The Cyne gazed at him, slow light dawning. "Bevol."

"Yes, Bevol. He played the Hall-and the crowd-like an expert hawker."

"But why? Is it personal power he seeks, or is he convinced he's doing the Meri's will?"

"Knowing his history, I should say the latter. Does it matter?"

Colfre clicked his tongue. "Now, Daimhin, you surprise me. Of course it matters. If Bevol is seeking personal gain, he can be bought or flattered into collusion with us. It's clear he has little personal regard for his institution. If he's doing the will of the Meri-or believes he is-he will not be dissuaded."

"Nor, my lord, will the girl be dissuaded from doing his will."

"You believe he controls her to that degree?"

"Isn't it obvious? We will not be able to control her as long as he does. I tell you, I had convinced her not to speak."

Colfre nodded. Osraed Bevol was, indeed, becoming a monumental nuisance. "What are we to do, then? Bevol is not likely to just go away and leave her to her own devices ... or, should I say, to ours."

Daimhin twitched like a man who has just dreamed himself falling. "No. No, I suppose not."

They were interrupted then, by a courier who told them that the Hall was ready to reconvene. Colfre tried to ready himself for what that session might bring, but there was no way he could have been ready for the complete change in the demeanor of the Hall's members. Except for some indeterminate grumbling, they behaved most civilly toward Taminy as they asked her a battery of questions which bored their Cyne almost to tears.

What was the substance of the Meri? The answer: A twin spirit and a body of Eibhilin Light. Was she spiritual or material? She was spiritual, her vessel was material. Together, they existed in a state that was both and neither.

Why did She communicate through these so-called vessels? Men could not withstand the glory of Her Presence; Her beauty was too great to be borne. One soul in a generation could contain her, a female soul. That could change, Taminy added.

Why was she here? To remind the Osraed of their purpose and to establish a female order of Osraed; to purify the Osraed institution.

Why was that necessary? (Here, Colfre sat up and took note.) Decay, she said. The Osraed had become distracted. It was time for cleansing, time for reawakening, time for a Cusp and a New Covenant.

A New Covenant. Colfre liked the sound of that. He tried the words against his own impending proposal and liked it even more. His mind began to turn over the possibilities and the last few pieces of an idea fell into place.

He smiled. A New Covenant. He liked the sound of that very much.

In the jostle of people funneling from the Hall's public gallery, Aine somehow got separated from the others. Stretching and turning in the press of bodies, she struggled to see them, but found that sense inadequate to the task.

She was being pushed along on a slow current toward a door to the outer ward when someone stumbled against her. The touch sent a shimmer of awareness through her-a thrill of familiarity. She turned, expecting to see a friend and found herself gazing, instead, into the startled eyes of a stranger. The young woman stammered an apology and, hugging the child she carried to her shoulder, moved away into the crowd.

In due time, Aine was deposited in the outer ward and glanced around, seeking her companions. She found them, at last, standing in a tense knot beside a vintner's shop, and made her way over, dodging other members of the audience too deep in their discussions to care where they stepped.

"Aine!" Iseabal saw her and held out eager hands. "We feared we'd lost you completely."

Aine took the other girl's hands gratefully. "You'll never be half so lucky as that."

"I've never seen such a crowd," said Mam Lusach, checking Aine over as if a piece of her might be missing. "It was like being caught up in a river current."

"Or a herd of sheep," Aine observed, then added, "Someone touched me."

Phelan laughed. "Well, I should think, in all that-"

"No, I mean, I felt someone touch me. Oh, stop laughing-you don't understand!" She looked to Osraed Saxan for some serious attention and got it. "It was so queer, Osraed. All these people were pressed in about me and I felt this ... this Touch. As if one of you was there beside me. I thought it was one of you, but when I-"

She stopped. There it was again, like the shivers she got from climbing out of cold water into the warm sun. It raised goose-flesh all over her.

She turned and saw the same woman standing across the shop-lined aisle and holding the hand of the little boy she'd been carrying earlier. She was clearly startled to have a group of strangers suddenly staring at her and began a shuffling retreat. She'd taken no more than two steps, though, when the child began to resist. She paused to listen to his chatter, shook her head, glanced at Aine, then, with a look of fearful resolve, allowed the little boy to lead her to where the others stood watching.

