'I wish you would be more cruel with your power,' he said, touching her hair and kissing her. 'Cruelty is strong self-defence.'

And so, at the end of her experiment, Cansrel still trusted her. And he had reason to, for Fire didn't think she could go through with anything like that again.

Then, in the spring, Cansrel began to talk of his need for a new plan, an infallible plan this time, to do away with Brigan.

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WHEN FIRE'S BLEEDING began she felt compelled to explain to her guard why bird monsters had begun to gather outside her screen windows, and why raptor monsters swooped down occasionally, ripped apart the smaller birds, and then perched on the sills to stare inside, screeching. She thought the guards took it rather well. Musa sent the two with the best aim to the grounds below the rooms to do some raptor hunting rather perilously close to the palace walls.

The Dells was not known for hot summers, but a palace made of black stone with gla.s.s ceilings will get warm; on clear days the ceiling windows were levered open. When Fire pa.s.sed through a courtyard or corridor during her bleeding the birds chirped and the raptors screeched through those screens as well. Sometimes flying monster bugs trailed in her wake. Fire didn't imagine it did much for her reputation around the court, but then again, very little did. The square mark on her cheek was recognised and much talked of. She could sense the spinning gossip that stopped whenever she entered a room and started up again as she left.

She had told the king that she would think about the issue of the prisoner, but she didn't, not really; she didn't need to. She knew her mind. She spent a certain amount of energy monitoring his whereabouts so she could avoid him. A good bit more deflecting the attention of people of the court. She sensed curiosity from them foremost, and admiration; some hostility, especially from servants. She wondered if the court's servants had clearer recollections of the particulars of Cansrel's cruelty. She wondered if he had been crueller to them.

People followed her sometimes, at a distance, both men and women, servants and n.o.bles, usually without any definite antagonism. Some of them tried to talk to her, called out to her. A grey-haired woman walked right up to her once, said, 'Lady Fire, you are like a delicate blossom,' and would have embraced her if Mila hadn't held out a restraining hand. Fire, her abdomen heavy and aching with cramps and her skin tender and burning, felt the furthest thing from a delicate blossom. She couldn't decide whether to slap the woman or fall into her embrace, weeping. And then a raptor monster scratched on a window screen above and the woman looked up and raised her arms to it, just as entranced with the predator as she had been with Fire.

From other ladies of the court Fire sensed envy and resentment, and jealousy for the heart of the king, who fretted over her from a distance like a stallion behind a fence and did little to hide his frustrated regard. When she met the eyes of these women, some of them with monster feathers in their hair or shoes of lizard monster skins, she lowered her eyes and moved on. She took her meals in her rooms. She was shy of the severe city fashion of the court, sure of the impossibility of herself ever blending in, and besides, it was a way to avoid the king.

CROSSING A BRIGHT white courtyard one day, Fire witnessed a spectacular fight between a pack of small children on one side and Prince Garan's daughter, pa.s.sionately a.s.sisted by her puppy, on the other. Garan's daughter was the instigator of the swinging fists, this Fire saw plainly; and from the broiling emotions in the bunch Fire sensed that she herself might be the matter of dispute. Stop Stop, she thought to the children from across the courtyard, now now; at which every one of them save Garan's girl froze, turned to stare, and then ran shrieking into the palace.

Fire sent Neel for a healer and rushed with the rest of her guard to the girl, whose face was swelling and whose nose ran with blood. 'Child,' Fire said, 'are you all right?'

The girl was engaged in an argument with her puppy, who jumped and yapped and strained against her hand on his collar. 'Blotchy,' she said, crouching to his level, her voice congested with blood, 'down. Down, I say! Stop it! Monster rocks!' This last as Blotchy jumped and banged against her b.l.o.o.d.y face.

Fire took hold of the puppy's mind and soothed him to calmness.

'Oh, thank goodness,' the child said woefully, plopping down on the marble floor beside Blotchy. She ran searching fingers over her cheeks and nose. She winced and pushed her sticky hair out of her face. 'Papa will be disappointed.'

