Laheran looked once again at the parchment note on the door.

The warrior lives, you think? Not for long, Karl Cullinane. Not for long, you murdering animal.

Laheran tore the parchment down from the door and slashed it to ribbons.

CHAPTER 6.

Tennetty.

The business of the samurai consists in reflecting on his own station in life, in discharging loyal service to his master if he has one, in deepening his fidelity in a.s.sociations with friends, and, with due consideration of his own position, in devoting himself to duty above all.

a"Yamaga Soko.

The difference between being a trusted friend and a devoted va.s.sal is non-trivial. Me, I'd rather be the first; va.s.sals tend to go to the well too often.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

"Come in," she said.

Her room, a small cubicle down in the dungeon level of the tower, was lit only by a flickering lamp set in a stone niche at eye-level. It was cold down below the ground, and it smelled of ancient mold, but that didn't seem to affect Tennetty as she sat tailor-fashion on her rumpled bed, considering the edge of a bowie, her face cast into shadow, hiding the patch over her missing eye.

"So," she said. "You let them talk you out of it?"

"What are you saying? That I don't want to go?"

She snickered. "You have a keen eye for the obvious." From somewhere in the darkness she produced a whetstone, spat on it, and began to hone the edge of the knife with slow, even strokes.

Jason didn't like that kind of accusation, and he didn't know how to deal with it. "I thought I proved something in Melawei," he said, not realizing how foolish the boast sounded until the words were out.

She eyed him evenly. "You proved that you could use a rifle, once. You did it when it counted, I'll give you that. But you didn't prove that you're a subst.i.tute for him, boy. You sit in his chair, and you expect all of them to look up to you like you're him. . . ." She spat on the stone and continued to stroke it down the edge. "Well, you're not. Not by me."

"Tennetty, Ia""

With no warm-up, no hint that she was about to move, she lunged at him, springing from the bed.

"Guards!" he shouted, as he caught her knife-arm, trying for a kick to her kneecap.

She got her leg behind his and swept his feet out from under him, landing heavily on his chest, one arm trapped underneath him.

The tip of the knife flickered in the lamplight, descendinga"

a"and halted an inch from his eye.

"Your father would have beaten me, Jason. You're just not as fast as he was, not as brave, not the ruler he was, nota""

A rifle-b.u.t.t slammed against her head with an audible thunk. From the edge of his vision, a huge hand reached out and fastened itself around her wrist; another, somewhat smaller hand gripped her by the hair and lifted her up, not at all slowing at her m.u.f.fled groan of pain. She struck out with a free hand but it was blocked, the sound like a fist slapping a side of beef.

"Take her, Durine," Kethol said, releasing his grip on her hair, stooping to help Jason up.

She tried to lash out with a savage groin-kick, but Durine, moving more gracefully, more quickly than any man his size had a right to, had already turned to catch the kick on his hip.

Like a mastiff with a rat he grabbed her, then shook her hand until the knife dropped from it. Durine yanked her toward him with one hand, punching her in the pit of the stomach with the other.

Retching, she staggered, and would have collapsed if Durine hadn't economically spun her about and thrown her to the ground, then knelt beside her, gripping both her hands in one ma.s.sive paw, drawing a beltknife with the other.

He looked up at Jason, who was standing half-supported by Kethol. "Do you want to do it, sir, or should I?" Ma.s.sive shoulders shrugged under his leather jerkin. "Makes not much of a difference to me."

Jason struggled to sit up. "Would you alla""

Tennetty snarled, a sound more animal than human. "Just testing him, I was just testing him," she said, the words coming out as a threat, not a plea.

"Let her up, Durine," Jason said. He straightened, a salty taste in his mouth; he reached to the bleeding corner of his lip. He couldn't remember how, but it must have been cut in the fight.

