"In the main house." "What if it's thieves?" I gasped.

"I doubt it, making that racket. Still..." He took up his sword. But nothing happened. No more sounds from the house.

"Should we go look?" I said.

He said, "Just wait."

My teacher slipped his jacket off, and sat with his sword in his shirtsleeves before the blazing hearth.

Next to the hearth, the doorlatch clicked. It was someone from the house who had a key. The swordsman's hand tightened on the hilt; then I saw him sit back.

"Hello," said the man in the doorway. "I've brought us some fish." He had a large basket on either arm.

"And some very good wine, and cakes, and smoked goose, and candied fruit and anise wafers. I hope you're hungry. I am."

"Hello." The master was smiling at my uncle as though the sun had risen early. "Come in. Sit down.

Have something to eat."

My uncle the Mad Duke edged his way in, cumbered with baskets and parcels. He dumped everything onto the table. His eyes were on the master; but he never came near him, as though the man were a fire that burned too hot for him to approach.

I couldn't believe it. Of all the people who had to come here on this night of all nights, why did it have to be him? Why didn't he warn us he was coming? Why didn't he ask me how I was? I'd almost rather it were burglars after all. I busied myself unwrapping things, opening jars and unfolding layers of paper. The duke said nothing 'til I took out my knife to cut a knotted string.

"Here," he said, "I've brought you something."

He reached into his coat, produced a slender bundle. "Happy New Year. A little early."

Oh, no. Should I have been stitching him some slippers or something? I hadn't made anything for anyone, hadn't even thought about them. Well, it was too late now. I unwrapped the duke's present.

It was a dagger in a glorious sheath of chased leather. The grip was twisted to look like vines, and the blade, when I pulled it, was bright and damascened, chased with a pattern of leaves.

"She likes it," the duke said to my master.

"She does."

"What have you been teaching her, then; useful things?"

"Very. She'll do all right."

The duke and my teacher seemed to know one another so well, they could leave half the words out and still have perfect understanding. I had to pretend not to hear them. Everything they said was for each other. I busied myself with putting the new knife on my belt. They were talking about me, though; thatwas something. I rather hoped the master would praise my progress at swordplay, but he did not, or not that I could hear.

The duke shook out his long hair, and cast aside scarves and overcoat. "It's hot in here. Good. It was cold on the road."

"A sudden whim?"

"Just so. My friends were bored, and decided they wanted a country party."

"Friends? What friends?"

"Oh, Davenant, Hetley, young Galing...They've taken to following me around. Their lives are so dull. I said I was coming here for Year's End, and they insisted on coming too. I don't know; I think they must have been drunk or something."

"Oh, Alec." The swordsman sounded very amused. "What have you done now?"

"Well, theywould come. But I seem to have lost them."

"Lost them?"

"Somewhere in the Great Hall. It was so dark in there."

"You left them in the hall. In the dark. My dear, did you forget to tell them that the staff always goes home for the White Days? Or did you just forget?"

"Is that why it was so cold?" My teacher made a noise. "Oh, well, they'll find wood. And somewhere to sleep-God knows there's plenty of rooms in this pile."

He reallywas mad, I thought. But my teacher was laughing.

"Here." The duke had gotten a bottle of wine open. He found the dolphin glasses, and a cup for me.

"Don't drink too much; wait 'til it warms up a bit, it tastes better." But already Tremontaine's wine exhaled the tang of summer raspberries, and the savor of sun on apple wood.

He busied himself with plates and spoons like any footman. "Cherries? No, you don't like them-good, more for me-try the cheese, it's got something odd in it; oh damn, the fish is squashed, but here, have a bite...."

I had forgotten food could taste this good, with layers of flavor and texture. The lovely wine washed it all down with waves of richness, and then there was sweet wine for the wafers and the fruit and the cakes, which were not squashed but retained the shapes of flowers, with sugar leaves and marzipan bees and another wine for them, as well.

"And how is your honey?" I heard the duke ask.

"If you think I can eat any honey after all this-"

"No, no, I was just being polite. About your bees." "I'll tell them you asked after them, next time I see them."

That thought of the master conveying the duke's compliments to his bees made me giggle, which made me cough, so I drank more wine. I don't always like wine, but this was wonderful stuff, what the duke gave me.

"Let's see, you've got your bees, and what-do you garden now? Or fish?"

"Oh, now, fishing...where's the challenge in that?"

I let out a whoop at the picture: the master would be holding the one sword, and a bright gold fish the other, and they'd bow to each other and then they'd...I thought I would never stop laughing. It would be better to go outside and get a breath of fresh air, but the only door I could find was right next to the fire, and that was no good. The other side of that door was grey and cold, nowhere to travel on such a night.

