And he loved the Rauthhat, the lively beer hall in the center of town. It was always alive with both locals and travelers, and there was usually a minstrel or two trying to get by to learn new melodies from.

He needed the quiet of the estate, but he needed this, too-life. Especially after his talk with Mery that morning.

So the three of them found an empty table at the Rauthhat, and Jen, the barmaid with red hair and a wide grin, brought them the brown beer the place served, mussels cooked in wine and b.u.t.ter, and some thick, crusty bread to sop up the liquid with. Not surprisingly, Leoff felt a little more cheerful. Areana sparkled like a jewel as she said her h.e.l.los, and Mery at least ate some of the mussels and sipped at the wine.

But that went only so far, and even in the Rauthhat things were a bit subdued. No one was talking about it, but everyone knew there was an army from Hansa just a few leagues away. Haundwarpen had a garrisoned keep and respectable walls, but determined armies had taken them before.

But for this night at least, Leoff joined everyone in the place in pretending nothing bad was afoot, and he let himself develop a bit of a glow. That all ended quite healthily in the arms of his young wife that night, when, as they lay damp and sleepy in the sheets, she kissed his ear and whispered, "I'm with child."

He cried with happiness and fear, and they fell asleep holding each other.

The next day found him staring at the blank sheet again, with-finally-the glimmer of an idea.

What if he could give the dead something else to sing?

A number of questions came around at that. Why were they singing the deadly music he had written? Would they sing anything using the forbidden modes?

Was Mery lying or deluded? That was an important one.

The old music had progressed in stages, coaxing and finally seducing the living toward death. Those who had died seemed to have expired by some act of sheer will, their hearts stopping because they-with all the strength and purpose in them-wanted their hearts to stop. their hearts to stop.

He remembered wanting it, too. He had almost surrendered everything.

Was it possible to write a backward progression? One that would make the dead yearn toward life? And if so, would that be the right thing to do? He pictured hordes of corpses rising, walking to the Rauthhat for beer, seeking the beds of their widows and widowers...

But at least he was thinking now.

He made beginnings, musical vignettes and fancies on the themes of life and death. He wrote melodies and countermelodies stripped of the modal accompaniments that would give them real power, able now to sense something of what they might do in his head.

It was with a start that he realized it was after midday and someone was calling-no, screaming-for him.

He flung open his door and hurried out of the house. Areana was running toward him across the clover, her long lace-trimmed blue skirt billowing. Her face was red from crying, and she was so hysterical, hiccups kept any sense from her words. But she was pointing, and he finally made it out: "Mery."

The girl was lying in the well, facedown. His first thought was that it wasn't Mery at all but just a little doll someone had dropped down there.

When the servants fished her out, he couldn't pretend that any longer. She wasn't breathing, and water poured from her mouth and nose.

The next few bells were a blur. He held Areana and tried to say comforting things while the servants changed the girl, cleaned her up, and put her on her bed.

"She was so unhappy," Areana said when things starting coming back into focus. "Do you think..."

"I don't know," he said. "She told me yesterday that she heard the dead singing at the well, that she saw her mother. I told her not to go there anymore, but I should have-I should have stopped her."

"It's not your fault."

"It's all my fault," he replied. "If I had never written that cursed music. If I had watched her more carefully..."

"You loved her," Areana said. "You gave her more than anyone else in her life. You showed her a little of what she was capable of."

He just shook his head, and she took him by the temples and kissed his forehead.

"Why are you crying?" Mery asked. She was standing in the doorway in the fresh dress they had put on her. Her hair was still wet.

PART III

FEALTY AND FIDELITY

To pledge fealty, one must first know what it is, my lord. Thus, although a dog might be loyal in an unreflective fashion, it can never give you fealty. You are surrounded by dogs, my lord, and I am not one.-THE TESTIMONY OF S SAINT ANEMLEN AT THE COURT OF THE B BLACK J JESTERI see. Well, dogs must eat.-THE B BLACK J JESTER, IN RESPONSEDecios mei com pid ammoltos et decio pis tiu essTell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.-VITELLIAN PROVERB

CHAPTER ONE.

