A sparkle of too-vivid color warned him; he s.n.a.t.c.hed at his temper, caught it, and managed to say, evenly, if not with the best of grace, "There is no need to travel gently on my behalf, Newman."

Sam Moore licked his lips. "I would not see you come to harm through me." His voice was faint, but steady.

Meri flicked an impatient hand in the direction the Brethren had taken. "Lead. And do not stint."

The Newman took a hard breath, his various worries plainly at war across his square face. All at once, he nodded, squared his shoulders, turned and led on, moving at a trot.

Meri smiled and settled his bow before following, taking the stream in a low leap.

This, he thought, was more like it.

Chapter Thirty.

Nancy dressed her in a brown split skirt and a pale green shirt, combed her hair out so gently that tears came to Becca's eyes, and put it into a single loose braid down her back.

"Thank you, Nancy," Becca murmured. She rose and shook out the skirt, eyes averted so that she need not see the woman in the gla.s.s. Outside her window, the day was fine and blue; the breeze that danced past the curtains bearing the sweet tumbled scents of the garden below. She yearned to be outside in the day, to walk among the flowers and take her ease beneath the elitch tree at the far garden.

And yet-how could she leave her room? What if she met Jandain and he-and he- She covered her face, feeling cheeks hot with shame against her palms. What had she done? She had degraded herself, accepted-reveled in!-acts that no woman of gentle birth- There was a tug on her sleeve. She raised her head to see Nancy hovering on busy jeweled wings, plucking at the cloth with tiny, anxious fingers.

"No," she said, her voice wavering and full of tears. "I cannot go down to eat. I cannot go down for anything. Nancy, I am-" Ruined. In a far different, and far more d.a.m.ning way than- Nancy plucked her sleeve again, tugging her toward the door, agitation plain in her small, scrunched face. Becca bit her lip, ashamed once again.

She had been sunk so deeply in her own misery that she had failed to think about what might happen to Nancy, who Altimere might hold responsible for Becca's failure to attend breakfast.

Nancy, who had been "adjusted" once, and whom Becca had not even had the grace to welcome back into her service.

She smiled, or tried to. "Yes, I will go down. You are quite correct; I'm only being foolish." She took a deep breath. "Thank you, Nancy. It is good to have you back."

The little creature dropped her sleeve and rose, until she was staring into Becca's face. Suddenly, she extended her tiny hand and patted her cheek, then zipped off to some far corner of the room, where Becca, turning to follow her flight, could not spy her.

"Thank you," she called softly, putting her hand over the cheek Nancy and patted. "Thank you."

She had trembled and cringed for nothing; the dining room was empty when she went down and remained so while the Gossamers served her coffee and cheese scones, which she ate, to her own surprise, with a great deal of enjoyment.

While she was drinking her second cup of coffee, a note appeared on the table at her elbow. She blinked at it, wondering why she hadn't noticed, but there-one of the Gossamers must have brought it when her cup was refilled. Carefully, she broke the wafer and unfolded the stiff paper.

The note was written in the flowing script of the Fey, which Becca had yet to master. She frowned-blinked, and the symbols shifted before her eyes, making what had been unreadable very readable, indeed.

My very dear child, I hope this morning finds you well and radiant as always. You will perhaps be relieved to know that Jandain our guest departed while you slept, citing pressing business in Xandurana.

Do as you please today, but pray do not tire yourself. We shall be entertaining another guest this evening; an old and dear friend of my youth. Her name is Sa.n.a.lda, and I think you will like her extremely.

Once again allow me to express my delight in you and in our a.s.sociation. Truly, you are a marvel, Rebecca Beauvelley. I kiss your hands.

Altimere * * *

It was cool beneath the elitch tree. Becca sat on the bench with her feet drawn up, and her back against the warm tree trunk. The lord's purse and penijanset lining the walk had gone to seed, and there was the faint, musty smell of old leaf in the breeze. The elitch itself showed no sign of incipient autumn, and Becca shook her head, astonished all over again at a land where all seasons coexisted, and the rain seemed never to fall.

Dropping her head back against the tree, she tried to order her thoughts.

While it was a relief that she would not have to face Jandain after-after what they had done together, yet she could not but own that her own actions remained a mystery to her.

She tried to examine what she had done-what she had been thinking, but it was as if the actions of the night before had taken place years ago. The details seemed to slide about, misty and half-recalled. Why, even having met Altimere, afterward, in the moon garden . . .