The hearth was heaped with red and golden coals, now, like a pile of roses. I wondered what it would be like to lie down in it. What kind of creature would I have to be, to lie in the fire and not feel it? I began to see little beings, flickering white hot in the spaces between embers. They winked and danced and sometimes seemed to sing. I watched them for a long time, as the fire grew darker and they slept, or departed for hotter fires.

The men were talking, ignoring me; they didn't see what I saw. Stories that burned themselves into my eyes, that faded away as the fire died and the year ended. I turned to tell them, and found that the room was spinning.

The room was spinning. I lay down on the master's pallet, because I was too dizzy to make it all the way up the stairs. It was very quiet, lying down, and dark. I must have slept; then voices began weaving their way into my dreams, words that were about to have meanings, but then they changed before I could follow them. Voices I knew, but sounding all wrong. I knew where I was, safe at Highcombe, but it didn't make any sense because my uncle the Mad Duke was here.

"What abouther ?" I dreamed them saying it.

"She's asleep."

I opened my eyes to show I was not asleep, but all I could see was red fire; I was still in the heart of the fire.

"Why did you come?"

"Do you wish I hadn't?"

"No, of course not."

"Come to me," my mad uncle purred.

"Like this?"

"No. In the dark." The hiss of silk. The fire went black. "Perfectly in the dark. Come to me now...."

Silence. Long silence, and I was asleep again, only someone was being hurt, I heard them crying out; Istruggled, but I could not free myself from the blankets to help them.

Then the crash of a log falling, and a whisper: "I love you."

"Liar! If you did, then you'd come back."

The swordsman's voice was low but clear, the voice I knew from hours of practice: "You know I would if I could."

"You can. Youmust !"

"I can't, Alec. Not like this."

"It wouldn't matter. I could make it not matter-"

"No, you could not. Not even you, my lord."

If I had had a sword, I could have stopped the voices, and the noise; but I had left it outside in the snow, the blade was turning to diamonds.

"You only stay here to feel sorry for yourself."

"Is that so?"

A muffled sound, then, "Don't, you're hurting me."

"I know." The swordsman, cool and detached. "If I kept on, I could kill you."

"But you'd miss me then."

"I miss you now. You aren't happy, you know."

"I would be, if you were there."

"No."

"Your pride, that's all that's holding you, just pride-"

"If you like."

"But I can undo that with my hands alone...."

"Your hands. Your voice. You can, my lord. You do." A hissing of fire. "But only because there is something left of me to be undone. Be sensible, Alec. Just for a moment. What is there for me to do there, now, in the city?"

"What do you do here?"

"Here. Here...before you sent me this little diversion...I walk. I practice. It's quiet. Trees. Nobody bothers me." "It's the people, then."

"Why do you stay there yourself? They only make you crazy. I saw what it was doing to you."

"I hate the country."

"Because you can't shock it. Or annoy it. Oh, Alec..." he sighed.

"What?"

"I don't know. I love you."

"I do not think so. Do you even think of me, when I am not right here pressed against you?"

"I think of you. I try not to."

"And is that difficult? Or is it easy here, not to think of me?" A hiss of breath, a cry of pain. "Is that what the country is for? So you can forget me? I give you a house to live in and safety, all so you can never think of me? Well, I think of you. I think of you a lot. Almost always, in fact. Do you know what my days are really like, Richard? My days, and my nights. Shall I tell you?"

"Shh, I know. Don't you think I know? I can feel it, feel it all over you. There, and there, and there-They are making you one of them after all. All that excess to no purpose."

"Shut up. You're never there, what do you know?"

"I know you. Be still, Alec, don't..."

"You've done this to me. I wish I could kill you, but I'm already dead. I'm dead, and everyone else is a ghost. I sleep with everyone I can find-I plunge myself into flesh like buckets of cream, and I am always starving. My mouth is open, but nothing gets in. You are the only one that's real. How do you do that, Richard? If you killed me, would I be real, too?"

"If I really killed you, you would be really dead. Please don't start that."

"Ah," said the duke coldly. "Please. Yes. Let's have you do some pleading for once. Because I'm tired of it. I'm sick of begging. I am not supposed to beg, certainly not to beg you. Do you know who I am?

Sometimes I wonder if you understand how different things are now. I am not a ragged student who needs to be protected from tavern bullies. I am Tremontaine. I hold the power, the lands, the money. I hold Riverside, for one, and more of the city. I hold them, and I would burn them to the ground for you, Richard, I would kill them all and leave nothing-"

"So we could walk in a ruined city?"

"If that's what you want."

"Oh, my dear idiot. Then stay. Just stay here, with me. There's nothing to ruin, here."

"No, there isn't." The duke's voice, thin and flat, mud gone to ice. "Is that it? Have you simply lost your edge?" A sigh. "Do you think I have?"

"You don't want challenge. How could you take one up, as you are?"

"I don't need that sort of challenge now."