She broke a long silence with her first words of the night, spoken so quietly he moved closer to hear. 'How long do you think you'll live?'

His breath was a surprised laugh. 'Truly, I don't know. Many mornings I wake knowing I might die that day.' He paused. 'Why? What's on your mind tonight, Lady?'

Fire said, 'It's likely one of these days a raptor monster will get me, or some arrow will find its way past my guard. It doesn't seem to me a morbid thought; only realistic.'

He listened, leaning against the railing, his head propped on his fist.

'I only hope it won't cause my friends too much pain,' she continued. 'I hope they'll understand it was inevitable.'

She shivered. Summer was well over, and if she'd had half a mind tonight she would have brought a coat. Brigan had remembered his coat, a fine long coat that Fire liked, because Brigan was wearing it, and Brigan was quick and strong, and always seemed comfortable whatever he was wearing. And now his hands reached for the b.u.t.tons and he shrugged himself out of the coat, for try as she might, Fire couldn't hide her shivers.

'No,' Fire said. 'It's my own fault for forgetting the season.'

He ignored this and helped her into the coat, which was too big; and its warmth and bigness were welcome, and so was its smell, of wool, and campfires, and horses. She whispered it into his mind. Thank you Thank you.

After a moment, he said, 'It seems we're both afflicted with sober thoughts tonight.'

'What have you been thinking?'

That unhappy laugh again. 'Nothing that will cheer you. I've been trying to find a way around this war.'

'Oh,' Fire said, rising for a moment from her self-absorption.

'It's a fruitless line of thought. There's no way around it, not with two enemies bent on fighting.'

'It isn't your fault, you know.'

He glanced at her. 'Reading my mind, Lady?'

She smiled. 'Lucky guess, I suppose.'

He smiled, too, and raised his face to the sky. 'I understand you rank dogs above dresses, Lady.'

Fire's own laughter was a balm to her heart. 'I explained about the monsters, by the way. She already knew a bit about it. I think your housekeeper takes good care of her.'

'Tess,' Brigan said. 'She's taken good care since the day Hanna was born.' He seemed to hesitate then, his voice carefully inscrutable. 'Have you met her?'

'No,' Fire said; for indeed, Brigan's housekeeper still looked upon Fire with cold eyes whenever she looked upon her at all. As Brigan must know, judging by his manner of asking.

'I think it's good for Hanna to have someone old in her life,' Brigan said, 'who can talk of all different times, not just the last thirty years. And Hanna loves Tess, and all of her stories.' He yawned and rubbed his hair. 'When will you start your new line of questioning?'

'Tomorrow, I suppose.'

'Tomorrow,' he said, sighing. 'Tomorrow I go away.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

FIRE HAD COME to know more about the insignificant habits and tastes of Lord Mydogg, Lord Gentian, Murgda, Gunner, all their households and all their guests than any person could care to know. She knew Gentian was ambitious but also slightly feather-brained at times and had a delicate stomach, ate no rich foods, and drank only water. She knew his son Gunner was cleverer than his father, a reputable soldier, a bit of an ascetic when it came to wine and women. Mydogg was the opposite, denied himself no pleasure, was lavish with his favourites but stingy with everyone else. Murgda was stingy with everyone including herself, and known to be exceedingly fond of bread pudding.

This was not helpful information. Clara and the king had better things to do than sit and witness its discovery, and Garan was still confined to his bed. More and more Fire was left alone in the questioning rooms, excepting, of course, Musa, Mila, and Neel. Brigan had ordered these three to attend Fire in any of her confidential court business, and they spent the greater part of every day with her.

Archer stood sometimes with her guard while she worked. He had asked permission to do so, and Clara had granted it, and so, rather absently, had Fire. She didn't mind Archer's presence. She understood that he was curious. She only minded the sense she got that Clara was more likely to join the interrogation if Archer was there.

Archer was quiet these days, keeping to himself, his thoughts hidden behind a closed door. Confusion obvious, at times, in his manner. Fire was as gentle with him as she could be, for she appreciated what she knew must be a conscious effort on his part, to suppress his own instinct for furious outbursts. 'How long will you be able to stay at court?' she asked him, so that he would know she didn't really want him to leave.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. 'Now that the harvest is over, Brocker is well able to handle affairs. I could stay for some time, if I were wanted.'

She made no answer to that, but touched his arm and asked him if he'd like to sit in on the afternoon's interrogations.

She learned that Mydogg favoured the smuggled wine of an obscure Pikkian vineyard where frost came early and the grapes were left to freeze on the vine. She learned that Murgda and her Pikkian husband, the naval explorer, were thought to be very much in love. Finally and at long last, she learned something useful: the name of a tall, dark-eyed archer with spot-on aim who was old enough by now to have white hair.

