Borenson reddened even more. "As well it should be, milord!"

"Besides," Gaborn said, considering the toll a bastard child sometimes took on a kingdom, "the cure is often more costly than the malady."

"I suspect that that cure is worth any price," Borenson said longingly, with a nod in the direction Myrrima had gone.

Suddenly, a plan blossomed in Gaborn's mind. A great geometer had once told him that when he discovered the answer to a difficult calculation, he knew that his answer was right because he felt it all the way down to his toes. At this moment, as Gaborn considered taking this young woman home to Mystarria, that same feeling of rightness struck him. Indeed, he felt that same burning compulsion that had drawn him to this land in the first place. He yearned once again to take Myrrima back to Mystarria, and suddenly saw the way.

He glanced at Borenson, to verify his hunch. The guardsman stood at his side, more than a head taller than Gaborn, and his cheeks were red, as if his own thoughts embarrassed him. The soldier's laughing blue eyes seemed to shine with their own light. His legs shook, though Gaborn had never seen him tremble in battle.

Down the lane, Myrrima turned a corner on a narrow market street, breaking into a run. Borenson shook his head ruefully, as if to ask, How could you let her go?

"Borenson," Gaborn whispered, "hurry after her. Introduce yourself graciously, then bring her back to me, but take a few minutes to talk as you walk. Stroll back. Do not hurry. Tell her I request an audience for only a moment."

"As you wish, milord," Borenson said. He began running in the swift way that only those who had taken an endowment of metabolism could; many in the crowd parted before the big warrior, who wound his way gracefully between those who were too slow or clumsy to move for him.

Gaborn did not know how long it might take Borenson to fetch the woman, so he wandered back to the shadows thrown by the inn. His Days followed. Together they stood, annoyed by a cloud of honeybees. The front of the inn here had an "aromatic garden" in the northern style. Blue morning-glory seeds were sewn in the thatch of the roof, and a riot of window boxes and flowerpots held creeping flowers of all kinds: palest honeysuckle dripped golden tears along the walls; mallow, like delicate bits of pearl, fluttered in the gentle breeze above the snow-in-summer; giant mandevilla, pink as the sunrise, was nearly strangled by the jasmine. And interspersed with all of these were rose vines, climbing every wall, splotches of peach. Along the ground were planted spearmint, chamomile, lemon verbena, and other spices.

Most northern inns were decorated with such flowers. It helped mask the obnoxious scents of the market, while herbs grown in these gardens could be used for teas and spices.

Gaborn stepped back into the sunlight, away from the heavy perfume of the flowers. His nose was too keen to let him stay.

Borenson returned in a few moments with his big right hand resting gently on Myrrima's elbow, as if to catch her should she trip on a cobblestone. It was an endearing sight.

When the two stood before him, Myrrima bowed slightly. "Milord wished to speak to me?"

"Yes," Gaborn said. "Actually, I was more interested in having you meet Borenson, my body." He left off the word guard, as was the custom in Mystarria. "He has been my body for six years now, and is captain of my personal guard. He is a good man.

In my estimation, one of the finest in Mystarria. Certainly the finest soldier."

Borenson's cheeks reddened, and Myrrima glanced up at the big guard, smiling discreetly, gauging him. She could not have failed to notice by now that Borenson had an endowment of metabolism to his credit. The hastiness of his speeded reactions, the apparent inability to rest, were sure sign of it.

"Recently, Borenson was promoted to the rank of Baron of the Realm, and given title to a land and manor in...the Drewverry March." Immediately Gaborn recognized his mistake. To give such a large holding was impetuous. Yet now that the words had been spoken...

"Milord, I've never heard--" Borenson began to say, but Gaborn waved him to silence.

"As I say, it was a recent promotion." The Drewverry estate was a major holding, more land than Gaborn would normally give to a distinguished soldier for a life of service, if he'd had time to consider. But now, Gaborn reasoned, this sudden act of generosity would only make Borenson that much more loyal--as if Borenson's loyalty would ever waver. "In any event, Myrrima, as you can see, Borenson spends a great deal of time in my service. He needs a wife to help him manage his holdings."

The look of surprise on Borenson's face was a joy to behold. The big man was obviously taken by this northern beauty, and Gaborn had all but ordered them to marry.

Myrrima studied the guard's face without reserve, as if noticing for the first time the strength of his jaw, the imposing bulge8 of muscle beneath his jerkin. She did not love him, not yet. Perhaps she never would. This was an arranged marriage, and marrying a man who lived his life twice as fast as you, one who would grow old and die while you floundered toward middle age, could not be an overwhelmingly attractive proposition. Thoughtfully, she considered the virtues of the match.

Borenson stood dumbfounded, like a boy caught stealing apples. His face told that he'd considered the match, hoped for it.

