than most. This boy, she thought, as Brigan yawned and rumpled his own hair. 'We should try to get some sleep,' he said. 'Tomorrow I hope to take us as far as Grey Lake.'

'Good,' Fire said, 'because I want a bath.'

Brigan threw his head back and smiled at the sky. 'Well said, Lady. The world may be falling to pieces, but at least the lot of us can have a bath.'

BATHING IN A cold lake posed some unforeseen challenges - like the little monster fish, for example, that swarmed around her when she dunked her hair, and the monster bugs that tried to eat her alive, and the need for a special guard of archers just in case of predators. But despite the production of it all, it was good to be clean. Fire wrapped cloths around her wet hair and sat as close to the fire as she could without setting herself aflame. She called Mila to her and rebandaged the shallow cut that ran along the girl's elbow, from a man Mila had subdued three days ago, a man with a talent for knife-fighting.

Fire was coming to know her guard now, and she understood better than she had before the women who chose to ride with this army. Mila was from the southern mountains, where every child, boy or girl, learned to fight and every girl had ample opportunity to practise what she'd learned. She was all of fifteen, but as a guard she was bold and quick. She had an older sister with two babies and no husband, and her wages provided for them. The King's Army was well-paid.

The First Branch continued its journey southeast to King's City. Almost two weeks in and with about one week left to ride, they reached Fort Middle, a rough stone fortress rising out of rock with high walls and iron bars in narrow, gla.s.sless windows: the home of some five hundred auxiliary soldiers. A mean-looking, stark place, but everyone, including Fire, was happy to reach it. For one night she had a bed to sleep in and a stone roof above her head, which meant that so did her guard.

The next day the landscape changed. Very suddenly, the ground was made of rounded rock instead of jagged: smooth rock rolling almost like hills. Sometimes the rock was bright green with moss, or with veritable stretches of gra.s.s, and even a field of tall gra.s.s once, soft to their feet. Fire had never seen so much green and she thought it the most beautiful, most astonishing landscape in the world. The gra.s.s was like brilliant hair; as if the Dells itself were a monster. It was a foolish thought, she knew, but when her kingdom turned dazzling with colour she felt suddenly that she belonged to this place.

She didn't share that thought with Brigan, of course, but she did express her shock at the world's sudden greenness. To which he smiled quietly at the night sky, a gesture she was beginning to a.s.sociate with him.

'It'll keep getting greener as we approach King's City, and softer,' he said. 'You'll see there's a reason this kingdom is called the Dells.'

'I asked my father once-' she started; and then stopped tongue-tied, horrified that she had begun to speak kindly of Cansrel before him.

When he finally broke their silence, his voice was mild. 'I knew your mother, Lady. Did you realise that?'

Fire hadn't realised it, but she supposed she should have, for Jessa had worked in the royal nurseries at a time when Brigan must have been very young. 'I didn't know, Lord Prince.'

'Jessa was the person I went to whenever I'd been bad,' he said, adding wryly, 'after my mother was through with me, that is.'

Fire couldn't help smiling. 'And were you often bad?'

'At least once a day, Lady, as I remember.'

Her smile growing, Fire watched him as he watched the sky. 'Perhaps you weren't very good at following orders?'

'Worse than that. I used to set traps for Nash.'

'Traps!'

'He was five years older than I. The perfect challenge - stealth and cunning, you see, to compensate for my lack of size. I rigged nets to land on him. Closed him inside closets.' Brigan chuckled. 'He was a good-natured brother. But whenever our mother learned of it she'd be furious, and when she was done with me I'd go to Jessa, because Jessa's anger was so much easier to take than Roen's.'

'How do you mean?' Fire asked, feeling a drop of rain, and wishing it away.

He thought for a moment. 'She'd tell me she was angry, but it didn't sit like anger. She'd never raise her voice. She'd sit there sewing, or whatever she was doing, and we'd a.n.a.lyse my crimes, and invariably I'd fall asleep in my chair. When I woke it'd be too late to go to dinner and she'd feed me in the nurseries. A bit of a treat for a small boy who usually had to dress for dinner and be serious and quiet around a lot of boring people.'

'A wicked boy, from the sound of it.'

His face flickered with a smile. Water splashed onto his forehead. 'When I was six Nash fell over a tripline and broke his hand. My father learned of it. That put an end to my antics for a while.'

'You gave in so easily?'

He didn't answer her teasing tone. She looked at him, his eyebrows furrowed at the sky, his face sombre, and was frightened, suddenly, of what they were talking about; for again, suddenly, it seemed they might be talking about Cansrel.

'I think I understand now why Roen lost her mind whenever I misbehaved,' he said. 'She was afraid of Nax finding out and taking it into his head to punish me. He was not . . . a reasonable man, in the time I knew him. His punishments were not reasonable.'

Then they were talking about Cansrel, and Fire was ashamed. She sat, head bowed, and wondered what Nax had done, what Cansrel had told Nax to do to punish a six-year-old who probably even then had been clever enough to see Cansrel for what he was.

Drops of rain pattered onto her scarf and her shoulders.

'Your mother had red hair,' Brigan said, lightly, as if they didn't both feel the presence of two dead men among these rocks. 'Nothing like yours, of course. And she was musical, Lady, like you. I remember when you were born. And I remember that she cried when you were taken away.'

'Did she?'

'Hasn't my mother told you anything about Jessa?'

Fire swallowed a lump in her throat. 'Yes, Lord Prince, but I always like hearing it again.'

Brigan wiped rain from his face. 'Then I'm sorry I don't remember more. If we knew a person was going to die, we'd hold harder to the memories.'

Fire corrected him, in a whisper. 'The good memories.' She stood. This conversation was a mix of too many sadnesses. And she didn't mind the rain, but it seemed unfair to inflict it upon her guard.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE MORNING OF her final day of riding Fire woke to an aching back, aching b.r.e.a.s.t.s, knotted muscles in her neck and shoulders. There was never any predicting how the time before her monthly bleeding would manifest itself. Sometimes it pa.s.sed with hardly a symptom. Other times she was an unhappy captive in her own body.

And at least she'd be under Nash's roofs by the time the bleeding began; she wouldn't have to embarra.s.s herself with an explanation for the increase in monster attacks.

On Small's back she was bleary-minded, anxious, nervous. She wished for her own bed; she wished she hadn't come. She was in no mood for beauty, and when they pa.s.sed a great rocky hill with wildflowers springing from every crack she had to give herself a talking to to keep the mist out of her eyes.

The land grew greener, and finally they came upon a gorge that stretched to left and right before them, teeming with trees that reached up from the bottom, and thundering with the waters of the Winged River. A road ran east to west above the river, and a gra.s.s track, clearly much travelled, ran parallel to the road. The army turned eastward and moved fast along the gra.s.s track. The road was full of people, carts, carriages, headed in both directions. Many stopped to watch the First Branch go by, and raised arms in greeting.

Fire decided to imagine that she was out for a gallop with her guard, and none of these other thousands existed. No river or road to her right, no King's City before her. To think this way was a comfort, and her body screamed for comfort.

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WHEN THE FIRST stopped for its midday meal, Fire had no appet.i.te. She sat in the gra.s.s, elbows on knees, holding her throbbing head in place.

'Lady,' the commander's voice said above her.

Fire a.s.sumed a placid expression and looked up. 'Yes, Lord Prince?'