THE H h.e.l.lRUNE.

DAWN HADN'T yet shown her rosy hair when Alis gently woke Muriele. yet shown her rosy hair when Alis gently woke Muriele.

"Berimund remembered his promise, apparently," she said. "A lady has come to fit you into a riding habit."

"Really," Muriele said, rubbing her eyes. "They hunt at night here?"

"No, but early. You'll want to look your best, won't you?"

"Doubtless. Very well. Give me a moment and let her in."

She went to the window. The air was cool, and most of the city below was a dark mystery, with only a few pinp.r.i.c.ks of light. The stars were diamonds and sapphires still. There was that faint smell of differentness in the air, or she might have been looking out of the Wolfcoat Tower at sleeping Eslen.

What was happening there? Was Anne well?

An image flashed through her mind of Anne at four, her hair in long red braids, scrunched up in the window of the chamber of Saint Terwing, dressed in boy's clothing, singing a little song to herself as she fiddled with a toy sword. Muriele hadn't meant to spy on her, but the girl hadn't seen her in the darkened hall, and she had watched her daughter for long minutes without knowing why.

She remembered Fastia with her long dark hair and prim humor and Elseny, never too bright but so sweet, so full of life.

Gone now. She'd once thought she heard Fastia whisper "mother" in Eslen-of-Shadows, but that had faded, and nothing remained of her beautiful girls but those things in their coffins.

But Anne had survived. Anne whose mischief often had crossed the line into caprice, who'd never thought herself pretty, who had tried to keep out of the way of the family and its affairs her whole childhood.

Anne, who had seemed at times to hate her. Anne, who probably needed her now more than she ever had.

Why had she left her only remaining daughter?

Maybe she couldn't bear not to.

A throat cleared softly behind her.

"I'm ready, thank you," she said.

The sun was a hand above the horizon when she met Berimund in the courtyard. The young man's face was flushed, and his eyes a bit gla.s.sy.

"I hardly believe you can walk," Muriele said. "I'm impressed."

"Practice," Berimund said. "Long practice from childhood."

"Well, I thank you for remembering your promise."

"About that," he said. "There's still time to change your mind."

"Why would I? I'm looking forward to meeting your father."

He nodded, looking as if he wanted to say something but not saying it.

"You make that riding habit look very nice," he said finally.

"Thank you," she replied. "It's an interesting dress."

The overskirt was cut rather like a knee-length hauberk, split up the front and back and made of wool felted into myriad patterns of serpents, falcons, and hors.e.m.e.n in muted golds, reds, and browns. It was sleeveless, so she wore a darker brown shirt beneath and numerous underskirts to protect modesty. Her calf-high buskins fastened at the top with a wolf's head and were laced over woolen stockings. It seemed silly and barbaric, and she had thought at first that the dress was an attempt to humiliate her.

But Berimund was attired in equally outlandish pants and a robelike coat.

"Interesting," he repeated, grinning. "I sense an understatement."

"I'm not familiar with the fashion, that's all."

"It's a recent one. My father has an interest in the ancient times, and his scholars have determined that our mountain tribes are more like our revered ancestors than we folk of the cities. We have therefore adopted some aspects of their dress."

"I see. I had no idea the mountain tribesmen wore Safnian silk shirts."

"Well, there have been a few adaptations, I'll allow."

"When I first came to Eslen, the men were favoring floppy woolen caps like the ones the Cresson brothers wore at the battle of Ravenmark Wold. It seems silly now."

"I wouldn't make that comparison," Berimund said stiffly. "Or call our fashions silly. Is it a bad thing to remember the virtues of our forefathers?"

"Not at all," Muriele said. "I wish you and your father were more reminded of them, as a matter of fact, since your forefathers helped in originating the ancient covenant of emba.s.sy."

Berimund actually seemed to wince slightly, but he didn't reply.