"I told you I thought you'd do well in court," Gaborn said to Myrrima. "I'd like you to be in my court."

Certainly the woman would take his meaning. No Runelord could marry her. The best she could hope for would be some merchant prince, burdened by adolescent lust.

Gaborn offered her a position of power--more than she could normally hope for--with an honorable and decent man whose life doomed him to a strange and lonely existence. It was no promise of love, but then Myrrima was a pragmatic woman who had taken the beauty of her sisters, the wisdom of her mother. Having taken these endowments, she would now have to assume responsibility for her impoverished kin. She knew the burden of power. She'd be a perfect woman to hold a place in Mystarria.

She looked up into Borenson's eyes for a long moment, face and mouth suddenly hard, as she considered the offer. Gaborn could see that now that the proposal was made, she realized what a momentous decision this was. Almost imperceptibly, she nodded, sealing the bargain. Borenson offered none of the hesitancy that Myrrima had found with Gaborn. He reached out and took her slender hand in both fists.

He said, "You must understand, fair lady, that no matter how sturdy my love for you grows, my first loyalty will always be to my lord."

"As it should be," Myrrima said softly, with a slight nod.

Gaborn's heart leapt. I have won her love as surely as Borenson shall, he thought.

At this moment, he felt strange--as if gripped by some great power. It seemed he could feel that power, like a buffeting wind, encircling--invisible, potent, overawing.

Gaborn's pulse raced. He glanced around, certain the source of this emotion must have a cause--a shifting in the earth in preparation for a quake, an approaching thunderstorm. But he saw nothing out of the normal, those around him did not seem troubled.

Yet he could feel...the earth preparing to move beneath his feet--the rocks to twist or breathe or shout.

It was a distinctly odd sensation.

As suddenly as the rush of power had come, it dissipated. Like a gust of wind passing over a meadow, unseen, but subtly disturbing all in its wake.

Gaborn wiped perspiration from his brow, worried. I've come a thousand miles to heed a distant, unheard call. And now I feel this?

It seemed madness. He asked the others, "Do you--do you feel anything?"

Chapter 3.

OF KNIGHTS AND PAWNS.

When Chemoise got news that her betrothed was attacked while on guard duty, gutted by some spice merchant, it was as if the dawn sun went black, losing power to warm her. Or it was as if she'd turned to pale clay, her flesh losing all color, no longer able to hold her spirit.

Princess Iome Sylvarresta watched Chemoise, her Maid of Honor, her dearest friend, desperately wishing for a way to console her. If Lady Jollenne had been here, she'd have known what to do. But the matron had been called away for a few weeks to care for her grandmother, who'd had a bad fall.

Iome, her Days, and Chemoise had been up at dawn, sitting near the huge, U-shaped storyteller's stone in the Queen's topiary garden, reading the latest romance poems by Adalle, when Corporal Clewes broke in on their reverie.

He told the news: A scuffle with a drunken merchant. An hour or more past. Cat's Alley. Sergeant Dreys. Fought nobly. Near death. Slit from crotch to heart. Called for Chemoise as he fell.

Chemoise took the news stoically, if statues can be said to be stoic. She sat stiffly on the stone bench, her hazel eyes unfocused, her long, wheat-colored hair stirring in the wind. She'd been weaving a chain of daisies as Iome read. Now she laid them in her lap, on a skirt of coral-colored chiffon. Sixteen and heartbroken. She was to have married in ten days.

Yet she dared not show her emotions. A proper lady should be able to bear such news lightly. She waited for Iome's permission to go to her fiancee. Thank you, Clewes," Iome said when the corporal continued standing at attention. "Where is Dreys now?"

"We laid him out on the common, outside the King's Tower. I didn't want to move him any farther. The others are laid out down by the river."

"The others?" Iome asked. She was sitting beside Chemoise; now she took the girl's hand. It had gone cold, so cold.

Clewes was an old soldier to have such a low station. His trim beard was stiff as oat stubble. It poked out from under the broken strap of his iron pikeman's cap.

"Aye, Princess," he said, remembering to address Iome properly for the first time since he'd intruded into the garden. "Two of the City Guard died in the fight. Poll the Squire and Sir Beauman."

Iome turned to Chemoise. "Go to him," she said.

The girl needed no further urging. She leapt up and ran down the path through the topiaries to the little wooden Bailey Gate, opened it and disappeared round the stone wall.

Iome dared not stay long in the corporal's presence alone, with no one other than the Days, who stood quietly a few paces off. It would not be proper. But she had questions to ask him.

Iome stood.

"You're not going to look at the sergeant, are you, Princess?" Clewes asked. He must have caught the anger in her eye. "I mean--it's a messy sight."9 "I've seen injured men before," she said stoically. She looked out of the garden, over the city. The garden, a small patch of grass with trimmed hedges and a few shaped shrubs, sat within the King's Wall, the second of the three walls within the city.