'Jod,' her informant grunted. 'Knew him some twenty years ago. We were together in old Nax's dungeons, 'til Jod got out. He was in for rape. Didn't know he was sick. Not surprised, the way they piled us on top of each other, the things went on in there. You know what I'm talking about, you monster freak b.i.t.c.h.'

'Where is he now?'

It wasn't easy with this man, or pleasant. At every question he fought against her hold, and then lost the fight and succ.u.mbed, ashamed and hateful. 'How should I know? I hope he's hunting monster-eating b.i.t.c.h dogs like you. I'd like to watch him-'

What followed was a description of a violation so graphic Fire couldn't help but feel the force of its malice. But the prisoners who spoke to her like this only made her patient, and oddly depressed. It seemed to Fire that they had a right to their words, the only defence they had against her ill use. And of course these were the men who would be dangerous to her if ever released, some of them so dangerous she was compelled to recommend they never be released; and this did not help to soothe her guilt. True, these were not men whose freedom would be a boon to society. Nonetheless, they would not be so inhumanly vile had she not been around to provoke them.

This man today fared worse than most others, for Archer came forward suddenly and punched him in the face. 'Archer!' Fire exclaimed. She called for the dungeon guards to take the man away, which they did, lifting him from the floor, where he lay dizzy and bleeding. Once he was gone Fire gaped at Archer, then glared, too exasperated to trust herself to speak.

'I'm sorry,' he said sullenly, yanking his collar loose, as if it choked him. 'That one got under my skin more than the others.'

'Archer, I simply can't-'

'I said I was sorry. I won't do it again.'

Fire crossed her arms and stared him down. After a few moments, Archer actually began to smile. He shook his head, sighing hopelessly. 'Perhaps it's the promise of your angry face that keeps me misbehaving,' he said. 'You're so beautiful when you're angry.'

'Oh, Archer,' she snapped, 'flirt with someone else.'

'I will, if you command it,' he quipped, with a goofy grin that caught her off guard, so that she had to stop her own face from twitching into a smile.

For a moment, it was almost as if they were friends again.

SHE HAD A serious conversation with Archer a few days later on the archery range, where she had come with her fiddle looking for Krell. She found Krell with Archer, Hanna, and the king, all four of them shooting at targets and Hanna well boosted by advice from all sides. Hanna concentrated hard, her feet planted stubbornly, miniature bow in her hands, miniature arrows on her back, and she was not talking. It was a characteristic Fire had noted: in riding, swordplay, and archery, and any other lesson that interested her, Hanna ceased her chatter, and showed a surprising capacity for focus.

'Brigan used to focus like that in his lessons too,' Clara had told Fire, 'and when he did, it was a great relief to Roen; for otherwise, guaranteed, he was plotting some kind of trouble. I believe he used to provoke Nax on purpose. He knew Nax favoured Nash.'

'Is that true?' Fire asked.

'Oh yes, Lady. Nash was better-looking. And Brigan was better at everything else, and more like his mother than his father, which I don't think worked in his favour. Ah well, at least he didn't start the brawls Hanna starts.'

Yes, Hanna started brawls, and it could not be because her father favoured anyone over her. But today she was not brawling, and once she woke from the daze of her bow and arrows enough to notice the lady and the fiddle, the girl begged a concert, and got one.

Afterward Fire walked around the archery range with Archer and Nash, her guard trailing behind.

The simultaneous company of these two men was a funny thing, for they mirrored each other. Each in love with her, gloomy and moping; each resigned to hopelessness and each subdued, but resenting the presence of the other. And neither doing much to hide any of this from her, for as usual Nash's feelings were open, and Archer's body language unmistakable.

But Nash's manners were better than Archer's, at least for the moment, and the court had a greater hold on his time. As Archer's choice of conversation became less inclusive, Nash took his leave.

Fire considered Archer, so tall and fine-looking beside her, his bow in hand. She spoke quietly. 'You drove him away, with your talk of our childhood in the north.'

'He wants you, and he doesn't deserve you.'

'As you deserve me?'

Archer's face took on a grim smile. 'I've always known I don't deserve you. Every regard you've ever shown me has been a gift undeserved.'

That is not true, she thought to him. You were my loyal friend even before I could walk. You were my loyal friend even before I could walk.

'You've changed,' Archer said. 'Do you realise how much? The more time I spend with you here the less I know you. All these new people in your life, and your happiness in this princess child - and her dog, of all things. And the work you do every day - you use your power, every day. I used to have to fight with you to use it even to defend yourself.'

Fire took a careful breath. 'Archer. Sometimes in the courtyards or the hallways, I've taken to changing people's attentions so they don't notice me. So I can walk by without being ha.s.sled, and everyone else can continue their work without distraction.'

'You're not ashamed of your abilities anymore,' Archer said. 'And the sight of you - you're glowing. Truly, Fire. I don't recognise you.'

'But the ease with which I've come to use my power. Can you understand how it frightens me, Archer?'

