"Hah!" Dominic hadn't heard the click that signaled Feolan's success, but he heard the Elf 's satisfied sigh and the clank of the manacle hitting the ground. Madeleine was free.

They must go. Dominic pulled his wits together and explained their plan.

"Matthieu, can you do it?" he concluded. "It could be hard, if there's a delay or we get questioned. You must stay still and silent, even if it's hot or itchy or..."

Matthieu cut him off. "I know what to do," he said, "and I'm used to being hot and itchy. Let's get away from here."

Feolan and Gabrielle had already spread out the first blanket. Without another word, Matthieu lay down in the middle and folded his arms. Feolan bent to wrap him up.

"Wait," said Matthieu. "That's not how they do it here." How did he know, wondered Dominic, but both the press of time and Matthieu's suddenly closed face kept him from asking. He watched as his son flipped over to his stomach diagonal on the blanket, and directed Feolan to fold over first the head and foot, then the sides of the blanket. "Now turn me over and tie the sides in front, over my stomach," his m.u.f.fled voice instructed.

It chilled Dominic to see his son shrouded like a corpse. Tempting fate, the country folk would call it. But necessity trumped superst.i.tion, and he bent to the rough bundle and hoisted it into his arms.

"Okay in there, Matthieu?"

Feolan had offered to carry Madeleine. "I do not have Gabrielle's power, but I can lend her some strength or soothe her if she is restless."

If she is restless we are lost, thought Dominic. And if Yolenka is not waiting for us, ready to talk them past the guards...What then?

ANY MINUTE SOMEONE would wonder why he was standing by the caravan with the mule in the middle of the night. Derkh had long since done as much as he could to ready things without being obvious. The spare swords were unpacked and handy; their essential belongings were stowed. The mule's harness was laid out on the floor of the wagon. The forge and anvil he left set up outside, as if ready for use the next day. He had gone for the mule before nightfall, returning a piece of tack he had repaired that day, ambling to the mule's stall, giving her an apple and a grooming, and leading her out as if (he hoped) he was just giving her some air and exercise. After a nominal walk about the grounds, he tethered her by the caravan.

There he waited, trying to act as if he had some business out there. The night grew dark and cool-a relief to Derkh's hot skin, which was red and taut from the constant sun. The moon rose. Surely Yolenka's dance was well over by now. The night crept on. The grounds were empty now but for the odd straggler heading late to his bed.

Derkh's alert readiness was slowly replaced by alarm. They should be here by now. If something went wrong in the fortress, how would he know? Maybe they needed help, and he should go in.

He was halfway across the grounds when the doors opened and he saw them. They were walking, not running, and no guards followed or yelled after them. It had worked out, then.

Derkh checked his impulse to run to meet them. He shouldn't look like he was expecting them. He waited-and as they made their way across the dusty yard to him he noticed something. His belly did a slow clench.

"Okay, you can hitch up the mule," said Dominic as he drew near. "We'll lay the children down in the caravan."

But Derkh stood motionless, caught up in his own foreboding.

"Where's Yolenka?"

ALL WAS IN READINESS, and still Yolenka had not come. Each pa.s.sing moment increased the chance that Turga would hear of their leaving or the jailed guard be discovered.

Dominic took Feolan aside and spoke low in his ear.

"Can you do this, Feolan, without her?"

They had done nothing but motion to the bundled bodies at the door of the fortress and the guards had waved them through in hasty alarm. They knew who Gabrielle was and what she was doing in that upper room.

The gatehouse would be different. Who came and went through Turga's outer walls was closely watched.

Feolan was already trying to put together the Tarzine words in his mind. He thought back through the conversations he had overheard, especially those between Yolenka and Turga. Had they never used the word "death" or "dead"?

Something tugged at the edge of memory. Gabrielle had pulled a long festering piece of decking from a sailor's foot. The pirate had said something, laughing harshly, to Yolenka, words that had meant little to Feolan at the time. Now the meaning came clear: "Thought I was like to die from a d.a.m.n splinter."

"I'll do my best, Dominic," he replied. He didn't bother to add the obvious: that Yolenka would do it much better. Instead he glanced back to where Derkh stood, his eyes trained on the fortress.

"I'll tell Derkh."

DERKH HAD KNOWN in his bones they would be leaving without her from the moment he realized she had not come out with the others. He cut Feolan off before he could start, his voice bleak.

"We have to leave. I know."

It had been a long time since Derkh had had to call on the harsh self-discipline instilled in him since childhood. He called on it now, every ounce and drop of it, to turn his back on the woman he loved. They had come to save the children. He would not be the one to endanger them.

Just let her be safe, he prayed. I won't ask more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

YOLENKA'S GOLDEN EYES WERE PITILESS as she stared down at the man dying on the floor. He thrashed and retched. A thin greenish foam collected in the corners of his mouth. She was already too late to join the group, she knew. It was the price. She was sorry about Derkh-but she had waited long, long years to watch this man's death, and she would not cut it short by one breath.