"Shall we go to the hunt?" he asked instead.

The horses were clad in similarly strange harness, and her mount was provided with a quiver of arrows and a spear with a broad leaf-shaped head.

So caparisoned, she and Berimund and six of his retainers rode out of Hauhhaim through Gildgards, a tidy neighborhood with so many gardens that it seemed almost like countryside. She asked Berimund about it.

"The merchant guilds are given land within the walls for farming," he explained. "In good times, they sell their surplus and profit from it. When Kaithbaurg comes under siege, their produce reverts to the king. Anyway, it makes the city more pleasant, don't you think?"

Muriele agreed, and not much later they pa.s.sed through the Gildgards gate and into a countryside of vast barley fields and small villages. After perhaps a bell, their path took them into the lowlands around the river and finally into Thiuzanswalthu, Marcomir's hunting preserve, a vast, parklike evergreen wood. Soon they came upon a bustling camp sprawled out around a large tent. A group of hors.e.m.e.n and horsewomen were mustering like a small army, and they were all dressed much as Berimund and she were.

Berimund dismounted, took the reins of her horse, and led her over to the group.

Marcomir was a bit of a shock. She had met him once when she was fourteen and he had come to the Lierish court. At that time he had been in his fifties, but she still had been struck by the physical power that seemed to animate him, and she'd been a bit infatuated, taking every excuse to hover around while he was visiting.

Even now, she had a clear image of him in her mind.

That image was no longer accurate, however. Time had so shrunken and bent the monarch that she didn't recognize him until she was introduced. The color had been bleached from him. If she didn't know better, she would think him an albino. He trembled constantly.

But when she met his gaze, she glimpsed that old strength. It had been drained from his body and fermented, distilled, bittered there behind his eyes. As those pale orbs fastened on her, she felt as small as a barleycorn, and less significant.

"Father," Berimund said. "I introduce to you Muriele Dare, queen of Crotheny, queen mother to Empress Anne I."

Marcomir continued to stare at her.

"I've invited her to hunt with us."

"What do you want here, witch?" the old man asked. His speaking broke the spell; his watery, quavering voice could not match his gaze. "Have you come here to murder me? Is that your intention?"

Muriele sat straighter but did not see any reason to answer such a question.

"Father!" Berimund said. "Do not be so ill-mannered. This lady-"

"Hush, whelp," the king snarled. "I told you I would not see her. Why have you brought her here?"

"You said I could not present her in court," Berimund replied. "You said nothing about hunting."

"That's a hair in my beard," Marcomir snapped. "You understood my intent."

He swung back to Muriele. "But since you are here, let me spell clearly for you. Your shinecrafting daughter is not and will never be queen. She has unleashed horrors that no man should ever see and tilted the world toward doom. I will not be guiled with words; I will not be won with gifts or favors. This is the battle foretold, the great war against evil, the ansuswurth itself, and we-with the holy Church-will stand against your dark lady and your unhulthadiusen, and we will send you all back to the abyss."

As she watched the spittle drip down his chin, Muriele found that she had had enough.

"If I had known," she began, "that Your Majesty was a despicable liar who clothes himself in holy raiment to disguise the greedy, covetous ambition he has nursed for decades, I certainly would never have come here in hopes of a conversation. You are a loathsome thing, Marcomir. A better man would simply admit his avarice for power and control, but like a little child you make up stories to disguise your disgusting nature and in doing so become even more abhorrent. You dress your lords and ladies in homage to your beloved ancestors, but there is more honor in a single one of their rotting bones than in your entire body. Sing your churchish songs and play the harp of saintliness, but I know what you are, and so do you, and nothing you say or do, no host you muster, no war you win, will change that. I traveled to Hansa in hope of finding a man. Instead I find this. this. How sad and repulsive." How sad and repulsive."

Marcomir had found color for his face somewhere. He trembled more violently than ever.

"My dear sister-in-law," a voice said behind her. "You still have that turn of phrase that so wins the hearts of men."