The sprawling blackness of the ducal hunting forest lay ahead.

There was a rattle and Failla saw Nath making sure his own sword was ready to hand.

"Runaways and bandits lurk along forest tracks," he said defensively.

"We should be safe enough." Failla smiled. "From the Woodsmen anyway."

Behind her, Derenna was immediately curious. "The Woodsmen?"

Welgren chuckled. "According to tavern tales, they're the ones the peasants have to thank when a fresh-killed deer is laid on their doorstep the very day after some mercenary band has stolen their only pig. Or when some despairing goodwife measuring out her last barley to brew ale for selling finds a bag of coin in her grain bin to pay the ducal levy."

"How often does that happen?" Derenna asked acerbically. "Outside tavern tales?"

"We can turn tavern tales to our purpose, whether they're true or not." Reniack dismissed her cynicism. "As long as they show how woefully Duke Garnot fails his people."

Failla kept her mouth shut. She'd already said too much. She didn't want Reniack's broadsheets linking her Uncle Ernout and the guildsmen to such charity. As long as Duke Garnot sent his mercenaries hunting the mythical Woodsmen, they stayed safe.

As Welgren regaled Reniack and Derenna with more stories, Nath was searching the darkened coppices flanking the road ahead. "Charoleia tells me you and I will be travelling together. As brother and sister," he added hastily. "I have a wife and three young children."

"My felicitations." Failla looked for the waymarks Uncle Ernout had described. The first was a lightning-struck tree.

"Do you have a steady hand and a good eye for drafting?" he asked diffidently. "If so, you could act as my assistant."

"I believe so." She needn't explain how she'd honed such skills copying Duke Garnot's private papers.

Seeing a leafless skeleton amid the summer's lush growth, she urged her horse on.

"Will her ladyship be able to play the part of Welgren's nurse?" Nath sounded doubtful.

"After five children, a sickroom shouldn't come as any great shock to her."

To her relief, Nath took the hint and fell silent. Failla turned down a track that forced them into single file. As the trees grew taller, the boughs overhead hid the spangled night sky. Leaf litter muffled their mounts' hooves as they all slowed to let the horses pick their own way safely through the darkness.

Nath spoke up behind her. "I can smell burning."

"Solstice bonfires." Through the black branches, Failla saw moonlight striking pale rock.

As they emerged into a clearing around a rocky crag, Nath looked dubiously at scorched patches of turf ringed with stones. A few half-burned logs were still smoking. "You'd think they'd quench them more thoroughly when the forest is so dry."

"And risk the god's displeasure?" An old man, cloaked and hooded, sat in a niche carved into the rock.

"Saedrin's stones." Reniack was startled. "I took you for a statue."

"Uncle!" Failla slid from her horse and embraced him with relief.

"Drianon's blessings on your birth festival, child." He held her, strong despite his scrawny frame and snowy hair. "Until I got your letter, we all feared the worst."

"I'm sorry." Failla pressed her face to his woollen weskit.

"Be careful." Her uncle's arms tightened around her. "Your aunts tell me too many folk are still curious as to what's become of you. The duchess's women are forever debating the latest gossip."

Failla pulled away reluctantly, aware that everyone else was waiting. "Can we talk here?"

Nath had caught up her horse's reins. The animal whinnied at the scent of fresh water. A spring flowed from the rock to fill a pool carved at its foot. Long ago, the crag above had been shaped into a sternly bearded visage surrounded by billowing clouds. Pious hands had scoured it clean ready for the Solstice rites.

"This shrine is dedicated to Dastennin?" Derenna looked at Ernout. "You're its priest?"

"No." He shook his head. "Lord Hanriss inherited that honour from his father, as his father had done before him."

"Does he know we're meeting here?" Reniack asked suspiciously.

"Only that I have come to supervise the Solstice rites in Saedrin's honour." Ernout shook his head. "Lord Hanriss is too frail to leave his home and he has no sons left to inherit the priesthood. They all died fighting for Duke Garnot's father. He feels no obligation to Duke Garnot's quarrels, nor to any hopes of greatness for His Grace's son and heir."

Failla remembered hearing about the reclusive old lord from one of her cousins. He wanted revenge above all else, on Duke Garnot and his long-dead father, for the sake of his slaughtered sons. Would hatred that he'd already cherished through two generations keep him alive to see all the dukes brought low?

"I know too many families who feel the same." Derenna accepted Welgren's help and dismounted. "I take it his death means his estates will fall into Duke Garnot's hands to be laid waste by His Grace's folly?"

"Or used to bribe some favourite." Ernout waved a hand at the pool as several horses strained towards the water. "Let your mounts drink. I don't imagine Dastennin will take offence."

"I believe you represent the Guilds of Carluse?" Reniack dismounted and led his horse forward. It joined the others already drinking noisily, bits and bridles jingling.