As before, this child was quite closed to Fire mentally, impressively so, but Fire had understood enough of the other children's feelings to interpret what she meant. 'Because you came to my defence, you mean.'

'No, because I forgot to guard my left side. He reminds me all the time. I think my nose is broken. He'll punish me.'

It was true Garan was not the personification of kindness, but still, Fire couldn't imagine him punishing a child for not winning a fight against approximately eight adversaries. 'Because someone else broke your nose? Surely not.'

The child gave a mournful sigh. 'No, because I threw the first punch. He said I mustn't do that. And because I'm not in my lessons. I'm supposed to be in my lessons.'

'Well, child,' Fire said, trying not to be amused. 'We've fetched you a healer.'

'It's just there are so many lessons,' the girl went on, not much interested in the healer. 'If Papa were not a prince I wouldn't have all these lessons. I love my riding lessons but I could die from my history lessons. And now he won't let me ride his horses, ever. He lets me name his horses but he never lets me ride them, and Uncle Garan will tell him I missed my lessons, and Papa'll say I can't ride them ever. Does Papa ever let you ride his horses?' the girl asked Fire tragically, as if she knew she was bound to receive the most calamitous of responses.

But Fire could not answer, for her mouth was hanging open, her mind scrambling to make sense of the thing she'd thought she understood. This child with dark eyes and hair and a mashed-up face, and an Uncle Garan and a princely father, and an unusual propensity for mental closedness. 'I've only ridden my own horse,' she managed to say.

'Have you met his horses? He has many. He's crazy for horses.'

'I think I've only met one,' Fire said, still disbelieving. Sluggishly she began to strain through some mental arithmetic.

'Was it Big? Big's a mare. Papa says most soldiers favour stallions, but Big is fearless and he wouldn't trade her for any stallion. He says you're fearless, too. He says you saved his life. That's why I defended you,' she said dismally, her current dilemma rounding back to her again. She touched the vicinity of her nose. 'Perhaps it's not broken. Perhaps it's only sprained. Do you think he'll be less angry if my nose is only sprained?'

Fire had begun to clutch her forehead. 'How old are you, child?'

'Six come winter.'

Neel came trotting across the courtyard then with a healer, a smiling man in green. 'Lady Fire,' the healer said, nodding. He crouched before the child. 'Princess Hanna, I think you'd best come with me to the infirmary.'

The two of them shuffled away, the child still chattering in her stuffed-nose voice. Blotchy waited a moment, then trailed after them.

Fire was still gaping. She turned to her guard. 'Why did no one tell me the commander had a daughter?'

Mila shrugged. 'Apparently he keeps it quiet, Lady. All we've ever heard is rumours.'

Fire thought of the woman at the green house with the chestnut hair. 'The child's mother?'

'Word is she's dead, Lady.'

'How long?'

'I don't know. Musa might know, or Princess Clara could tell you.'

'Well,' Fire said, trying to remember what she'd been doing before all of this had happened. 'We may as well go someplace where the raptors aren't screeching.'

'We were on our way to the stables, Lady.'

Ah, yes, to the stables, to visit Small. And his many horsey friends - a number of which, presumably, had short, descriptive names.

FIRE COULD HAVE gone to Clara immediately to hear the story of how a prince of twenty-two had ended up with a secret daughter nearing six. Instead she waited until her bleeding was over, and then she went to Garan.

'Your sister tells me you work too much,' she said to the spymaster.

He looked up from his long table of doc.u.ments and narrowed his eyes. 'Indeed.'

'Will you come for a walk with me, Lord Prince?'

'Why should you want to walk with me?'

'Because I'm trying to decide what I think of you.'

His eyebrows shot up. 'Oh, a test, is it? Do you expect me to perform for you, then?'

'I don't care what you do, but I'm going regardless. I haven't been outside in five days.'

She turned and left the room; and was pleased, as she moved through the corridor, to feel him weaving through her guard and falling into place beside her.