Durine looked at Kethol, who shrugged, as though to say, It's up to him. Reluctantly, the big man let go of her hands and rose, not sheathing his dagger. "I'd not go for that knife, Tennetty," he said, his voice casual, perhaps a touch embarra.s.sed, as if he'd caught himself repeating a transparent plat.i.tude like, Remember to dress warm when it's cold. "It'd be sort of a foolish idea."

She nodded and worked her way over to the edge of her bed, pulling herself up to it, rubbing her hand against the side of her head. In the flickering lamplight she looked old, and about used-up. "I hear you."

"I think you've done enough testing of him." Kethol picked up her pistol belt from where it hung near the bed and slung it over his shoulder. "Well, young sir, what do we do about this?"

"I just came to ask her about the party, the one I'm taking to Home, and then to Endell." Jason tried to dismiss it with a wave. "We got into a disagreement about how ready I am, and she tried to prove a point."

Kethol's mouth twisted into a smile. The expression didn't look right. "With respect, sir: this is why you called for help? You were perhaps proving that you've mastered that form of self-defense?" He turned to Durine. "What do you think?"

Durine shook his head. "I don't like it. We haul her in front of the general, at least."

Kethol snorted. "After he told us that he doesn't want to see our ugly faces for the next two tendays? Maybe Captain Garthe instead?"

"Over an a.s.sault on the Heir?"

"I'll decide what's done about it!" Jason snapped.

Durine thought it over for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, sir. We can discuss it with the general while you're gone, I guess. Long as you're not taking her with you. You give a dog one bite, not two."

Tennetty shook her head. "Wrong. I'm going with him. I'm as good as there is at what I do."

"Threatening royalty?" Kethol shrugged. "Who's going to keep an eye on you?"

She shook her head, then clearly regretted it. "If we're going to carry any cargo at all, we've got to keep the group downa"remember, we've got to bring Slovotsky's woman and kids back from Endell. Bren Adahan and Aeia are bound for Home, and that means we can take maybe three more. Jason, me, and three more. I was thinking of Garthe, Teven, and maybe Danagar, if he can travel, buta"" A spasm of pain creased her face and closed her single eye, leaving it watering.

"A corporal and two of the general's sons? Captain Garthe would be fine, but I've got a better idea," Kethol said, looking at Jason. "What would you say to me, Durine and Pirojil for the other three? I'd mean you'd have to talk the general into letting us off our punishment, and getting Piro healed up."

Which wouldn't bother Jason at all.

"Me instead of Pirojil," Tennetty said. "You either take me or kill me. Karl told me to watch out for you, Jason." Moving with exaggerated slowness, she rose from the bed and walked over to him. Durine glanced quickly at Jason, but Kethol's eyes never left Tennetty as she unstrapped her pistol and slowly, carefully, pulled it from the holster, handing it b.u.t.t first to Jason.

"c.o.c.k it," she said.

Durine raised an eyebrow. Kethol shrugged, then nodded.

Jason c.o.c.ked the weapon, holding it as he'd been taught, the barrel pointed toward the ceiling.

"Lower it now, point it at me." Again moving slowly, she reached out and pulled his arm down, until the muzzle was resting just underneath her chin, cold steel against her flesh.

"Either trust me or shoot me, now," she said, as though she didn't care one way or another.

"It's your decision, sir," Durine said. "Your father used to have a high opinion of Tennetty, but I don't know as you'd want to give her another bite. You give a dog one bite, not two."

"You already said that," Jason said.

"So I did. Well?"

Jason jerked his head toward the door. "Leave us alone for a moment or two," he said, not lowering the pistol. Was she really betting that she could beat the hangfire?

"We'll be just outside the door." Durine said. He and Kethol scooped up their rifles and left.

"What would you advise my father, Tennetty?" he asked.

She didn't hesitate. "I'd tell him to shoot. You can't trust somebody like me, not after I've come this close to killing you."

"Even though I know you won't do it again?"

"You don't know. You can't know. I don't know. Your father wouldn't give me another chance."

