Rising from the bed he moved to the window. Sigarni was standing in the sunlight, the hawk on her glove, the black hound lying at her feet. Fell's mouth was dry, and all his long-suppressed emotions surged to the surface. Of all the women he had known - and there had been many - he had loved only one. And in that moment he knew, with a sickening certainty, that it would always be thus.

Oh, he would marry again, and he would have sons, but his heart would remain with this enigmatic mountain woman until the daggers of time stopped its beat.

Though still weak from loss of blood, Fell knew he could stay no longer in sight of Sigarni. Gathering his cloak of black leather he pulled on his boots, took up his longbow and quiver and walked from the rear of the cabin, heading back on the long trail to Cilfallen. There was a maid there, of marriageable age, whose father had set a bride price Fell could afford.

'I hate this place,' said the Baron Ranulph Gottasson, leaning on the wide parapet and staring out over the distant mountains. Asmidir said nothing. It was cold up here on the Citadel's high walls, the wind hissing down from the north, cutting through the warmest clothes. But the Baron seemed not to notice the inclemency of the weather. He was dressed in a simple shirt of black silk and a sleeveless jerkin of the finest black leather. He wore no adornments, no silver enhancements to his black leather leggings, no chains or ornate discs attached to his knee-length boots. As Asmidir stood shivering on the battlements, the Baron turned his pale hooded eyes on the black man. 'Not like Kushir, eh? Too cold, too bleak. Ever wish you were back home?'

'Sometimes,' Asmidir admitted.

'So do I. What is there here for a man like me? Where is the glory?'

'The kingdom is at peace, my lord,' said Asmidir softly. 'Thanks mainly to your good self and the Earl of Jastey.'

The Baron's lips thinned, the hooded eyes narrowing. 'Don't speak his name in my presence! I never met a man so gifted with luck. All his victories were hollow.

Tell me what he has ever done to match my conquest of Ligia? Twenty-five thousand warriors against my two legions. Yet we crushed them, and took their capital. What can he offer against that? The Siege of Catium. Pah!'

'Indeed, sir,' said Asmidir smoothly, 'your deeds will echo through the pages of history. Now I am sure you have more important matters to attend to, so how may I be of service to you?'

The Baron turned and beckoned Asmidir to follow him into a small study. The black man stared longingly at the cold and empty fireplace. Does the man not feel the cold, he wondered? The Baron seated himself at a desk of oak. 'I want the red hawk,' he said. 'There is a tourney in two months and the red hawk could win it for me. Name a price.'

'Would that I could sir. But I sold the hawk last autumn.'

The Baron swore. 'Who to? I'll buy it back.'

'I wouldn't know where to find the man, sir,' Asmidir lied smoothly. 'He came to my castle last year. He was a traveller, I believe, perhaps a pilgrim. But if I see him again I shall direct him to you.'

The Baron swore again, then lashed his fist against the desk-top.

'All right, that will be all,' he said at last.

Asmidir bowed and left the study. Descending the spiral staircase he moved down into the belly of the fortress, emerging into the long hall where the feast was in progress. Red-liveried servants were carrying platters of food and drink and more than two score of knights and their ladies were seated at the three main tables.

Fires were blazing merrily at both ends of the hall and minstrels sat in the high gallery, their soft music drowned by the chatter of the guests.

Asmidir was not hungry. Swiftly he walked from the hall, and down the long stairs to the lower chambers and the double-doored exit. His thoughts were sombre as he recalled the Baron's words. Asmidir remembered the conquest of Ligia, the battles and the massacres, the rapes and the mutilations, the torture and the destruction. A rich, independent nation brought to its knees, humiliated and beggared, its

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libraries burned, its holy places desecrated. Oh yes, Ranulph, history will long remember your bloody name! Asmidir shivered.

Revenge, so the proverb claimed, is a dish best served cold. Is that true, he wondered? Will there be any satisfaction in bringing the man down?

Wrapping his cloak more tightly about his broad shoulders, Asmidir left the fortress building and moved across the courtyard. A young man hailed him and he turned and smiled at the newcomer - a tall young man, slender and brown- eyed, his long blond hair drawn back from his brow and tied in a tight pony-tail.

He was carrying an armful of rolled maps. 'Good afternoon, Leofric. You are missing the feast.'

'Yes, I know," said the other dolefully. 'But the Baron wants to study these maps.

It doesn't pay to keep him waiting.'

'They look old.'

'They are. They were commissioned some two hundred years ago by the Highland King, Gandarin the First. Fine work, most of them. Beautifully crafted. The map- makers also had some method of judging the height of mountains. Did you know that High Druin is nine thousand seven hundred and eighty-two feet high? Do you think it could be true, or did someone just invent the figure?'

