This cliff seemed wholly exposed, almost facing the city, with the castle directly above them so close that she could hear the sentries call their stations. "Yes!"

He nodded. "We will move after dark. I must see the sign that Gerolamo has entered the gates."

"Into the city?" she asked anxiously.

"Aye." He turned back, surveying the bay. "Try to sleep," he said to the lake. "I will not fail you."

She sat with her eyes closed. She had not slept an instant, vexed by nerves and the stony ground and the prickle of dry leaves no matter how she tried to shift and sweep at the debris. It seemed that hours passed. Each time she looked through her lashes, the mountains were only a little darker, the clouds somewhat thicker, the sun rays fading slowly into a broad evening gloom.

He knelt a few feet from her in the drab gray clothes of a common man. The pointed hood had fallen back. She realized for the first time that his hair was now cut, rough curls hacked and twisting below the nape of his neck, a loose strand hanging down across his face. The colors about his eye had been fading slowly from their virulent purple to ugly shades of green. Even so, he was striking-not all of the unsightly elements together could conceal his rare looks.

In the silence of twilight the wind had gone to nothing. A deep chill descended with the shadows. From below, the lake made small clear sounds, water washing gently on the shore.

He turned his head abruptly. Elayne heard it at the same time-the slide and crunch of footsteps descending the path above them.

Thick brush covered their position from any view from the lake, but there was only a thin screen of thorn branches to shield them from the path itself. They were easily visible. As the descending intruder began to whistle an aimless tune, Allegreto moved back. He grabbed Elayne and pushed her down, his full length sprawled atop her.

Before she knew what he was doing, he had pulled up her skirts to her hip, exposing her hose and bare leg. He covered her mouth in a grinding kiss, tearing at her clothes. With a fully audible groan he dragged the gown off her shoulder and plunged his hand up her skirt. Elayne made a gasping squeal of surprise.

The whistling stopped. Allegreto nipped her earlobe hard. "Hush!" he whispered, quite loud enough for anyone nearby to hear.

She gave a scared giggle. He lifted his head, his hair falling down over his eyes as he looked toward the path. He reached up and put his arm and elbow at the side of her head, blocking her from any sight of the intruder, but she knew her naked leg and shoulder must be in full view. She could feel his other hand hover near his poison dagger.

"Pleasant eve," said a man's voice, with a hint of amusement. "Are you well?"

There was a moment of silence but for Allegreto's harsh breath. He looked out with a malevolent glare. "Well enough for my business," he said caustically, "if you will leave me to it."

The other man chuckled. "You need no aid?"

"And bugger you!" Allegreto hissed.

"I pray you!" the interloper said wickedly. "Spare the lady's ears!"

She felt Allegreto's hand close on the dagger hilt. Quickly she reached up and grabbed his face between her hands and pulled him down to kiss her. She made a moan and writhed against him. His whole body went rigid. He broke away, pushing her face toward the wall.

"But she is not discontented, I see," the man said. "I will leave you to your task, then. Take care on this path after dark!"

The lazy sound of footsteps receded upward. Allegreto lay over her, looking out, until they were vanished. Then he sat back, pulling her skirt down with a snap. "Dirty goat," he muttered.

Elayne rearranged her gown and brushed small pebbles from her sleeves as she sat up. Her fear had altered to something else. She felt mortified and breathless, a peculiar exhilaration. "He seemed harmless enough," she whispered. "I'm glad you did not kill him."

"I should have." Allegreto sent a dark murderous stare after the intruder. "He knows this is a trysting place. He should have turned back without speaking."

"You know him?"

"Nay, I don't know him. It is some lackey from the castle above, no doubt come down to do himself-" He stopped, looking conscious. "I pray your pardon. But he knows well enough. Everyone does."

Elayne looked at the torn sleeve among the leaves. She felt a mix of aversion and excitement. A sharp memory of her meeting with Raymond at the mill came to her. There was something deeply disturbing about the chance of discovery at wanton play in such a place, stirring and embarrassing at once. Allegreto's indignation only made her want to take him around the shoulders and thrust her fingers into his rough-cut hair and pull him back down to the ground.

Their eyes met as she thought it. At once his face grew stone and cold, as if he saw into her mind and rejected such things instantly. He sprang lightly to his feet. "Did you rest?" he asked.

"A little." She watched him walk to the edge of the cliff, a figure half-lost in the growing darkness.

"We should go," he said, "before he steals back to peer again, the harlot."