Archer stopped for a moment, his gaze fierce, his eyes on three dark dots in the sky. The archery range stood at a high point overlooking the sea. A trio of raptor monsters circled now over some trade boat below, and arrows flew from the bows of its sailors. It was a rough autumn sea and a bl.u.s.tery autumn wind, and arrow after arrow failed to hit its mark.

Archer took one stunning, lazy shot. A bird fell. Then Fire's guard Edler connected with a shot of his own, and Archer clapped him on the shoulder to congratulate him.

Fire thought her question forgotten, and so she was surprised when he spoke.

'You've always been far more afraid of yourself than of any of the terrors in the world outside yourself. Were it the other way around, we'd both have peace.'

He said it kindly, not critically; it was his forlorn wish for peace. Fire hugged her fiddle now with both arms, muting the strings with the fabric of her dress. 'Archer, you know me. You recognise me. We must get past this thing between us, you must accept how I've changed. I could not bear it if by refusing your bed I should also lose your friendship. We were friends before. We must find the way to be friends again.'

'I know,' he said. 'I know, love. I'm trying. I am.'

He walked away from her then and stared at the sea. He stood for some time, silent. When he walked back she was still standing there, holding her fiddle to her breast. After a moment something like a smile eased the sadness in his face.

'Will you tell me why you're playing a different fiddle?' he said.

It was a good story to tell, and distant enough from today's feelings that it calmed her in the telling.

THE COMPANY OF Brigan and Garan was a great relief, compared to that of Archer and Nash. They were so easy. Their silences never felt loaded with grave things they yearned to say, and if they brooded, at least it had no connection to her.

The three sat in the sunny central courtyard, deliciously warm, for with the approach of winter there were advantages to a black palace with gla.s.s roofs. It had been a day of difficult and unproductive work that for Fire had yielded little more than a reiteration of Mydogg's preference for frozen-grape wine. An old servant of Gentian's had reported it to her; the servant had read a line or two about it in a letter Gentian had instructed him to burn, a letter from Mydogg. Fire still couldn't understand this propensity of sworn enemies in the Dells to visit each other and send each other letters. And how frustrating that all the servant had seen was a bit about wine.

She slapped at a monster bug on her arm. Garan played absently with his walking stick, which he'd used to walk slowly to this spot. Brigan sat stretched out with his hands clasped behind his head, watching Hanna scuffle with Blotchy on the other side of the courtyard.

'Hanna will never have friends who are people,' Brigan said, 'until she stops getting into sc.r.a.ps.'

Blotchy was whirling in circles with his mouth clamped around a stick he'd just found at the base of a courtyard tree - a branch, really, quite enormous, that swept a wide and multi-p.r.o.nged radius as he spun. 'This won't do,' Brigan said now. He jumped up, went to the dog, wrestled the branch away and broke it into pieces, then gave Blotchy back a stick of less hazardous dimensions. Determined, apparently, that if Hanna should have no friends, at least she should keep both eyes.

'She has many friends who are people,' Fire said gently when he got back.

'You know I meant children.'

'She's too precocious for the children her age, and she's too small for the other children to tolerate.'

'They might tolerate her if she would tolerate them. I fear she's becoming a bully.'

Fire spoke with certainty. 'She is not a bully. She doesn't pick on the others or single them out; she isn't cruel. She fights only when she's provoked, and they provoke her on purpose, because they've decided not to like her, and they know that if she does fight, you'll punish her.'

'The little brutes. They're using you,' Garan muttered to Brigan.

'Is this just a theory, Lady? Or something you've observed?'

'It's a theory I've developed on the basis of what I've observed.'

Brigan smiled soberly. 'And have you developed a theory about how I might teach my daughter to harden herself to taunts?'

'I'll think on it.'

'Thank the Dells for your thinking.'

'Thank the Dells for my health,' Garan said, rising to his feet at the sight of Sayre, who'd entered the courtyard, looking very pretty in a blue dress. 'I shall now bound away.'

He did not bound, but his steady walking was progress, and Fire watched his every step, as if her eyes on his back could keep him safe. Sayre met him and took his arm, and the two set off together.

His recent setback had frightened her. Fire could admit this to herself, now that he was improved. She wished that old King Arn and his monster adviser, conducting their experiments a hundred years ago, had discovered just a few more medicines, found the remedies to one or two more illnesses.

Hanna was the next to leave them, running to take Archer's hand as he pa.s.sed through with his bow.

'Hanna's announced her intentions to marry Archer,' Brigan said, watching them go.

Fire smiled into her lap. She crafted her response carefully - but spoke it lightly. 'I've seen plenty of women fall into an infatuation with him. But your heart can be easier than most other fathers, for she's much too young for his brand of heartbreak. I suppose it's a harsh thing to say of one's oldest friend, but were she twelve years older I would not let them meet.'

True to her expectation, Brigan's face was unreadable. 'You're little more than twelve years older than Hanna yourself.'