walls at Hanshire. His eyes closed at length. Time must have esc,~~,ed him, because he looked up and saw Arithon had changed out ot ~,~il- hand's garb.

Reclad in a laced set of riding leathers of sable, and a wool t~~~~~ trimmed in dark scarlet, the Shadow Master tipped a sheet of reed paper above the streaming brown fumes off the oil wick. In his hands, what looked like a laborer's tally sheet changed form. Invisibly inked lines first written in lemon juice burned to reveal a message in fugi- 142.

FUGITIVE PRINCE.

ire script. He read, while the words glowed sienna between the cal- lused, sea tan of his fingers. "Princess Talith confined? For vapors, due to barrenness, and delicate health? I don't believe it!"

The clansman gathered his finished arrows, licked a finger, and bun- died them with a deerhide thong. "Hearsay. But word from clan sources shows the same. The princess hasn't been seen in public for three years.

When Lysaer assembled the train for his journey, our scouts on the west road were sure that no pedigree lady traveled with him."

"Lysaer's left Avenor?" Dakar interjected, snapped erect and belat- ediv alert.

Arithon threw him an exasperated glance. "You were snoring through that part. But yes." He tapped the report in Mearn s'Bry- dion's frenetic script, now flattened across his left knee. "Lysaer's the road to Etarra to ply his honey tongue in diplomacy. Toss a pinch of salt, sinister, for sheer luck. There's an unguarded henyard 1,,ft for us foxes once again."

"Scarcely that." All at once too aware of the cold, Dakar hooked up ~i~ dropped blanket and snugged the disagreeable scrape of wool under his chin. "I wasn't asleep for that bit about the herb witch who g,,t stoned in Quarn. Or the part about Avenor's troop rolls being tnpled in number since Vastmark. Nor would I lay any coin on dim ~,~,~. that our spirits stay clear of the Fatemaster's Wheel if you make tires on the snake's home ground."

"Our home ground, too," the dansman retorted. "Caitdein, Lord Iaenol, has stayed his blood grievance four years preparing for this day."

Arithon broke in, "Then the wait for my timing hasn't chafed?"

"It has, and unbearably." A shrug, then the bald-faced admission, There were prideful hotheads who railed against your liaison. Only ,~ne was given my lord's leave to pursue vengeance. That man had a u ast cause. He'd just lost his sons in a coffle bound for Lysaer's galleys."

Dakar knew better than to waste futile argument with any party joined to Arithon in conspiracy. He shut his lips and his eyes, while the talk wound down. But sleep left him stranded in weariness. The awful, circling dread of bad prospects harried his mind beyond rest.

He kept no illusions in his service to Rathain's prince. Three years of suffering tasteless ship's rations and battering ocean gales now seemed a time of seclusion in paradise. Not least, when the winter ahead promised criminal machinations under the armed nose of Tvsan's elite royal garrison.

Morning broke cold and clear as the shell of a robin's egg. Dakar crept from the furling layers of his cloaks like a grub from a collapsed 143.

JANN WURT$.

cocoon. His predawn hours of restless tossing had given way inadequate, heavy sleep. His mind felt logy and thick. The twitters of foraging sparrows drilled his ears like the stab of tinker's pins to the brain. Frost traced the leaves at the cave mouth. Dakar bemoaned the lack of any fire as he dressed, and wished for chees~ instead of hardtack and jerky to appease his growling belly.

He sat for some time, head propped between his hands, before h~ noticed the voices outside, raised in ongoing contention.

"You should be with your earl," Arithon said, a snap to his tone to scale iron.

Dakar thrashed through the intervening curtain of brush and peered, his nearsighted squint like a mole emerged from its burrow.