"A Parnilesse accent," Ernout remarked. "Yet you're committed to the cause of peace in Carluse?"

"To the cause of peace in Lescar," Reniack said firmly. "I leave for Parnilesse tonight, where friends will hide me from Duke Orlin as we spread new hope among all who despise his rule. Lady Derenna--" he spared her a nod "--will travel with Welgren through Sharlac and Draximal, telling those whom they trust to expect a new dawn. If you will spread our word through Carluse, Failla and Nath will head for Marlier, to find men and women of equal goodwill to support our endeavour."

Ernout was unmoved by Reniack's oratory. "Goodwill is all very well, but Failla's letter said you were bringing an army to force Duke Garnot to his knees and to terms thereafter. Where are these fighting men now?"

"We have been travelling too far and too fast for news to catch up with us--" Reniack began.

"I have a letter from Charoleia." Nath reached into the breast of his jerkin. "She says your associates are recruiting in the hunting and mining camps of northernmost Ensaimin. They'll muster their forces in Dalasor by the middle of Aft-Summer."

Derenna looked at Ernout. "Can you convince your guildsmen and townsfolk not to fight? If they cannot escape service in a militia, they must flee the battlefields at the last moment."

"When did you get that letter, Nath?" Welgren was rummaging in a leather wallet belted beneath his cloak. "I have one from Charoleia here. They want to recruit mercenaries who've been wintering in Marlier, according to... Tathrin, is it?" He looked up enquiringly.

"Tathrin, yes, that's his name." Failla felt a pang. She'd much rather be travelling with him again. How was he coping with the hazards of his journey? She wasn't at all convinced those Mountain Men could be trusted, not if they faced a choice between saving his neck or their own.

"When exactly did you get this?" Welgren took Nath's letter and compared them.

The map-maker thought for a moment. "The morning of the forty-first day of For-Summer."

"But it's dated on the twenty-fourth day of the season." Welgren gave Nath his letter back. "I had this on the thirty-seventh, written on the twenty-ninth."

"So the plan has changed in some particulars." Reniack waved both letters away impatiently.

"This doesn't inspire confidence." Ernout looked severe. "If the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, how is anything to be achieved? How secure are those ciphers? Letters can be intercepted and copied, no matter how secret you think your courier chains might be."

"We will soon have far faster and more secure means of communication," Reniack assured him.

"I don't think we should promise that just yet," Derenna interrupted.

"How so?" Nath demanded simultaneously.

"I wouldn't want to get your hopes up," the older woman said tersely.

Ernout looked at Failla and raised his brows in silent question.

"I can't tell you, exactly." Charoleia had insisted they tell no one outside the Vanam conspiracy that they hoped to use aetheric magic. Besides, Failla was still unclear as to how it was supposed to work. "But I trust those who say it can be done."

If Aremil's twisted body and intense manner unnerved her, Failla knew Tathrin believed in him absolutely. Whatever the circumstances of their first meeting, Failla had found she trusted Tathrin and not just because of his resolute defence of her on their journey to Vanam. The Mountain Men had questioned her closely, as if they knew she was concealing something. Tathrin had accepted what she told him. More, he'd shown no sign of contempt for her trading her body for Duke Garnot's favours. He'd just let her see his admiration for all she had done to help the guildsmen and their undertakings.

"This plan of yours will only work as long as no whisper of it reaches Duke Garnot's ears." Ernout looked stern. "I have discussed your letter with my allies among the Guilds and shrines of Carluse. We are not prepared to identify ourselves or share our plans with you. If one of you lets something slip to compromise us, whether by accident or folly, all that we have achieved over these past few years will go for nothing."

"Don't you want peace?" Reniack demanded, pugnacious.

"Can we trust all those you've told about us?" challenged Derenna.

"I can," Ernout assured her, "and I trust Failla."

Well he might. She smiled tremulously. He knew all her secrets. She would never be able to keep them without him. By way of repayment, doing his bidding had seemed so obvious when she'd lived at Duke Garnot's beck and call, of no more account than some caged songbird.

"We will help you." Ernout raised his hand to silence Reniack's triumphant gratitude "But not without conditions. Failla and Nath can spread your ideas through Carluse with our blessing. We will make sure they have food and shelter and that any talk of their presence is curbed. But we have our own undertakings to carry through and we will not involve you in those. The only point of contact between our people and yours will be Failla. If that's not agreeable, I'm sorry." He shook his head slowly. "We will go our way and you may go yours."

Even in the half-light, Failla could see Reniack's face darken. "That's--"

"Acceptable," Derenna said briskly. "Thank you."

To Failla's intense relief, the rabble-rouser heaved a grudging sigh. "Very well."

She couldn't blame Uncle Ernout for doubting these people and their conspiracy to bring down all the dukes. Far away in Vanam, she had been so easily seduced into believing them. It wasn't nearly so easy now, standing beneath the Solstice night sky in the midst of the forest.