Wait.

She screwed her eyes shut, battering at the memory, and again heard that soft voice, Wait. Allow it to rise.

Becca took a breath, and another, letting her eyes droop closed, and little by little the memory arose: Herself stepping out onto the terrace, golden light spilling from beneath her skin that put the night-plants to shame. Altimere's arms around her, and her stretching up, eager for his kiss. The fading of the light, of her awareness of the night. The creeping chill and pain. His praise.

His a.s.surance that she was safe in his hand, as he suborned her will and forced her to act as she would rather not-and how? Becca wondered wildly. How did he have this terrible power over her? She- The collar.

She had accepted the collar. Her hand rose, touching the cool stones at her throat, recalled with sudden vividness Jandain reaching to remove it, and the sparks with which it defended its position.

That meant . . . Did it mean that Altimere could read her mind? Yes! she decided, cold to the bone; it must! That by itself was enough to make one swoon.

There was, however, no time for swooning, even if she had been p.r.o.ne to such things. She must act to insure her liberty and her safety.

Which meant that she must remove the collar.

She bit her lip. Well she recalled what an ordeal it had been to affix the thing; she had almost swooned them, from the pain.

And yet, she thought, while a catch might want two hands to fasten, it was entirely possible that it might be unfastened with only one.

She raised her right hand, groping 'round to the back of her neck- Gasping, she s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back, staring at the blood welling from her sliced fingertips.

The stones were not that sharp! She had touched them many times, taking pleasure from the liquid feel of the surface.

Becca fumbled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket with her left hand, and wrapped her wounded fingers.

Obviously, she thought, gulping against the rising bubble of wild laughter. Obviously, she would need both hands-and gloves, too-in order to undo the catch. Doubtless Nancy could provide her with gloves, though that meant returning to the house.

She did not wish to meet Altimere before she had- . . . before she had . . .

With no direction from her conscious mind, she came to her feet, her thoughts sliding away like water. She took a step-and paused, an elitch branch tangled in her braid. Patiently, she freed the branch, being careful of the tender leaves, then turned and walked out of the garden, leaving the bloodstained handkerchief fluttering on the bench.

Sam Moore could cover a bit of ground, when he wasn't cosseting the halt and the infirm, Meri thought. Indeed, he had so far forgotten himself as to range beyond Meri's sight, which was not particularly worrisome, as his trail was plain to see.

This was not to say that Sam Moore blundered in the wood, or was bewildered under leaf; indeed, as the leagues fell under their boots, Meri began to form the opinion that the trail was clear because the Newman wished it so, and that matters might have been different had he not wished to be followed.

He was startled to find the Newman so accomplished in woodcraft. Had not Sian said that her band of Newman land-held were farmers, lacking in tree lore? Though Sam Moore must know this ground well, if he was spokesman for his kin-group and traveled often to the Engenium in Sea Hold.

There was a danger, with the aura out of range, in thinking of the Newman as a fellow Wood Wise. He must guard against that, and recall what he had learned beyond the keleigh. The Newmen who had tortured them for secrets they did not hold had lived separate from the land, unlike Sam Moore, on whom the trees doted. Still, the thoughts and reasons of trees were sometimes strange, even to a Ranger. He must hold his- A hard edge of color obtruded on his vision. Meri paused, testing the air, listening . . .

Ahead, was the sound of labored breathing, and whispers of what might have been curses.

Meri frowned and crept forward, his pa.s.sage displacing not so much as a blade of gra.s.s. The cursing thinned out and stopped, the breathing seemed to ease somewhat, though the sound was still hoa.r.s.e and strained.

Pausing in the shelter of a spinictus bush, Meri surveyed the scene before him.

Sam Moore, on his knees in the dirt, one hand clutching a simple pine, for support, Meri thought, rather than for strength or sustenance. His head was bowed, his shoulders tense.

Had the Newman taken harm? Meri wondered, then sighed silently, and moved away from the sheltering bush.

There was only one way to find out.

"Sam Moore?" His voice was as neutral as years of state craft lessons could make it. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm not hurt," the Newman said shortly, a faithful echo of Meri's bad behavior of the early morning.

"What's amiss, then?" he asked mildly.