Amid dazzling shafts of early sunshine, he made out the discr~ band of clansmen from Caithwood who guested them. Their scout captain stood near, his eye patch raked low, and the reins of two sad- died horses looped in each hand. Beyond their maned necks, past the steaming back of a third horse which drooped its head from hard usage, another man stood dismounted. The newcomer was built broad, an obstinate thrust to his massive, squared shoulders. His head wore its cropped hair like filed steel, bristled to cowlicks at the crown. Born ornery, or else given to brainless bravery, he confront~ the sF~ghtly made Prince of Rathain, feet planted like a balked mas- tiff's. -~'

"Caolle?" Dakar called in disbelief.

Neither combatant glanced his way.

"Here I stay, liege," carped the northern-born clansman who had resigned his life's post as Earl Jieret's war captain. "My sword guards your back. Live with that gift or behead me for treason."

Dakar missed Arithon's gloved velvet reply. Whatever the content, the sally made the rugged, older swordsman flush crimson.

"So just damn the day of your birth, while you're at it!" Ca011e cracked back. "Since you refused the good grace to die on delivery, Rathain has got a living prince." Immovable oak when charged with his duty, he hurled his next line like a gauntlet. "I serve the kingdom.

Since you plan to hang yourself out in Tysan as bait, you'll have me along for the sacrifice."

The Mad Prophet shoved through the thicket in clawing dread. He closed the last steps to an obliterating crackle of dry leaves, too late again to catch Arithon's riposte. Caolle maintained his stance, reduced to contentious, stiff silence. His eyes were red rimmed, as if he had ridden all night through rough country, and a disfiguring, fresh scar crossed his jawline that had not been there in Vastmark.

144.

FUGITIVE PRINCE.

Those weathered, blunt features that had not changed at all wore a frown like black basalt, and the hand closed upon the sheathed hilt of his sword could have been etched into place.

"You might try a smile of welcome, your Grace," Dakar bored in, well aware how the title would rankle. He pressed brashly on, came between the too-careful expression of blandness that Arithon pre- sented toward his liegeman. "Ice could be turned into sunshine on a wish before you'll talk Caolle home to Strakewood. He's by lengths more stubborn than you are, and besides, this time he happens to be right."

"Say that again to my face, should Jieret's young son lose his father to a slave galley," Arithon ripped back in blank rage. "By my oath as Rathain's crown prince, if that day happens, I'll see you both bleeding and dead for it." All smoldering grace, he spun away, caught the reins of the nearest horse Caithwood's clansmen held ready, then vaulted astride without pause to measure his stirrup length. "For today, keep up if you can."

No more words, and no thanks did he offer his clan hosts, but closed his heels and shouted and startled his mount standing to a canter.

Caolle surged to remount his blown gray.

Dakar grabbed, first the reins, then the wrist of the clansman's right hand. "No. You'll founder a good horse, and for nothing. We'll get you a remount and breakfast, too, if you're hungry." "Damn breakfast!" Caolle swore.

The Mad Prophet held on, well aware he risked a sword thrust if his grip should give way. Fat, but not gutlessly soft as he had been, he still felt as if he shouldered the part of the numbskull who grasped a bear by the leg at a baiting.

"Curse you, let go!" Caolle dropped his shoulder to battle in earnest, his desperation made vicious by fast-departing hoofbeats as his prince widened his lead through the forest.

The Mad Prophet clung. Despite tendons set on fire by his charge's effort to wrench free, he said, "Don't be a donkey!" Bashed backward, fetched a punch that rattled his brains and left him too jellied to duck the fighter's move set to fell him, he gasped out, "Caolle, have done! I know where Arithon's bound."

Kicked hard behind the knee, Dakar hit cold moss on his back. The jolt robbed his wind. He tasted fresh blood; had ridiculously bitten his tongue for the damnfool belief he could wring reason from the selfsame rock-headed clansman who had raised young Jieret to man- hood.

145.

"I'~x ~s~e~k~x~;' C~oe pro~xp~e~, no~ e~ so~e~6 agabst a sky embroidered with evergreen. He waited ~n impatience, arms {olded on ~s cross-belted chest.

OakaY ~eez~d, ro~ed backbYo~n e~s, a~d ~l ~ thump against a tree root.

