188 ' mark anthony Durge stroked drooping mustaches. "Are you cer tain about the moon, my lady? It was full in your . . your vision?"

"Yes. I saw it clearly. All of it. It was just like before, at the circle of standing stones. What I saw hasn't happened yet."

"But will it?"

Both Durge and Grace looked at Lirith.

The witch paced, a hand poised beneath her chin. "It is not so uncommon a thing to use an object as a focus for visions. Severalsisters have the power. However, they usually see but fragments, and these of things past. I have heard about visions such as Grace describes--visions which illuminate what will be rather than cast shadows of what was. But the power is rare." Her eyes flickered toward Grace. "Quite rare."

193.

Durge shifted from foot to foot, and Grace gripped the arms of the chair.

"But will it happen, Lirith?" she said. "That's what I have to know. Can what I saw be stopped?"

"Should it be stopped?"

The words were like a slap. Grace's jaw dropped.

Lirith spread her hands. "He can break runes, sister. What if he were the one?"

The one what Grace wanted to ask. But she already knew. Runebreaker. The one whom the Witches feared even more than the warriors of the Cult of Vathris.

"The tower you saw can be only the Gray Tower of the Runespeakers,"

Lirith said. "And why would the Gray Men put one of their own to death unless they knew him to be a peril?"

Grace shook her head. "He's my friend, Lirith. And he saved everyone in Falengarth from the Pale King. Now will you answer my question or not?"

"Very well, sister. But the truth is, I don't know 189.

Yet it seems to me that if you saw it, then it must be so. Else why would it have been revealed to you?"

No. Grace wouldn't accept that answer. If it hadn't happened yet, then there was still a chance to change it. How many times had someone been pronounced dead only to be brought back to life on her table in the ED?

She shut her eyes and thought. Unlike Earth's satellite, the moon of this world took precisely a month to wax, wane, and wax again. Today the moon was one day from new. Then fifteen more until it was full 194 again. That gave her just over a fortnight. She counted in her mind. It was a week to Ar-tolor. And how far from there to the Gray Tower of the Runespeakers? She tried to remember the charcoal maps. Four more days? Five?

Grace opened her eyes and saw Durge gazing at her. His expression was odd. Somber, as always, but eager as well. "What are you thinking, my lady?"

Of course. He was a knight and a man of action. How long had he stayed at this castle, seeing to her small needs, attending her on her little rides into the countryside? How long had she expected such trifles to occupy him?

"I don't know," she said. "Not yet."But she had an idea, and every moment it grew clearer.

Lirith glanced at Durge. "I fear in all of this we have forgotten about the king."

"What about the king?"

"He is the reason we came to your chamber, my lady," Durge said. "Boreas asked me to bring you to him."

Grace stood up and smoothed her gown. "Well, then I had better go."

Lirith gave her a concerned look. "Are you well cnouph cioio7"

Grace gave her a tight smile. A meeting with Bo reas was the last thing she needed just then. But there was something she had to tell the king, and she might as well get it over with.

"I'll be fine," Grace lied.

Ten minutes later she stepped into the king's bed chamber. His need for her must have been urgent in deed for him to have summoned her there.

She expected to be berated for her tardiness, but Boreas only grunted and waved for her to sit.

195.

He sat at a table, poring over a sheaf of parchment, a scowl on his bearded face. His black hair was tou sled from sleep, and he wore only tight-fitting knee pants and a loose white shirt open to expose a triangle of hard chest. He looked for all the world like what he was: a barefoot warrior who had just rolled out of bed.

As she watched, the king grabbed a quill pen, dunked the tip into an ink pot, and scribbled on the parchment. He regarded his handiwork, then set the pen down and looked up at Grace.

"Well, what is it, my lady?"

Grace did not try to hide her puzzlement. "You sent for me, Your Majesty."

He snapped his fingers. "That's right." His blue eyes sparked. "What took you so long?"

Grace groaned. She should have quit while she was ahead. Her only chance was to detour the conversa tion.

"What is that. Your Majesty?" She gestured to the parchment on the table.

"This," he said, folding the sheaf and sealing it with a blob of candle wax, "is a letter of endorse ment."

"A letter of endorsement?"

"Didn't I just say that?"

Grace drew in a breath. It was going to be one of those conversations.

She tried again, choosing her 191"What does the letter endorse. Your Majesty?"

"My new envoy to Perridon, of course."

196.

"Envoy?" Grace bit her tongue, but she was too late to prevent the word from escaping.

Boreas glared at her. "My lady, you will fail miserably in Perridon if all you can do is state the obvious. All words spoken in Castle Spardis are vagaries mixed with half-truths wrapped in a gauze of subtle misdirection. And that's when you're talking to a servant about what you want for breakfast. I'm beginning to have second thoughts about sending you."

Grace clawed at the arms of the chair. "Sending me? Where?"

Boreas crossed his arms. She crunched down into her seat.

"To Perridon?" she said in a small voice.

"However did you guess, my lady?"

The air was suddenly unbreathable. He wanted her to be an envoy to a foreign nation? She could hardly ask a serving girl for a second cup of maddok, let alone make demands and negotiate treaties. "But ..."

"But why you?" Boreas rose and paced to the window. "Because you're the best spy I've got, my lady."

A sigh escaped him at this utterance, and some of her dread was replaced by indignation. She wasn't that bad of a spy. After all, she had helped uncover the Raven Cult's plot to murder one of the rulers at the Council of Kings.

"And who am I to spy on, Your Majesty?"