'My reason is the same as yours,' he said in a patently unfriendly voice.

'Fair enough. I could perform for you if you like. We could stop for my fiddle.'

He snorted. 'Your fiddle. Yes, I've heard all about it. Brigan thinks we're made of money.'

'You hear about everything, I suppose.'

'It's my job.'

'Then perhaps you can explain why no one's ever told me about Princess Hanna.'

Garan glanced at her sideways. 'Why should you care about Princess Hanna?'

It was a reasonable question, and it p.r.i.c.ked at a hurt Fire hadn't quite acknowledged yet. 'Only to wonder why people like Queen Roen and Lord Brocker have never made mention of her.'

'Why should they mention her?'

Fire rubbed her neck under her headscarf and sighed, understanding now why her heart had wanted to have this conversation with Garan of all people.

'The lady queen and I speak freely with each other,' she said, 'and Brocker shares all he learns with me. The question isn't why they should have mentioned her. It's why they've taken care not to.'

'Ah,' Garan said. 'This is a conversation about trust.'

Fire took a breath. 'And why should the child be kept secret? She's only a child.'

Garan was silent for a moment, thinking, now and then glancing at her. He steered her across the palace's central courtyard. She was happy to let him choose the route. Fire still got lost in the labyrinths of this place, and only this morning had found herself in the laundry when she'd been aiming for the blacksmith's shop.

'She is just a child,' Garan said finally, 'but her ident.i.ty has been kept quiet since before she was born. Brigan himself didn't know about her until she'd been alive four months.'

'Why? Who was the mother, an enemy's wife? A friend's wife?'

'No one's wife. A stable girl.'

'Then why-'

'The child was born the third heir to the throne,' Garan said, very low, 'and she was born to Brigan. Not Nash, not Clara, not I. Brigan. Think of the time, Lady, six years ago. If, as you claim, you've been educated by Brocker, you'll know the danger Brigan faced as he grew into adulthood. He was the only one of the court who was Cansrel's open enemy.'

This silenced Fire. She listened, shamed, as Garan unfolded the story.

'She was the girl who cared for his horses. He was sixteen, barely, and she was, too, a pretty thing; goodness knew there was little joy in his life. Her name was Rose.'

'Rose,' Fire repeated, woodenly.

'No one knew of them but four in the family: Nash, Clara, Roen, and I. Brigan kept her quiet to keep her safe. He wanted to marry her.' Garan laughed shortly. 'He was an impossible romantic rockhead. Luckily he couldn't, and keep her secret.'

'And why was that lucky?'

'The son of a king and a girl who slept with the horses?'

It seemed to Fire it was rarely enough one knew a person one wished to marry. How unjust then to meet that person, and be kept from it because one's bed was made of hay and not feathers.

'Anyway,' Garan continued. 'Around that time Cansrel convinced Nax to throw Brigan into the army and send him off to the borders, where presumably Cansrel hoped he'd get himself killed. Brigan was angry as a hornet, but he had no choice but to go. Shortly thereafter it became clear to those of us who knew Rose that he'd left part of himself behind.'

'She was pregnant.'

'Precisely. Roen arranged for her needs, everything secret of course. And Brigan didn't get himself killed after all, but Rose died giving birth to the child; and Brigan came home, all of seventeen years old, to learn in one day that Rose was dead, he had a child, and Nax had named him Commander of the King's Army.'

Fire remembered this part. Cansrel had convinced Nax to promote Brigan far beyond his capability, in the hopes that Brigan would destroy his own reputation with a show of military incompetence. Fire recalled Brocker's pleasure and his pride when Brigan, through some impossible feat of determination, had turned himself first into a credible leader and then into an uncommon one. He'd mounted the entire King's Army, not just the cavalry but the infantry and bowmen. He'd raised the standards of their training and raised their pay. He'd increased their ranks, invited women to join, built signal stations in the mountains and all across the kingdom so that distant places could communicate with each other. He'd planned new forts with vast grain farms and enormous stables to care for the army's greatest a.s.set, the horses that made it mobile and swift. All to the effect of creating new challenges indeed for the smugglers, looters, Pikkian invaders - and for rebel lords like Mydogg and Gentian who were forced now to take pause and rea.s.sess their own small armies and dubious ambitions.