More than ten years, it was, since her little sister had been taken by Turga's men. Aliri was not fiery and strong like her big sister, but a delicate and gentle soul. Yolenka still remembered her mother's sobbing broken voice as she told how she had screamed and fought to get to her daughter, how Aliri had wailed in terror as she was carried off. The man who had pulled the little girl onto his horse struck her so violently to silence her that her head snapped nearly off its stalk; the blood had trickled from her mouth and she had slumped limp across the saddle. That was the sight that tortured her mother's memory ever after.

It should have been me, Yolenka had thought to herself. If I had not gone off to train with Riko, they would have taken me. Or if they took us both, I could have looked after her. For years she carried this guilty misery in her soul. And then, overnight it seemed, the guilt was transformed into hate.

She had purchased the poison in secret years ago and carried it with her for so long she was afraid it had lost its potency. Apparently not. Turga was taking some time to die, but there seemed little doubt that he would. Cautious though he was, Turga was like most men: a few kisses, a little wine, and he lost his sense of danger. It had been easy to take a turn pouring the drinks, to flick open the tiny chamber in her ring and add the murky liquid hidden within. Yolenka would have shared the drink with him to a.s.suage his fears if it had come to that, but it had not. He had reached for the wine greedily, and now he lay before her, racked with convulsions and growing steadily more feeble.

Yolenka bent close to his ear. "Do you hear me, Turga? Do your ears work still?" His eyes rolled at her, but he made no reply. He had all he could do just to draw breath.

She spat, square in his face. "This is for my sister. And this"- she straightened and kicked him, hard, putting all her dancer's muscle behind it-"is for all the other children you have robbed of their lives."

She waited until he was dead and then dragged him under the puffy splendor of his silk covers, on his side, face to the wall. With a pillow tucked tenderly under his head, he looked comfortable enough. If she was lucky, his death might not be discovered until late morning.

She muttered a brief prayer to the Great Mother of All. Muki had her Vengeful Guise, like all mothers. If the Mother's blessing stayed with her, Yolenka thought she had a good chance of being well away by dawn.

"WHERE'S THIS LOT going, so late at night?"

The head guard, Rayf, called his mates away from their renenas to the gatehouse window overlooking the courtyard.

"My turn, mind," muttered Cavran, reluctant to leave the game. They all three watched the peddlers' mule, heavy caravan in tow, plod across the yard toward the gate. There was nothing for it but to go out and meet them.

Two men sat up front with the reins. A third paced beside the wagon. Where was the dancing girl, wondered Cavran? As far as he'd heard, the rest were foreigners, with hardly a word of Tarzine between them. He considered offering to translate, as he had on ship with those kids-and held off. Let them sweat a bit first, he thought, trying to talk their way out of here. Might be worth a laugh.

The tall one answered the challenge and spoke the words clearly enough.

"The Gray Veil," he said. "Did die. Turga say leave."

The three guards eyed each other, caught between alarm and confusion. Was one of the peddlers dead of the Veil, wondered Cavran. Maybe the dancer?

"I heard that remedy woman was treating Turga's slave girl," Rayf muttered. He raised his voice again to the peddlers' spokesman.

"Who's dead? Explain."

"Small mans...I don't know words," the tall one-he was the musician, Cavran remembered now-said. "You look?" And he climbed down from the wooden bench and opened the back of the caravan.

Cavran and his mate edged backward. Rayf had started this-let him finish it.

"d.a.m.n rabbit hearts." Give him full credit, as head guard, Rayf did his job. He stalked over to the caravan. Cavran was unperturbed by the senior man's disgust. If the travelers were infected, there was no point in all three exposing themselves.

"Ah, great Kiar's axe." Rayf's retreat from the wagon was a little too hasty to be dignified.

"That remedy woman's in there with two bodies!" Rayf rubbed a hand along his night-stubbled jawline as though to erase the sight. "Little bodies, by the looks of them. Gotta be those two kids. Wielder's wood, I wondered why they had the whole d.a.m.n hallway blocked off."

He looked up at the musician, still standing patiently by the caravan.

"Get them out of here!" he said. "The lot of you, clear out!"

The tall musician nodded gravely, climbed back into the seat and coaxed the mule back into motion while Cavran unbarred and swung open the gate.

Cavran had to fight the urge to hold his breath as the doomed wagon rumbled past. Stupid, that was. If the b.l.o.o.d.y Veil was loose in the stronghold, not breathing now was hardly going to save him. Every man's health was in the hands of his Maker now.

The peddlers, though-they had cause to be worried, poor b.u.g.g.e.rs. No wonder they looked strained. What would they do with the load of death they carried, and with the woman who might well carry the seeds of sickness even now? Cavran watched the two men's faces as they pa.s.sed and was surprised to see relief brighten the expression of the shorter sunburned one.

"I wasn't sure they would buy it," he said to the musician-at least that's what it sounded like. Hard to tell in a foreign language, and with the noise of the wheels. Something about buying, anyway, which made sense for traders he supposed. And then he was looking at the back end of the wagon, the end that opened onto two corpses that could mean trouble for Turga's whole settlement. Turga was right to get them out fast, thought Cavran. Maybe that would be the end of it. He swung shut the heavy gate and fitted the square-cut bars into place.

The renenas game was waiting. But something nagged at him.