"No use/' said CaJthwood's mustached c~tef scout obsened from the side,es, s~H holding the horse saddled ~ad Prophet, "He's down like a clubbed trout." Then, )~ Caolie's ~otted pose of frus~afion, he stepped in and vicfim's cheek with long-suffer~g familiariW. "Don't worry, Rathal's henc~an can't go 'til we've found him a mo~t of my scouts are flat s~pid. No one in camp's gong to ~ying to force you to ride without breakfasL "

Four days later, ~ the crowded, grease-pungent taproom 0f ~ bargeman's hostel built by the ford over Ilswater, a fat man dressed~ a tinker shrugged off the saddle packs slung across his shoulder. He sca~ed the sca~ered asso~ent of pa~ons seated at trestles and loung~g ~ talk aga~st the upright posts which supported the r~[ tresses. ~e light blocked off from the casements in the press was replaced by candle lanterns set be~d glass. ~eir panes had b~n cleaned of soot, and faces underneath glowed like lit parchment.

~e t~ker s~died them all. His traveler's wise eye marked the dusW boots and badges of the ox drovers; then the barge captalin, with their boom~g, boastful voices and broad hands; and after them, the lean-bodied caravan masters ~ oiled wool and leather. His su~ey brushed past the merchant's factors draped inUrecloth capes to pr~ tect their brocade clothes as they barga~ed passage for trade goods by the water route across Korias to ~verton.

~e ~ker's brown eyes touched, then fixed upon a slim man by the hob who had hair like bleached flax, quick eyes of a heathe~ ~ay-green, and whose clot~ng was embroidered and garnished wi$ river pearls. Two tave~aids fluRered over ~m like moths. He gave no appearance of lead~g them on, but his sweet words and k~d ma~er left them desperate ~ their wish that he had.

A smile ~itched the ti~er's ~cked lips. He raised a wrist t0 scratch ~s snub nose, and be~nd cover of his sleeve whispered, "~at one."

Across the dim room, the ranked ~estles and packed benches, and ~e bri~ed felt hats of the bargemen, through the autu~ tang of c~amon and cider, the fair-haired dandy said something which set the girls laug~g.

146.

FUGITIVE PRINCE.

"No." A hulking, thick shadow against paneled walls, the tinker's eyebrows like the grizzled pelt of a badger. Half of face lay swathed in bandages that seeped pus from a sup- wound. Black gimlet eyes flicked aside and gleamed back in disbelief. Then a dubious mumble emerged from beneath the ~aked dressing.

"Oh, that's him, make no mistake," the tinker insisted under cover of metallic commotion as a chubby scullion stacked empty tankards on a tray. "He kept fancy clothes aboard the sloop with his lyranthe."

More indeterminate grumbles from beneath the bandages, from which the word "wager" emerged clearly.

The fat tinker cracked a chuckle that turned nearby heads, but notably, not that of the blond man. "So we'll see." He shoved his packs into the arms of his rawboned companion. "Find us a bench in a comer and wait. I'll order beer and pay a visit to the privy. My silver laid on eight to three, the first one who follows me out will be none other than your royal liege."

Riverfront taverns in south Tysan were all similar, built of mud brick and split pine beams and lath. The hearths were always large enough to roast a call and the bar tops, a vast slab of fieldstone like a bastion, behind which the barrels were stored and kept guarded by landlords as seasoned as siege captains. On a meat hook behind hung the inevitable cleaver, kept sharp to carve the huge wheels of cheese bought from the dairies in Korias. In rough seasons, the same steel might chop fingers from unlucky pilferers, to mark them for thieving ways. Customs along the river route south of Mogg's fenlands were swift and direct, only generous if a man were honest in his habits, or straightforward about his need in ill fortune.

The tinker was soft-spoken and carefully polite. He jostled no patrons, nor pinched the flame-haired wench who bent to shake out the straw matting by the back entry. He offered her a copper, asked directions to the privy, and stepped out the rear door, whistling.