No answer. Well, and it wasn't as if he really needed one. It would seem that Sam Moore had driven himself too hard, and now suffered his body's rebellion. The cause for that, now . . . Meri settled down on his heels at some small distance from the Newman kneeling next to the pine.

"The Sea Folk say that a wandering mind steers a wandering ship," he commented. "If you drive yourself to exhaustion, you will come later to your people, rather than sooner."

Sam Moore shook his head. "I know that," he rasped. "I can keep the pace. I just-wish I knew . . ."

. . . if the Brethren had only been about the work the Brethren did best-sowing mischief and discord-or if indeed his home and his folk had taken damage when he was gone away and unable to protect them.

Meri pressed his lips together, and looked about him. The land had changed since the last time he had walked these paths, but it would have taken more years than he had slept to wear away the spystone.

"Near here there is a naked hill of rock-the same sort that forms Sea Hold. Do you know it?"

Sam Moore turned his head to stare. His breathing, Meri noted, was no longer so harsh.

"I know the place," he said. "We bear north of it."

"Let us instead go to it," Meri suggested, and raised his hand as the Newman drew breath to speak. "Agreed, it is out of our way. But we may discover something of your home there."

Sam Moore frowned. "What?"

Meri shook his head. "I cannot say until I have seen," he said curtly and came to his feet. "But I am willing to look."

"No," Becca said, staring at herself in the mirror. "Nancy-I cannot wear this to greet a guest!"

Her maid darted off, hopefully to return with a dress more becoming to the occasion.

This dress-this robe-she wore now was modest in design: round-necked, long-sleeved, with the hem sweeping the floor.

The fabric was utterly transparent. It was rather like wearing a small gold-tinged fog.

"I might as well," she said to the room at large, "go down naked."

Actually, she thought, it would be better to merely be naked. The robe somehow . . . put her on display in a way that transcended mere nakedness. Becca shivered, and looked up hopefully as she caught a flash of wings in the gla.s.s. Alas, Nancy bore only her brush, which she began to apply in long, gentle sweeps from the top of the head to below her waist.

Becca's eyes drifted shut, and she opened them by main force, staring at her reflection in the mirror to keep alert.

"Altimere can't want me to wear this!" she said finally. "I will have another dress, Nancy! No more of your pranks."

Nancy fluttered up and down, which Becca took to mean that Nancy was innocent of pranks.

"Fine," she said. "I will chose my own dress." She turned and stalked off across her room to the wardrobe on the wall next the bath, and put her hand on the latch.

She half-expected that it would be locked, and staggered a little when the door came open readily in her hand.

And after all, there was no need to lock the door, she saw.

The wardrobe was empty.

Becca stood for some minutes, staring into the vacant depths. Nancy rushed over, and fussed about, pulling the collar straight, tucking the ends of the belt up, tweaking the sleeves.

"Leave it!" Becca snapped. "I will not wear such a-"

Still speaking, she turned, and walked on bare feet toward the door of her room. Her unbound hair belled behind her like a cloak. The door opened as she approached, and she pa.s.sed down the hall, to the ramp. At the foot, Altimere and a gilt-haired lady slightly taller than he awaited her.

Becca paused at the top and lifted her chin haughtily. Altimere, dressed in russet and black, his hair caught over one shoulder with a jeweled clasp, smiled at her and bowed, hand over his heart.

The lady-was this, after all, Sa.n.a.lda, his old and abiding friend? The lady tipped her head, frowning slightly, for all the world like a housewife considering the merits of a particular piglet.

"Come," Altimere said, holding his hand out.

Becca glided down to him, and set her palm against his. He smiled again, and inclined his head, turning her to face the lady.

"Sa.n.a.lda, I make you known to Rebecca Beauvelley. Is she not exquisite?"

Chapter Thirty-One.

"So, Altimere, what mad start is this?" Sa.n.a.lda's voice was light and dry, sounding much, Becca thought as she reclined at Altimere's side and accepted tid-bits from his plate, like a garden snake's skin felt. She could only be grateful that the lady's regard of herself fell into the lines of distant curiosity.

Altimere favored his friend with one of his slight smiles. "Am I mad, then?"

"I've had occasion to think so, from time to time," his friend answered. She sipped her wine and set the gla.s.s aside. "You would hardly be a son of your house, if you did not excite some speculation in that direction. But." She raised her head and favored him with a grave look from silver eyes. "You will note that I accused not you, but your-project, shall we say?-of madness."