Jason nodded. "Maybe you're right." He pulled back the hammer, lowered the weapon and unc.o.c.ked it, then handed it to her. "Then again, as you were so kind to point out, I'm not my father." He turned away from her and walked out of the room, his back feeling quite naked and completely vulnerable.

CHAPTER 7.

Goodbyes.

I've never liked cats' ways of taking their leavea"the ungrateful little creatures just go without saying anything.

Not my way. Saying goodbye is something we humans do pretty well.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

Aeia escorted him into the bedroom. "Take it easy on Mother," she whispered. "She's not doing too well."

Doria was already there, her legs curled under her as she sat in an oversized chair by the window, a lapdesk and pen across her lap. As Aeia and Jason walked in from the outer room, she set the lapdesk on an end table and walked to them.

Andrea Cullinane was asleep in the bed, her face seemingly a little younger, a trifle less worn around the edges than it had been when Jason had seen her in the workshop. For a moment her breathing speeded up and her eyelids fluttered, but just as Jason thought she was going to wake up she turned over on her side and buried her face deeply in her pillow.

"She'll be fine, I think, but she's been overdoing it with the magic for a long time now," Doria whispered, her lips pursed in professional disapproval. "Just think of her as a recovering junkie and you'll have a good picture." She guided them out toward the hall, far enough away that the whispers wouldn't carry to the bed, but close enough so that the three of them could still see Andrea's sleeping form.

" 'Junkie'?" Jason asked.

Doria's brow furrowed. "Drunk, then. Think of her as a drunk trying to give up drinking. The trouble is, she can't give it up; but she has to cut it down to the point where it's not going to hurt her."

Aeia shook her head. "But she's going to be okay?"

Doria didn't answer for a moment. "Remember that I'm not what I was, buta""

"But you've still got a feel for the way of things," Aeia said firmly. "That's what Andrea says," she added, when Doria seemed about to protest.

"Perhaps," Doria said. "But . . ." She shrugged it away. "In any case, I don't want her to have any more shocks, not right now. When she's well, she's a lot stronger in body and soul than most people are, buta""

"How do you know that? This 'feel' of yours?" Jason was skeptical. Doria had lost her persona as a Hand healer when she'd defied the matriarch in Melawei. He was grateful to hera"h.e.l.l, she'd defied the matriarch by using her spells to save Jason's lifea"but that didn't blind him to what she'd given up.

Doria's face went stony. "Because after the two of us were gang-raped," she said calmly, levelly, almost mechanically, "she recovered from what sent me into catatonia. She was able to deal with it and, not too much later, to resume a normal s.e.x life with your father. That takes a kind of strength of character that I doubt you have, boy," she said, her whisper momentarily vehement. She fought for control of herself, and found it. "But she's not at her best right now, which is why both of you are to play this up as an easy little vacation before you settle down to marriage and work or whatevera""

"Doria?" Andrea's sleepy voice interrupted itself for a yawn. "What isa"oh, Jason, Aeia," she said, sitting up in bed and smiling. She held out her hands to them.

Awake, she looked dreadful. Her eyes were puffy and red, and there were crusts at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Jason took one of her hands in his. Hers were dry and hot, the skin loose as an old woman's. But Mother couldn't be getting old, could she?

She smiled at them. "The two of you will watch out for each other, now. And be careful."

Or maybe she could.

He shrugged. "Nothing to it. Just a quick jaunt on dragonback, and a pickup in Endell. Nothing to it," he repeated.

Why did the words sound insincere in his ears? That was about the size of it, in fact: it was just going to be a handful of days away from Biemestren, that was all.

Andrea didn't seem to hear him. "I haven't seen Janie for years and years. My, she must be as big as you are. And I only know about little Doria Andrea from Walter's and Kirah's letters." She smiled at Doria. "Although I did notice that you got top billing."

"Then again," Doria said, "naming her 'Andrea Doria' would have been aa""

"No, don't say it!"

"a"it would have been a disaster."