Do even traders talk about their profits at a time like this, with plague a dark presence in their midst? What was sold, exactly, and who was they? And why that relieved face?

The whole business smelled queer, now that he thought about it. He took the steps into the gatehouse slowly, trying to weigh the cost of speaking up or keeping mum.

"C'mon man, it's your turn."

Cavran entered the gatehouse and shook his head at his renenas partner. "They said Turga ordered them to leave, right? I think we should check it out with him."

MATTHIEU HAD KEPT still as a log when the guard looked inside. He breathed the way Gabrielle had taught him, lightly into his belly where the blanket was bunched and fastened so no tell-tale chest movement would give them away. He had given no thought to his discomfort then, his mind taken up with the danger of the moment and the fear that Madeleine would stir or cry out in her fever. Gabrielle must have done something, though, for Madeleine lay quiet, and the man believed.

But now-now that Gabrielle's whispers had told him they were safely through the gates and on the road-the scratchy hot shroud had become a quiet torture. Sweat trickled from Matthieu's hairline and armpits and pooled under his head and shoulders. The air under the blanket was thick and sluggish in his lungs.

He was determined not to complain. Gabrielle would let him out when she thought it was safe-and soon enough, she did. The inside of the wagon was dark and smoky, lit only by a tiny lamp fastened to a wall bracket. Gabrielle had unwrapped Madeleine first, he saw, and although she smiled and told him he'd done well, he could see her thoughts were with his sister. He asked if he could go to his dad.

"I think he's riding on the footboard at the back," she said. "Poke your head out, and you can ask him."

Matthieu was about to push back the drape that kept the wind and dust out of the caravan when a terrible thought struck him.

"Gabrielle," he asked.

Her eyes stayed on Madeleine. "Mmm?"

"Could I have it too, what Maddy has? Could I give it to everyone else?"

This time her eyes rested on him, fully present.

"Have you felt sick at all, Matthieu? Even just like you're getting a cold?"

He shook his head. "I got hot and kind of headachy in the blanket, but, no, I've been fine."

"Good. But you know what? C'mon back here, and let me check you out anyway."

Gabrielle's cool fingers cradled each side of his jawline. His neck grew warm and a little tingly under her hands. When he and Madeleine were smaller and both sick with the flu, they had tried to describe the feeling when their aunt "worked" on them. "Like sunshine inside you," his sister had tried. "A cat purring over your sore places" had been Matthieu's attempt, but Madeleine had thought that silly. Matthieu stood by his younger words, though-the sensation still reminded him of the happy soothing feeling of a cat purring in his lap.

Gabrielle opened her eyes, and her smile told him she had found nothing. "I'd bet all Derkh's silver that you're fine," she said, and Matthieu didn't waste time asking her what silver she was talking about.

DOMINIC AND MATTHIEU trudged along the road beside the mule, hand in hand. The moon rode high overhead, spilling a wash of light before their feet. To each side of them, the land was black and still. At home, Matthieu had p.r.o.nounced holding hands "babyish" and refused to do it with anyone but his little brother. Today they both held tight. If they could have kept up with the cart while walking wrapped in each other's arms, they would have.

Dominic would have liked nothing better than to give his whole heart and mind over to his son-but they were not safe yet. Sooner or later Turga would discover what they had done and send hors.e.m.e.n after them.

"Papa?"

Dominic looked down to see worried brown eyes trained on his face. He reached out a hand to tousle curls that were no longer there and smoothed it along the top of his son's head instead. "What is it, Matthieu?"

"Is this all we have to escape? The mule? Don't we need something faster?"

Dominic nodded. "If they come after us, we'll have to fight them and take their horses. That's why Feolan just ran ahead, to look for a likely place. Did you meet Turga at all, Matthieu? Do you think he'll come after us?"

Matthieu shrugged. "I didn't really see him, but-yeah. He thought he was going to get lots of money for..." The boy's voice faltered.

G.o.ds curse the man, Dominic thought, feeling the rush of anger to his head. He shook it off. He needed clarity now, not drama.

"Madeleine's sickness, he seemed pretty scared of it," he suggested. "He might not be anxious to expose more of his men to it."

He had meant it to be rea.s.suring. But Matthieu, he saw, had been worrying over this as well.

"What's wrong with Maddy, Papa? It seemed like she just had a cold, but now she's so sick."

"They call it the Gray Veil. It's a bad sickness, Matthieu, and that's why people here are afraid of it. But they don't have Gabrielle to heal them, and Maddy does."

They were interrupted by Feolan's return.

"There's a perfect spot to set up not far from here," he said, "lots of cover and a sudden approach."

"Time to make our bets, then," said Dominic. "Are we pursued, or are we not?" The decision was his to make, but if there was one thing he had learned in his years of governing it was how to take counsel.

"Derkh? What do you think?"

Derkh, guiding the mule, kept his eyes on the road. "I don't know about Turga. But Yolenka is Tarzine, and she'd go after anybody who took something she thought was hers." Though his voice was firm and neutral, the tension in his posture was telling. He's got it bad for that girl, Dominic thought, realizing for the first time just how hard it must have been for Derkh to leave without her.