The path he pursued was well beaten, dusty under the glazed gold sun of late autumn. Leaves burned brown at the edges by frost crack- led beneath his slowed step. A breeze blew crisp off the Ilswater, skeined in the scents of wet reeds and black mud, stitched close at hand by the taint of sour leather and urine from the mucky compound of the ox pens. From downriver, a drover called encouragement to his team. A barge rocked at the landing bollards to a whispered creak of chafed lines.

Flecked in the rippled ink shadows of the alders already stripped by the season, the tinker reached the board privy. He heard no one's 14 7 ~.

JANNY ~URTS.

step on his heels. Just the uncanny sensation of movement at his back, a split second before hard fingers bit into his shoulder and jerked him face about.

The blond man from the hearthside confronted him, his fine, beaded doublet masked under a bargeman's caped wool. "Come," he said in the razor-cut diction of Arithon s'Ffalenn. "We need to take a little walk."

The pair turned right, into the dappled shade of the wood which fronted the river, then veered again, into pine-scented dimness removed from the bustle of the teamsters who plied the towpath.

"That took a great deal of nerve, ris~[ing Caolle ~ there," Arith0n opened. "You'll answer to me if harm c~mes to him.

The fat tinker drew a breath in trepidation better suited to his role as a prophet. "I won't take that blame. You might have accepted his offer in Caithwood."

Arithon stopped cold and clawed back the straw wisp of hair the busy wind flicked at his cheek. "You're risking his life!"

"He's risking his life," Dakar corrected. "I'm flattered if you think my efforts could stop him."

Looking frail boned in his pale-haired disguise, half-swallowed by the bargeman's cloak, Arithon started forward with a visible effort to keep a tight rein on his temper. "We could be quartered in Riverton for months." His bard's instinct for sound seemed to guide his foot- ing. His step fell almost noiseless through the race of loose leaves in the gusts. He went on, "A winding or two of ill-smelling bandage can't hide a clan accent from headhunters!"

"Bandages won't, but a glamour can," Dakar argued. "I can work the small bindings to make the scar on Caolle's jaw seem far worse than it is. He'll wear the semblance of an injury to disfigure speech. In a port town with sailhand's dives, who would bother to look for a spell to bend air? No one will trouble at all. His halting tongue will just seem too garbled for anyone but his friends to understand."

"Ath, Dakar!" Arithon stopped again, one hand pressed to his face.

At long last the misery showed through. "He's Earl Jieret's man, and the only foster kin that boy ever had to replace his slaughtered family."

The Mad Prophet spun away, perhaps to lend the pretense of pri- vacy for old grief. Even as the edge returned to Arithon's control, he was unable to meet the appeal in the blank, masking gray of those eyes. Nor was he insensitive enough to try platitudes, or argue that lieret was now a grown man and father to an heir in his own right.

Not when the Earl of the North had been orphaned in one of Arithon's former campaigns.

148.

FU~31?IVE PRINCE.

The loyalties demanded by the ghosts from that past were by far "You won't win this one, old friend," Dakar said at last in gruff sympathy. He turned around in the mat of dead pine needles, ducked a low-hanging branch, and forged the way back toward the tavern.

"That's Caolle's clan heritage you need purloined ships to try and save. Nor can you shirk all the trappings of your birth or cast off your 'most sensible liegemen. Some will live and others come to die in the course of your service. That's their picked fate. Yours is to bear it, until the day comes that the Fellowship Sorcerers grant you their law- ful leave to abdicate."

That stunned through the force of past sorrows. Arithon s'Ffalenn looked back from his shadow-wrought disguise, his eyes for a second reverted to their native, blazing green. "Then we're stymied." He smiled in that baiting, bright malice he used to divert stinging words.

"A match brought to draw, since the end play can't happen unless I sire an heir for Rathain. You should all leave me."

Dakar chose to ignore that. "I presume you'll be going into River- ton as a bard? Well, you've just acquired two servants. You might want to add some gray hair to fill out the part, since as the fair gal- lant, you'll draw the wrong sort of notice traveling with a doting male retinue."