Poor Brigan. Fire almost couldn't fathom it. Poor heartbroken boy.

'Cansrel was after everything of Brigan's,' Garan said, 'especially as Brigan's power increased. He poisoned Brigan's horses, out of spite. He tortured one of Brigan's squires and killed him. Obviously we who knew the truth of Hanna knew not to breathe a word.'

'Yes,' Fire whispered. 'Of course.'

'Then Nax died,' Garan said, 'and Brigan and Cansrel spent the next two years trying to kill each other. And then Cansrel killed himself. Finally Brigan was able to name the child his heir, and the second heir now to the throne. But he did so only among the family. It's no official secret - much of the court knows she's his - but it's continued to remain quiet. Partly out of habit, and partly to divert attention from her. Not all of Brigan's enemies died with Cansrel.'

'But how can she be an heir to the throne,' Fire asked, 'if you're not? Nax was your father, and you're no more illegitimate than she is. Plus, she's female, and a child.'

Garan pursed his lips and looked away from her. When he spoke, it wasn't to answer her question. 'Roen trusts you,' he said, 'and Brocker trusts you, so you needn't worry your monster heart. If Roen never told you about her grandchild, it's because she's in the habit of never telling anyone. And if Brocker never told you, it's probably because Roen never told him. And Clara trusts you too, because Brigan trusts you. And I'll admit Brigan's trust is a strong recommendation, but of course, no man is infallible.'

'Of course,' Fire said, dryly.

One of Fire's guards brought down a raptor monster then. It fell from the sky, golden green, and landed in a patch of trees out of their sight. Fire became aware suddenly of their surroundings. They stood in the orchard behind the palace, and beyond the orchard sat the little green house.

Fire stared in astonishment then at the tree beside the house, wondering how she'd failed to notice it from her window. She realised it was because she'd a.s.sumed from above that it was a grove of trees and never a single organism. Its mammoth trunk split off in six directions, the limbs so many and so ma.s.sive that some of them bent with their weight down to the ground, burrowed into the gra.s.s, and rose up again to the sky. Supports had been built for some of the heaviest limbs to hold them up and prevent them from breaking.

Beside her, Garan watched the amazement on her face. Sighing, he walked to a bench beside the pathway to the house, where he sat with his eyes closed. Fire noticed his drawn face and his slumped posture. He looked washed out. She went and sat next to him.

'Yes, it's extraordinary,' he said, opening his eyes. 'It's grown so big it'll kill itself. Every father names his heirs. Surely you know that.'

Fire turned from the tree to glance at him, startled. Garan looked back at her coolly.

'My father never named me,' he said. 'He named Nash, and Brigan. Brigan did differently. Hanna will be his first heir even after he marries and has an army of sons. Of course I never minded. I've never once wanted to be king.'

'And of course,' Fire said smoothly, 'none of it will matter once the king and I marry and produce a jungle of monster heirs.'

He hadn't been expecting that. He sat still for a moment, measuring, and then half smiled, despite himself, understanding that it was a joke. He changed the subject again. 'And what have you been doing with yourself, Lady? You've been ten days at court with little but a fiddle to occupy you.'

'And why should you care? Is there something you want me to do?'

'I've no employment for you until you decide to help us.'

Help them - help this strange royal family. She found herself wishing that it weren't so impossible. 'You said you didn't want me to help you.'

'No, Lady, I said I was undecided. I remain undecided.'

The door of the green house swung open then and the lady with the chestnut hair walked down the path toward them. And suddenly the feeling of Garan's mind changed to something lighter. He jumped up and went to the woman and reached for her hand. He walked her back to Fire, his face alight; and Fire understood that of course he'd steered their walk in this direction intentionally. She'd been too wrapped up in their conversation to notice.