Elayne rose, shaking out her skirts. "Did you ever... make a tryst here yourself?" she asked, without looking at him.

"No," he said bluntly.

She took the stave he handed to her and slanted him a smile. "Good."

He put his hands to her shoulders. For a moment she thought he might kiss her, but instead he yanked her mantle up over her head and close to her face. "Keep your eyes down, and try to walk like a modest woman," he said, holding it together under her chin. "I don't want him supposing you will lie in the dirt and giggle for any yokel who passes by."

"Only you!" She smirked at him, tapping the side of his boot with her stave.

"Only me," he said. "Unless you care to leave a trail of dead men in your wake."

Elayne was the straggler of the party. She sat with her head down, hardly able to distinguish the sound of a pouring waterfall from the ringing in her ears. The steep paths had become agony for her; she could not seem to find enough breath to fill her lungs. Her legs burned with exhaustion. She rested on a boulder beside the misting waterfall, panting, with sweat trickling down her neck and back and soaking her chemise. If not for the vision of Margaret and Zafer in the hands of Franco Pietro's men, there was nothing that would have made her stand up again.

What easy ground there was, they had covered in the night, under cloud-glow and a fading moon. A few hours of sleep in a thatched shed and then just before dawn the young shepherd woman had come to lead them. They climbed with a little flock of four ewes and a late-born lamb, taking paths that led upward, up and up past the vineyards and apple orchards into the fir trees, up until fingers of mist clothed the tall trunks in gray, up until Elayne's head was pounding and she could think of nothing but how to lift one foot in front of the other. A pair of the white guardian dogs ranged alongside, loping through the pine trees and up the rocky slopes, trotting ahead and returning like pale shadows in the woods.

Allegreto had long since thrown off the gray cape and hood. Though his hair clung to his neck and he had tied a band of cloth around his forehead to keep the sweat from his eyes, he did not seem to suffer from the wobbly legs and weakness that made every step a torture for Elayne. Their guide sat serenely, no more winded than the dogs. She was a lovely girl, with soft eyes and cheeks delicately touched with rose from the climb. She held the lamb in her lap, gazing up at Allegreto as if he were the angel Gabriel and she some haloed Madonna in an altarpiece. Elayne hated her.

He turned from an outcrop that overlooked the valley below. They were still within view of the city. Elayne could see it between the trees when she found strength to lift her head, a mass of red rooftops, the towers like tiny child's toys amid a patchwork of green. A river curved across the cultivated valley, running languidly to the silver slip of lake still visible beyond the city walls. The blue mountain crags sprang up to cloudy summits, white drifts that seemed to hang so close she could touch them if she reached up her hand.

"He's invested the eastern pass to Venice with his troops," Allegreto said in French.

Elayne could see scraps of color strung in lines along a white strip of road. They might have been tents or crowds of people, though she could make out no individual parts from this distance. The shepherd girl had brought details of the mercenaries in Franco Pietro's hire; fifteen company of foot soldiers and eight troops of horse-to Elayne it had sounded enough to conquer the entire north of Italy.

She tried to think through the pounding in her brain, blinking wearily at the peaks on the far side of the valley. "I should not mind to have an elephant to ride across this mountain," she said.

Allegreto leaned back against a tree trunk. "An elephant?" He frowned for a moment, and then raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You have read Titus Livy, then."

"Lady Melanthe sent it with some Latin texts by Petrarch. I liked the elephants. I was sorry Hannibal did not win." She gazed down at the city and valley laid before them like a giant map. "I suppose Franco Pietro does not study ancient history. It does not seem to occur to him that you might march from the north."

He gave a short laugh. "As well you were not here to suggest it to him."

"Was it your intention?"

He glanced toward the shepherdess, who had been gazing at them uncomprehendingly while they spoke in the French tongue. "In haps," he said with a shrug. "It is little matter now. How do you fare? We will move more slowly, if you wish."

Elayne lifted her face. "We must arrive in time. I can do it."

He observed her narrowly for a long moment. "I do not want you to expend yourself too far." He made a little gesture with his chin toward the shepherdess. "You are no peasant, to labor like an ox and then give birth in the field."

" 'Tis only that I am not accustomed to climb so much," she said. "I swear there is no air to breathe here."

"Aye, 'tis harder to fill your lungs in the mountains," he said. "We will rest more often."

"I don't want to make us delay." She planted her staff among the fir needles and pulled herself to her feet.