Asmidir shrugged. 'It sounds too precise to be an invention. Still, I am glad you are enjoying your work."

'I enjoy the detail,' said Leofric, chuckling. 'Not many do. It pleases me to know how many lances we have, and the state of our horses. I like working on projects like this. Did you know there are four hundred and twelve wagons employed around the Five Towns?' The young man laughed. 'Yes, I know, it is a little boring for most people. But you try to go on a campaign without wagons and the war is over before it begins.'

Asmidir chatted with the young man for several minutes, then bade him farewell and walked swiftly to the stable. The hostler bowed as he entered, then saddled the chestnut gelding. Asmidir gave the man a small silver coin.

'Thank you, sir,' he said, pocketing the coin with a swiftness that dazzled the eye.

Asmidir rode from the stable, through the portcullis gate and out into the wide streets of the town. He felt the eyes of the people upon him as he passed through the marketplace, and heard some children L.

calling out names. A troop of soldiers marched past him and he pulled up his horse. The men were mercenaries; they looked weary, as if they had marched many miles. Leofric planning the logistics of war, more mercenaries arriving every day .. . The beast is not far off, thought Asmidir.

Passing through the north gate, Asmidir let the horse break into a run as it reached open ground. He rode thus for a mile, then slowed the beast. The chestnut was powerful, a horse bred for stamina, and he was not even breathing hard when Asmidir reined him in. The black man patted the gelding's neck.

'The dreams of men are born in blood,' he said softly.

Fell was sitting by the roadside, catching his breath, when the small two-wheeled cart moved into sight. Two huge grey wolfhounds were harnessed to it, and a silver-haired man sat at the front with a long stick in his hands. Seeing the forester, the old man tapped his stick lightly on the flanks of the hounds. 'Hold up there, Shamol. Hold up, Cabris. Good day to you, woodsman!'

Fell smiled. 'By Heaven, Gwalch, you look ridiculous sitting in that contraption.'

'Whisht, boy, at my age I don't give a care to how I look,' said the old man. 'What matters is that I can travel as far as I like, without troubling my old bones.'

Leaning forward, he peered at the forester. 'You look greyer than a winter sky, boy. Are you ailing?'

'Wounded. And I've shed some blood. I'll be fine. Just need a rest, is all.'

'Heading for Cilfallen?'

'Aye.'

'Then climb aboard, young man. My hounds can pull two as well as one. Good exercise for them. We'll stop off at my cabin for a dram. That's what you need, take my word for it: a little of the water of life. And I promise not to tell your fortune.'

'You always tell my fortune - and it never makes good listening. But, just this once, I'll take you up on your offer. I'll ride that idiotic wagon. But I'll pray to all the gods I know that no one sees me on it. I'd never live it down.'

The old man chuckled and moved to his right, making room for the forester. Fell laid his long bow and quiver in the back and stepped

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aboard. 'Home now, hounds!' said Gwalch. The dogs lurched into the traces and the little cart jerked forward. Fell laughed aloud. 'I thought nothing would amuse me today,' he said.

'You shouldn't have gone to her, boy,' said Gwalch.

'No fortunes, you said!' the forester snapped.

'Pah! That's not telling your fortune; that's a comment on moments past. And you can put the black man from your mind, as well. He'll not win her. She belongs to the land, Fell. In some ways she is the land. Sigarni the Hawk Queen, the hope of the Highlands.' The old man shook his head, and then laughed, as if at some private jest. Fell clung to the side of the cart as it rattled and jolted, the wheels dropping into ruts in the trail, half tipping the vehicle.

'By Heaven, Gwalch, it is a most uncomfortable ride,' complained the forester.

'You think this is uncomfortable?' retorted the old man. 'Wait till we get to the top of my hill. The hounds always break into a run for home. By Shemak's balls, boy, it'll turn your hair grey!'

The hounds toiled up the hill, pausing only briefly at the summit to catch their breaths. Then they moved on, rounding a last bend in the trail. Below them Gwalch's timber cabin came into sight and both dogs barked and began to run.

The cart bounced and lurched as the dogs gathered speed, faster and faster down the steep slope. Fell could feel his heart pounding and his knuckles were white as he gripped the side rail. Ahead of them was a towering oak, the trunk directly in their path. 'The tree!' shouted Fell.

'I know!' answered Gwalch. 'Best to jump!'

'Jump?' echoed Fell, swinging to see the old man following his own advice. At the last moment the dogs swerved towards the cabin. The cart tipped suddenly and Fell was hurled head-first from it, missing the oak by inches. He hit the ground hard, with the wind blasted from his lungs.

Fell forced himself to his knees just as Gwalch came ambling over. 'Great fun, isn't it?' said the old man, stooping to take Fell by the arm and pull him to his feet.