She had thought she'd feel safer once she knew this plot was being folded into the guildsmen's intrigues. On the other hand, all along the road through Caladhria, fear had gnawed at her. If the Vanam conspiracy was discovered, then all the guildsmen and priests working for the common good in Carluse would be at risk. If their plots were uncovered, how could she hope that her own private secrets would remain hidden?

"It's very late." Welgren looked up to assess the Lesser Moon's passage across the night sky. "We should all get some distance away from here before dawn."

"Indeed." Ernout stepped forward to embrace Failla once more. "Saedrin watch over you, my dear." He continued more softly, for her ears alone, "Be careful. If you need to, you can always come to me. But only you."

She nodded, mute with the effort of holding back unexpected tears. The thought of leaving her uncle's comforting presence to travel with yet another stranger tore at her.

Reniack was already mounted. "Dastennin grant us safe haven. May his storms bring confusion to our foes!" He departed with a wave of his hand.

"Saedrin send us all peace and prosperity." Welgren looked grave as he courteously offered Derenna his cupped hands so she could remount. "Even if it must be at the cost of a final year of warfare."

"Indeed," she agreed gravely as she gathered up her reins.

Failla watched them ride into the trees, soon swallowed up by the darkness.

"Shall we be on our way?" Nath was looking uncertainly at her.

He was afraid she was going to start sobbing in earnest. Failla tucked away that realisation for some future use. Drawing a resolute breath, she waited until she felt the threat of tears recede. "Indeed."

"Master Priest." Nath turned warily to Ernout. "Can we escort you?"

He shook his head as he wrapped his cloak around himself and sat in the carved niche once again. "I will keep vigil here till dawn. My vows demand it."

"Then we'll wish you fair festival, sir, and Dastennin's blessings." Nath inclined his head respectfully before looking at Failla. "So where do we go now?"

Ernout answered him anyway. "To the White Hound Inn, on the Ashgil Road out of Viscot."

"That's an inn used to keeping the guildsmen's secrets," Failla explained to Nath as she climbed into her dappled horse's saddle.

As they reached the trees, she looked back once, to see her uncle still seated beside the carved face looking out from the rocky outcrop.

It was time to take stock of her own situation. She was back in Carluse, but no one knew she was here besides her uncle and this man Nath. Did the map-maker even know who she was, or rather, what she had been? She would have to take care to find out without letting him know, if he was indeed ignorant of her time spent pleasuring Duke Garnot.

She was back in Carluse. If she could reach her uncle's shrine in Carluse Town unnoticed, he would hand over her hoarded gold without questions. That was a relief, because she had never lied to him and would hate to have to start doing so. Besides, he had an uncanny talent for knowing when someone was telling him less than the truth.

If Aremil and Charoleia, back in Vanam, could find aetheric adepts to help them, all well and good. If this conspiracy could bring down the dukes and secure the peace that her uncle and all his fellow plotters yearned for, that would be better still. If all that the Vanam conspirators brought was more of the usual fighting, as long as Uncle Ernout stayed out of it, that would suffice. She would lose herself in the confusion and finally put her own desires first instead of serving so many other people's needs.

Failla looked covertly at Nath. He rode beside her, oblivious to her scrutiny. It should be easy enough to give him the slip, when it came to it. The only question was, how devoted was he to his faraway wife? Would her absence leave him willing to seek comfort in Failla's bed? Would it serve her purposes to seduce him? Time would doubtless tell.

Chapter Twenty.

Litasse Triolle Castle Demesne, in the Kingdom of Lescar, Summer Solstice Festival, Third Day, Noon

"What do you think, my love?"

Litasse smiled with genuine delight. "She's beautiful."

"A most generous Solstice gift." Iruvain whistled through his fingers like a stable-boy. On the far side of the grassy expanse, the groom persuading the chestnut mare to show her paces raised an obedient hand.

"Such generosity costs Duke Garnot of Carluse little enough, given he breeds the animals." Litasse fanned herself with a silver-mounted spray of black feathers. It was a hot day to be wearing a riding dress of emerald wool and she had been standing waiting while Iruvain looked over every new horse his loyal vassals had sent him.

This mare was the last, Duke Garnot's gift to her since this was her birth festival. Well, she wouldn't hold the stable where it was foaled against the innocent animal. Litasse looked forward to riding into the cool shade beneath the trees of the ducal hunting park that stretched out before them. Even if the tended trees and streams merely feigned the freedom of Sharlac's wild woods.

Iruvain ran a hand around his neck, loosening his sweaty shirt collar. No one thought less of him for shedding his doublet in the heat, Litasse thought, whereas any hint of such informality would be scandalous in their duchess.

"You must write and thank Duke Garnot, and find some suitable gift for Duchess Tadira," he announced.