The child spoke first. "Are you friends of the Lady Taminy?"

Aine was too startled to reply.

The Osraed Saxan was not. "Yes, we are. We're from Nairne and we've come here to be close to her."

The boy craned his neck to look up at his mother. "You see, Mama, we weren't being silly, after all. They're friends, too."

"You know Taminy?" asked Iseabal.

The woman nodded, smiling diffidently. "She healed my boy, Losgann. And she ... she gave me this." The woman opened her left hand, exposing the palm. Drawn there, as if in faintly glowing ink, was a star-shaped rune.

Aine gasped and heard the sound ripple through the group around her. She displayed her own palm, as did Iseabal and Wyvis, Rennie and Phelan, Orna and even Mam Lusach.

"My dear God," murmured Osraed Saxan and stared into his own palm. "I didn't ... I didn't realize ..." He looked at their new acquaintance. "Mistress, we've heard rumor that Taminy has been working miracles in Creiddylad all the week. Is that so?"

"Oh, aye." The woman nodded, her little boy echoing the movement.

"Then there must be ...Are there others ... like us?" He indicated the star-decked palms outstretched between them.

"Oh, aye," was the answer. "As many as her miracles, I reckon. Would you like to meet them?"

Saxan smiled. "Mistress, there is nothing we'd like better."

Daimhin Feich let himself into the Privy Council's chambers and paused by the door, looking perplexed. "Gentlemen, I'm surprised to find you here. Can you be finished with your deliberations so soon?"

The two men there shifted guiltily before Minister Cadder said, "No, Durweard, but nearly so. We are here because the deliberations have taken an unhappy turn." There was no hint of respect in the man's voice.

Feich ignored that and, smiling, spread his elegant hands. "Then wouldn't your peers benefit from your opinions?"

"Our peers are asses," replied Cadder and drew a censuring shush! from his companion, Feanag.

"And what has caused this sorry metamorphosis?"

"Need you ask, sir? It's that damned girl. She seduces them, as she has seduced your lord ... and yourself, it would seem."

Now, Feanag's thin lips disappeared completely and Feich laughed. "Oh, she is a mighty seductress, that one, I agree. The beauty of her face, the calm, sweet, reasonable music of her voice. And you're right-Colfre is quite smitten."

Cadder narrowed his eyes, studying the Cyne's Durweard as he might an oozing sore. "And you are not?" No belief there, only ridicule.

Feich shook his handsome head. "I'm a dense individual, Minister Cadder. Dense and suspicious. Taminy-a-Cuinn wastes her efforts on me. But the Cyne-that's another matter."

Cadder came several paces nearer the younger man, still examining him. "You sound so casual-so unconcerned. Have you no reaction to her miracles?"

"I suppose I am amazed by them-when they first occur."

"And do believe their source to be divine?"

Feich smiled. "No."

"Then have you no fear for the soul of your Cyne?"

"I can't say that I fear for his soul, Minister. I'm not certain he possesses one. Why should I waste my fear?" He ignored Feanag's hiss of disbelief and continued. "I do, however, fear for his life and his throne and his people. Yes, I do fear for Colfre. I don't like to see him manipulated by a shrewd magician."

"A magician? Is that what you think of Taminy-a-Cuinn?"

Cadder's scorn was palpable. "Believe me, what she did with the Osmaer Crystal was no mere magic."

"Ah, but I didn't see that. I have only a second-hand tell. I never believe hearsay. Besides, I was not thinking of her so much as that peculiar Osraed of hers."

"Bevol?"

"Aye, Bevol. Now, there's a grand manipulator."

Cadder moved even closer to Feich, his body and face speaking the language of conspiracy. "You disliked what you saw of him today in the Hall?"

"I did. Heartily. But I can hardly disregard the desires of my Cyne and pursue my own opinions. I can advise Colfre; I cannot command him."

"And if you could, would you ... put and end to this manipulation of the throne?"

Feich nodded, his face completely sober. "Most assuredly."