Fell looked into Gwalch's twinkling brown eyes. 'You are insane, Gwalch! You always were.'

'Life is to be lived, boy. Without danger there is no life. Come and have a dram.

We'll talk, you and I, of life and love, of dreams and glory. I'll tell you tales to fire your blood.'

Fell found his longbow and quiver, gathered the fallen arrows and followed the old man inside. It was a simple one-roomed dwelling with a bed in one corner, a stone-built hearth in the north wall, and a rough-hewn table and two bench seats in the centre. Three rugs, two of ox-skin, one of bear, covered the dirt floor, and the walls were decorated with various weapons - two longbows, horn-tipped, several swords and a double-edged claymore. A mail shirt was hanging on a hook beside the fire, its rings still gleaming, not a speck of rust upon it. On a shelf sat a helm of black iron, embossed with brass and copper. A battle-axe was hanging over the fireplace, double-headed and gleaming.

'Ready for war, eh, old man?' asked Fell as he sat down at the table. Gwalch smiled, and filled a clay cup with amber liquid from a jug.

'Always ready - though no longer up to it,' said the old man sadly. 'And that is a crying shame, for there's a war coming.'

'There's no war!' said Fell irritably. 'There's no excuse for one. The Highlands are peaceful. We pay our taxes. We keep the roads safe.'

Gwalch filled a second cup and drained it in a single swallow. 'Those Outland bastards don't need an excuse, Fell. And I can smell blood in the air. But that's for another day, and it is a little way off, so I won't let it spoil our drinking. So tell me, how did she look?'

'I don't want to talk about her.'

'Ah, but you do. She's filling your mind. Women are like that, bless them! I knew a girl once - Maev, her name was. As bright and perfect a woman as ever walked the green hills. And hips! Oh, the sway of them! She moved in with a cattle- breeder from Gilcross. Eleven babies - and all survived to manhood. Now that- was a woman!'

'You should have married her yourself,' said Fell.

'I did,' said Gwalch. 'Two years we were together. Great years. All but wore me out, she did. But then I had my skull caved in during the Battle at Iron Bridge, and after that the Talent was on me. Couldn't look at a man or woman without knowing what was going on in their minds. Oh, Fell, you've no idea how irksome it is.' Gwalch sat down and filled his cup for a third time. 'To be lying on top of a beautiful woman, feeling her warmth and the soft silkiness of her; to be aflame with passion and to know she's thinking of a sick cow with a dropping milk yield!'

the old man laughed.

Fell shook his head, and smiled. 'Is that true?'

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'As true as I'm sitting here. I said to her one day, "Do you love me, woman?" she looked me in the eye and she said, "Of course I do." And do you know, she was thinking of the cattle-breeder she'd met at the Summer Games. And into her mind came the memory of a roll in the hay with him.'

'You must have thought of killing her," said Fell, embarrassed by the confession.

'Nah! Never was much of a lover. Roll on, roll off. She deserved a litde happiness.

I've seen her now and again. He's long dead, of course, but she goes on. Rich, now. A widow of property.'

'Are all the weapons yours?' asked Fell, changing the subject.

'Aye, and all been used. I fought for the old King, when we almost won, and I fought alongside the young fool who walked us on to Golden Moor and extermination. Still don't know how I battled clear of that one. I was already nigh on fifty. I won't be so lucky in the next one - though we'll have a better leader.'

'Who?'

The old man touched his nose. 'Now's not the time, Fell. And if I told you, you wouldn't believe me. Anyway I'd sooner talk about women. So tell me about Sigarni. You know you want to. Or shall I tell you what you're thinking?'

'No!' said Fell sharply. 'Fill another cup and I'll talk - though only the gods know why. It doesn't help.' Accepting the drink he swallowed deeply, feeling the fiery liquid burn his throat. 'Son of a whore, Gwalch! Is this made of rat's piss?'

'Only a touch,' said the old man. 'Just for colour. Now go on.'

'Why her? That's the question I ask myself. I've had more than my fair share of beautiful women. Why is it only she can fire my blood? Why?

'Because she's special.' Gwalch rose from the table and moved to the hearth. A fire had been expertly laid and he ignited his tinder-box, holding it below the cast-iron fire-dog until flames began to lick at the dry twigs at the base. Kneeling, he blew on the tongues of flame until the thicker pieces caught. Then he stood.

'Women like her are rare, born for greatness. They're not made to be wives, old before their time, with dry breasts drooping like hanged men. She's starlight where other women are candle flames. You understand? You should feel privileged for having bedded her. She has the gift, Fell. The gift of eternity. You know what that means?'

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'I don't know what any of this means,' admitted the forester.