"Everyone. I want you to watch and speak with every person who is scheming for the throne of Per- ndon--which, in Spardis, is a list that likely includes the kitchenwife and the stableboy. I need you to find out who is the most trustworthy of the lot--if there is ^ch a person in that foggy dominion--and who is 197.

192 * mark anthony prince without seizing control of the Dominion himself. That's who we'll back if there's a struggle for the crown."

It was impossible. Grace had gotten better at dealing with people--whole people--these last months, but she had just learned to walk, and now Boreas was asking her to run up a mountain. This was utterly beyond her. She opened her mouth to tell him she couldn't possibly go----and an image flashed in her mind. She saw the map Aryn had drawn that day. There, in centra i Falengarth, was Calavan. Perridon lay to the east. And between the two . . .

Toloria. And the Gray Tower of the Runespeakers.

That was it. She wouldn't need to beg Boreas's permission to leave Calavere. And no doubt he would send knights to accompany her. That was good--she had no illusions about what could happen to a woman traveling alone in a medieval world.

The plan crystallized in her mind. It was perfect. Almost too perfect.

Had she influenced the king somehow without trying? Had she made him want to send her east?

Now she was thinking like Kyrene. Not every one of her whims was a spell. Besides, it wasn't important. All that mattered was that she get to Travis before the moon was full. Grace looked up and met Boreas's blue eyes with her own of green and gold.

"I will be honored to serve you, Your Majesty."

Evening drifted on soft gray wings through the castle. Outside the high windows, mourning doves sang of loss and sorrow. The day was dwindling.

198 Her last in 193.

Grace walked down a corridor, although she had no idea where else to search. Earlier she had gone to Aryn's chamber to tell the baroness about what had happened, how she would be leaving for a time. However, the young woman had not been in her room. Nor had she been in the great hall, or the kitchens, or either of the baileys. For the last two hours Grace had looked everywhere in the castle she thought the baroness might be.

Finally, she had ended up in the little shrine in the north wing sacred to the mysteries of Yrsaia the Huntress. Aryn seemed to believe Grace did not know about the prayers the young woman sometimes spoke to Yrsaia, but Grace had overheard her whispers on more than one occasion.

Why did Aryn think she had. to keep her religion a secret? She's afraid that if you knew the truth, you wouldn't feel the same about her.

Grace understood. After all, she had secrets of her own.

She stopped, sighed, and considered going to Go- reas's chamber, to tell the king she was worried about Aryn. Maybe Boreas could send some of his guards to search for her. She turned to go.

A faint, rhythmic sound floated through an open doorway. Grace halted.

Where had she heard that sound before? She listened a moment more, then she stepped through the doorway. Beyond was a spiral of stone steps. She started up the steps and after a few revolutions realized she was climbing into one of the smaller towers that flanked the main keep. The clacking ceased as she climbed, then came again moents later, louder than before.Grace stepped from the staircase into a short hall- ^sy. At the end was a wooden door, slightly ajar. The sound was clear now.

Clack-clack. Thrum. Clack194 * mark anthony half-open door, finally recognizing the sound even as she saw its source.

199.

So this is where she's been coming.

The circular room .was empty except for a wooden loom and a chair in the center. For a time--she wasn't certain how long--Grace stood in the doorway, watching as Aryn worked the loom, using the small, folded hand at the end of her withered arm to help catch the shuttle as it passed through the warp. After seven passes, Aryn would stop, set down the shuttle, and with deliberate motions pick out the threads she had woven.

Then she would lift the shuttle and begin again. That was why the sound had come and gone.

"Aryn?"

The shuttle clattered to the floor.

Grace rushed into the room and picked up the block of wood before Aryn could react. She straightened, then pressed the shuttle into the baroness's good hand.

"I didn't know you were there, Grace."

The words were listless, and Aryn didn't look up as she spoke. Grace pressed her lips together. She had stood by on enough psych evaluations in the ED to know that repetitive behavior and lack of eye contact were both troubling signs.

"Aryn, are you all right?" Grace cringed even as she spoke. Words were so damn worthless sometimes.

The young woman turned back to the loom. "I'm just weaving, Grace. Like Ivalaine said we should. I've got so much to learn still. Only I can't seem to get it right. The threads never make the picture I want. But I'll keep trying." She smiled, but the expression was as thin as a paper cut.

Grace sucked in a breath. This was worse than she had thought. She cursed herself for not having read the signs better. But it was broken bodies that she 200.

195.

Aryn began weaving again, humming a dissonant song under her breath.

Grace caught only a few words: My love is coming in the spring, I'll weave a garland gold-- And when he's buried in the fall, A shroud against the cold.

Grace knelt beside Aryn's chair. It was going to be as crude asoperating with a dull scalpel--she didn't have the training or the instincts for this kind of procedure--but she had to try. She might have been a flesh doctor, but she knew enough about psych to know it wasn't the weaving Aryn was trying to correct.

"Aryn," she said in a quiet but insistent voice. "Aryn, listen to me.

Fixing the tapestry won't make it better. I know something happened to you. On Midwinter's Eve."

Aryn ceased motion. She stared forward, her body rigid.

You should leave her alone. Grace. You could drive her over the edge doing this.

But tomorrow she was leaving Calavere. This was her only chance to understand. "What is it, Aryn? What are you really trying to make better?"

Silence. Grace hesitated, then reached up and touched Aryn's shoulder.

An animal howl of pain filled the chamber, and Grace leaped to her feet.

Aryn threw her head back, spine arching away from the chair, and her cry echoed off hard stone. At last her anguish phased into words. "I killed him!"

At first Grace thought she meant Garf, then the baroness slumped forward, choking out words be- tWppn c.^1,,, 201.