Cadder studied that face for a moment then glanced at his tight-lipped peer. "Then, you would be pleased to see the Wicke destroyed?"

Feich blinked. "The Wicke? Why destroy her?" His emphasis fell gently on the last word.

"She's evil. She's the manipulator of our Cyne, whom you-"

Feich was laughing. "Open your eyes, Cleirach. It isn't Taminy who is evil. It isn't Taminy who manipulates. I doubt she even authors those so-called miracles that so impress our unlettered brethren. She's a toy, gentlemen. As Colfre is a toy. As the Cwen and the Riagan and, yes, your dear Abbod are toys." He held up a finger. "The player, gentlemen-the player is Bevol." Feich paused, glancing from one Cleirach to the other, then said, "I must be going. This is hardly the time for frivolous conversation. I adjure you, Ministers, do return to your Pillars and attempt to sway them to the right way. We tread a dangerous path."

He slipped out as he had come in-swift and quiet-leaving a silence behind him that was as tightly woven as any inyx.

The Cleirach Feanag swallowed noisily, straining silence's fabric. "Is he right? Is Osraed Bevol that powerful-that evil?"

Cadder's hooded eyes forfeited nothing of his thoughts. "It makes a certain sense. Think, Feanag. The power she's displayed are those of a consummate Weaver, not a child barely old enough to be out of Prenticeship. Not a female. Even a Wicke shouldn't be able to field such power. But an Osraed ..."

"An Osraed mighty and learned enough to be at Apex," added Feanag.

"Yes. I believe he may be right."

"What do we do?"

"We do what the Durweard suggests; we attempt to sway our peers." He clapped his associate on the shoulder then, and hurried him from the room.

In a seaward window embrasure, the curtains kicked as at a swift breeze. But it was not a breeze that descended, on four feet, to the floor.

Airleas, his face pale, turned to his companion, quivering a little in fear-dappled rage. "What does it mean, Skeet? What was Daimhin saying?"

The older boy's mouth was set in a grim line. "Nothing but what he wanted those two to understand."

Daimhin Feich watched his Cyne for several seconds from the shadowed doorway before making his way out onto the bridge to the Blue Pavilion. He knew Colfre well-better than anyone else did, including Cwen Toireasa. They had been raised almost as brothers, for Colfre's father, Ciarda, had been an egalitarian monarch, loathe to separate his son from the children of the noble Houses. Because of his father's duties as Chancellor, Daimhin's family had lived at court; the two boys had chased through the same gardens, eaten at the same table, and played the same games.

Daimhin Feich looked at Colfre now and wondered if that was still true or if the game had changed ... or if they had. And when? Could he trace Colfre's erratic behavior to his meeting with Taminy-a-Cuinn, or had it begun when he first conceived of himself as the first Osric of Caraid-land? And at what point had Colfre Malcuim begun to have secrets?

Daimhin crossed the bridge, drawing a smile from his sovereign. And what is going on in the royal head now, my lord? He did not return the smile. "Sire, the Pillars of the Hall seem to believe they have come to some decision."

Something like fear flickered momentarily in Colfre's light eyes but the smile barely faltered. "They've reached agreement? I suppose I can't be surprised."

"Agreement? I think not. But I'm told they've come to terms."

Colfre shrugged, not quite able to make the gesture nonchalant. "With?"

"They won't discuss that with us, sire. Why break centuries of tradition because of one unprecedented event? They'll announce in chambers."

Colfre said nothing, merely nodding his head like an old woman, again and again.

Frustrated with his silence, Daimhin asked, "What if they condemn her?"

"Does it matter? The people will condemn them, I will do likewise, and she ... she will do whatever she does."

"And if they endorse her?"

"Then she will endorse me."

"And the Osraed?"

"And the Osraed, and the Osraed. What do I care for the Osraed?" Colfre leaned forward on his bench, fist clenched before his face. "I have them, Daimhin. Either way, I will remove them from power."

"You believe Taminy will confirm you as Osric?"

"Of course she will."

"If Bevol desires it."

"Whether or not Bevol desires it."

Daimhin studied his lord for a moment, uncertain he wanted to ask about this sudden certainty. But he did ask. "And what fills you with such certainty?"