"Sit down," he said.

"But-"

"Sit." He came toward her with such suddenness that she sat back on the boulder abruptly. "I wish to see you take more sustenance," he said. "You've eaten little." He grabbed up one of their bundles and began to pull out bread and apples.

In her exhausted state Elayne had no desire to eat. But she saw that he was determined on it. And in truth, if she was to go on, she had to find a source of vigor from somewhere. She took an apple and sank her teeth into it obediently. He laid before her bread and olives, along with a rosemary-scented sausage and cheese enough for two or three people, then knelt on one knee beside her. He examined and tasted each and cut off pieces and watched her eat until she could not take another bite. Then, when she would have risen to walk on, he bid her sit longer and rest.

She knew the source of this overbearing concern. She had seen Sir Guy insist on the same sort of indulgences to Cara when she was with child.

"Do not make foolish delay for me," she said to him. "You must be there."

"And leave you by the wayside?" He pitched an apple core into the roaring cascade.

"Aye, if you must!"

He shook his head. "There is time."

"How long?"

He looked away from her. "There is time." He tied the food bundle to the end of his stave.

"You cannot be certain," she said. "Think of Zafer and Margaret, and what you have forgotten-"

"I think of it every moment," he said curtly. "And other things, also. Waste no more of your precious breath on this, madam." He stood up over her. "Rest until I command you otherwise."

On the summit of a mountain pass they paused again at a tiny wooden shrine. They had climbed up out of the trees into blowing snow, where the only plants were grasses and lichen and a few miniature flowers clinging to the crevices of rocks, whipping in the wind. Elayne kept her head down, facing away from the gale and huddling within her mantle, holding her gloved hands under her arms. The rock she sat upon felt like a block of ice.

The shepherd girl, too, sat hunched over her lamb, with the dogs lying at her feet and the sheep scattered nearby, snatching at grasses or curled into windblown piles of wool. Elayne worked hard for breath. She knew they could not stay here long-already a deep shiver possessed her as the wind cut through her clothes to her damp chemise. She could see Allegreto's figure a distance away, where he stood alone on the broad open saddle of the pass, staring down into the valley that lay ahead. The wind whipped his hair and tore at his cape, but he seemed heedless of it.

The ridges rising to either side of them were almost lost in gray fog and snow, the landscape utterly barren. Elayne shook inside her mantle. She was too tired to stand, but the cold was sinking into her very bones, making her shudder helplessly. She gripped her staff, trying to force her unsteady legs to obey her, when one of the dogs suddenly looked up. They both hurled themselves to their feet, barking feverishly as they raced toward the dark shape of a man that materialized out of the blizzard.

Elayne made it upright, standing next to the shepherdess, squinting through the snow toward the stranger. He stood still, held at bay by the furious dogs.

"Call them back!" It was a young man's voice, shouted over the barking and the wind. "I'm here to warn you, fools! There are bandits in this pass."

Allegreto was suddenly beside her, blocking the snow as she leaned heavily on her staff. "Call the dogs," he said briefly to the shepherd girl.

She made a high-pitched cry, half-carried away by the gale. The two dogs paused. They looked back. The girl called again, clapping her hands. With reluctance their white guardians turned and trotted toward her.

"Look." The young man pointed up onto the far slope. He walked forward as the dogs retreated. Upon the rise stood another man, silhouetted in the fog. A second appeared beside him. Elayne held back her hood to look at the ridge above, and saw armed men there, too, stationed amid the clefts and rocks.

She turned to Allegreto, hardly able to close her shaking and frozen fingers on the walking stave. She could not run. If he had not put his arm about her waist, holding her back against him, she was not sure she could have stood. The boy-he was hardly yet a man-came up boldly, though he kept his distance from the dogs. He was tall, dressed in rags that could hardly have kept out the cold, his head wrapped in a dirty black cloth.

"I see we are well trapped," Allegreto said, bracing solid and warm against her.

"I know them," the tall boy said urgently. "They can be satisfied with enough gold."

"You are their emissary?"

"Nay!" The youth shook his head vigorously. "I live below. I don't like to see folk hurt. I can talk to them. I might succeed, if you offer gold enough."

"And if they are not satisfied?" Allegreto asked. Elayne felt his low voice as a warning, like a growl from the dogs.

The young man looked meaningfully at her and the shepherd girl. He shrugged. "You won't leave this mountain alive. The women-well..." His words trailed off into the wind.