149.

Autumn 5652 Design The Koriani orphanage in Capewell was housed in the refurbished shell of a merchant's palace, a five-storied edifice of extravagant fancy that loomed over the harborside market. Stevedores' calls and tl~ dickering insults of house matrons never troubled its residents. High marble walls enclosed its stables and inner courtyards. Carved with weathered nymphs and the moss-caked cavities of scrolled waves, the scullery entrance fronted a sun-washed courtyard. A row of gnarled pear trees in tubs were all that remained of the formal herb gardens famed far and wide in past centuries. The branches lay stripped now, blackened skeletons shivering in the veering toss of the gusts off Mainmere Bay.

Hatched in their spiderweb shadows, Morriel Prime chafed porce- lain stick fingers to encourage her poor circulation.

The days, the years, blended one into another. She wished she could scream for the frustrating labor of discerning one from the next, present from past; the jetsam of old memories become all but indistinguishable from posited future event. If the gardens where she sat this autumn morning had outworn their elegance through change, the routine obli- gations of the Koriani Order stayed tediously static. Each daybreak came, seamless in sameness as the metallic sheen of pooled mercury.

On Morriel's right, from the close little chamber that once served the merchant as countinghouse, speech droned through the opened window. In muddled accents, a pouch-eyed little cobbler swore the order's oath of obligation in exchange for a sigil of blessing for his 150.

FUGITIVE PRINCE.

craftshop. A fresh-faced girl novice would duly enter his name on the Lists of Service against the day when Koriani need would ask pay- ment in boots or shoes, or some other piece of skilled leatherwork.

The ritual was timeworn as the order's inception. Excepting the small sales of simples and remedies too onerously numerous for record, enchantresses took no coin for the spellcraft they rendered in service. With no wealth to gain, their practicing code of mercy remained difficult for greed to corrupt.

Morriel loosed a shallow, bored sigh. Entrenched tradition blended, not just days or seasons, but caused years themselves to meld together, memories rubbed smooth by repetition until none stood out from another. She endured the monotony. Moment to moment, she carried on with the tenacity of a lichen latched to north-facing rock. This moming's task of selecting new page boys for her personal service had recurred so many times, she had ceased to number or name them.

The children seemed one long stream through time, as similar as pebbles in a brook. Unblinking, her obsidian eyes surveyed the dozen odd choices. They stood in a mw with their fair hair combed, and cloth- ing brushed formally straight. In age, they ranged from eight to ten.

Some always cringed from the Prime Matriarch's review. Two stared at their feet. The inevitable coward sniffled and shook, while another near the line's end presented tearful, flushed cheeks in defi- ant and terrified silence.

Morriel made her selection on a scant second's thought. "That one, and that one." The pair marked apart by her stabbing gesture were close matched in height, and possessed of a china-doll innocence.

"Show the others away."

"Your will, matriarch." A matronly enchantress bustled from the archway behind. She comforted those children returned to her charge, then bundled them off to the kitchen with a promise of apple tarts and milk.

The Prime surveyed her latest acquisitions with a vulture's unwink- ing regard. The near boy watched her back, trapped in awe and macabre fear, as if her withered limbs in their draping purple velvet belonged to a corpse, or some nightmare work of carved calcite. The other child stood frozen with a dripping nose and a chin puckered red in failed effort to dam back his tears.

"You will serve as my page boys until you reach twelve years of age," Morriel informed, not unkindly, but rasped thin as steel set too long to the grindstone. "The work I ask will be light. Do well, and on your day of dismissal, an apprenticeship will be found with a rep- utable trade which suits your inclinations."

JANNY WURTS.

"Yes, matriarch," whispered the boldest of the boys.

The withered twitch of a smile turned a comer of the crone's "How fine, you have manners, boy. Bravery, too. When abroad in the world, those virtues will be appreciated.

are simpler. Please recall, when I come to address you, I prefer say nothing at all."