Elayne waited, shaking uncontrollably, half-expecting Allegreto to step forward with his poisoned dagger and murder the boy. She did not know what would happen then-if the bandits above would rush upon them. When he moved his hand downward toward his knife, she stepped away from him with a faint cry.

He restrained her by the elbow. He drew a single coin from his purse and flipped it to the young man. "Go and talk, then. Say that I send health and all honor to the dread and invincible Philip Welles, and this is how much I offer to see us safely through the pass."

"A piccolo-" the tall boy objected, his wind-chapped face turning redder still. "I dare not! This will only enrage him!"

Allegreto grinned in the teeth of the gale, the snowflakes wetting his dark eyelashes and collecting on his hood and shoulders. "Then add that the Raven invites him to take drink and meat with us this eve, for the sake of bygone adventures together."

Chapter Twenty.

The light of the campfires glowed on tall tree trunks, highlighting the white scars of cut limbs. Under a shelter made of pine boughs, Elayne sat on a log bench, breathing the sodden smell of smoke and wet forest. Rain dripped from two places in the makeshift roof and made puddles at her feet. She was still trembling with fatigue, but her clothes were new and dry and the fires gave out a cheerful warmth.

After a goodly feast, if rough, Philip Welles's men lay about under what cover they had, gulping large swigs of excellent Tuscan wine. A few women and children worked at clearing the meal, while the giggles of less industrious females sounded from unseen places.

Philip Welles was an Englishman. He had the strong laugh and pink cheeks of the northern isle, though there were deep lines engraved about his eyes and his hair had gone to gray. He held council under the pine boughs like Robin Hood, with a tree stump for a throne. It was difficult not to like him; Elayne had to remind herself several times not to blurt out her replies in English when he used his painfully awkward Italian to address her. He seemed to have some notion that she could not follow the general conversation in French, but his manner toward her was so fatherly and cheerful that she let him bumble his way through his misformed Monteverde tongue, and only nodded and smiled in reply.

Even Allegreto appeared to be in a congenial humor. His face seemed relaxed in the firelight, his hair still damp and his jaw clean-shaven. But when Philip dismissed most of his men and turned to the pirate, demanding to know what purpose was afoot, Allegreto's dark eyes came alight.

"I have need to penetrate a castle," he replied.

"Where?" Philip asked instantly. "What defenses?""Maladire. The old Navona fortress at d'Avina.""Hah!" The outlaw sat back. "Let us take London and Paris as well! I've thirty good fighting men!"Allegreto smiled. "Nay, do you think I want a battle?"Philip narrowed his eyes. "What do ye need us for, then? I've no craft with your poisons and stealth."Allegreto's smile vanished. "Such things are my office, aye." He looked into Philip's face with no expression.

"But don't tell me you've not guile enough, old fox. I require a diversion."

For a moment Philip seemed aloof, as if he had been offended. Then he grinned, the lines about his eyescreasing deeply. "And how much would you be offering for this diversion?""One thousand marks of Venetian silver."Sadly Philip shook his head. "Divided among thirty? Hardly worth our time on the muddy roads, my friend."Allegreto lifted his eyebrows. "The traffic through this pass must be prosperous of late!"The outlaw rubbed his lower lip with a stout finger. "Aye, we've had some luck." He frowned. "D'Avina, you say?" He glanced over at one of his men who had remained.The man nodded, as if in answer to an unspoken question.Philip ran his tongue over his lip. He jerked his chin. "Bring me those chests with the silver coins."The man rose quickly and spoke to someone standing outside the shelter. In a few moments he returned with a companion, both of them lugging large metal-bound boxes. The chests hit the ground with a heavy chinking.

Their tops were painted with the emblem of Monteverde, a castle upon a green mount.Philip leaned over and slid a key into one lock. With a heave, he pushed the opened chest toward Allegreto."Examine that," he said.

Elayne could see the glint of silver coin inside-a very great deal of it. She could perceive why the offer of onethousand marks had not been judged overly generous. Allegreto scooped up a few pieces and turned them inhis palm. He shaved the edge of one with his dagger, then bit the coin and shook his head. He glanced atPhilip, who said nothing.

Allegreto looked down again at the coins. He dipped a handful from the chest, sliding them one over the otherwith his forefinger. Suddenly he paused. He let the silver shower back into the chest and then picked up onepiece at a time, setting them side by side on his open palm, rotating each as he looked closely.