From here, she could see four of the King's Guards on the wall-walk, behind the parapet. Beyond that, to the east, lay the city market, just within the castle's Outer Wall. The streets in the market below were a jumble--roofs of slate, some covered with a layer of sand and lead, forming narrow chasms above the rocky streets. Smoke rose from cooking fires here and there.

Fourteen minor lords had estates within the city walls.

Iome studied the area where Cat's Alley could be found, a narrow market street just off the Butterwalk. The merchants'

wattle houses there were painted in shades of cardinal, canary, and forest green, as if such bright colors could deny the general decrepitude of buildings that had been settling on their crooked foundations for five hundred years.

The city looked no different today than it had yesterday. She could see Orly rooftops; no sign of murderers.

Yet beyond the castle walls, beyond the farms and haycrofts, in the ruddy hills of the Dunnwood to the south and west, dust rose in small clouds along the roads for miles. People were traveling to the fair from distant kingdoms. Already, dozens of colorful silk pavilions had been set out before the castle gates. In the next few days, the population of the city would soar from ten thousand to four or five times that number.

Iome looked back at the corporal. Clewes seemed like a cold man to have been sent to carry such ill news. Blood had been everywhere after the fight. That much Iome could see. Crimson smeared the corporal's boots, stained the silver boar embroidered into the black of his livery. The corporal himself must have carried Sergeant Dreys up to the common.

"So the fellow killed two men and wounded a third," Iome said. "A heavy loss, for a mere brawl. Did you dispatch the spice merchant yourself?" If he had, she decided, the corporal would get a reward. Perhaps a jeweled pin.

"No, milady. Uh, we busted him up a bit, but he's still alive. He's from Muyyatin. A fellow named Hariz al Jwabala. We didn't dare kill him. We wanted to question him." The corporal scratched the side of his nose, displeased at having left the trader alive.

Iome began to stroll toward the Bailey Gate, wanting to be with Chemoise. With a nod, she indicated that the corporal should follow, as did her Days.

"I see..." Iome mused, unsettled. A rich merchant then, from a suspect nation. Come to the city for next week's fair. "And what was a spice trader from Muyyatin doing in Cat's Alley before dawn?"

Corporal Clewes bit his lip, as if unwilling to answer, then said coldly, "Spying, if you ask me." His voice choked with rage, and now he took his eyes from the stone gargoyle up on the keep's wall, where he'd been staring, and briefly glanced at Iome, to see her reaction.

"I do ask you," Iome said. Clewes fumbled to unlatch the gate, let Iome and her Days through.

"We've checked the inns," Corporal Clewes said. "The merchant didn't drink at any of them last night, or else he'd have been escorted from the merchants' quarter at ten bells. So he couldn't have gotten drunk in the city walls, and I doubt he was drunk at all. He's got rum on his breath, but precious little of it. Besides, there was no reason for him to be creeping through the streets at night, unless he's spying out the castle walls, trying to count the guard! So when he gets caught, what does he do? He feigns drunk, and waits for the guards to close--then, out with the knife!" Clewes slammed the gate shut.

Just around the rock wall, Iome could see into the bailey. A dozen of the King's Guard stood there in a knot. A physic knelt over Sergeant Dreys, and Chemoise stood over them, shoulders hunched, arms crossed tightly across her chest. An early- morning mist was rising from the green.

"I see," Iome whispered, heart pounding. "Then you are interrogating the man?" Now that they were in the public eye, Iome stopped by the wall.

"I wish we could!" Corporal Clewes said. "I'd put a coal to his tongue myself! But right now, all the traders from Muyyatin and Indhopal are in an uproar. They're calling for Jwabala's release. Already they're threatening to post a ban on the fair. And now it's got the Master of the Fair in a fright: Guildmaster Hollicks has gone to the King himself, demanding the merchant's release! Can you believe it? A spy! He wants us to release a murdering spy!"

Iome took the news in, surprised. It was extraordinary that Hollicks would seek audience with the King just after dawn, extraordinary that the Southern merchants would threaten a ban. All of this spoke of large matters spinning wildly out of control.

She glanced over her shoulder. Her Days, a tiny woman with dark hair and a perpetually clenched jaw, was listening.

Standing quietly just outside the gate, petting a lanky yellow kitten that she held. Iome could read no reaction on the Days'

face. Perhaps the Days already knew who this spy was, knew who sent him. Yet the Days always claimed to remain completely neutral of political affairs. They would answer no questions.

Iome considered. Corporal Clewes was probably right. The merchant was a spy. Her father had his own spies in the Indhopalese Kingdoms.

But if the killer was a spy, it might be impossible to prove. Still, he'd killed two of the City Guard, and wounded Dreys, a sergeant of the King's Guard--and for that, by all rights, the merchant should die.

But in Muyyatin a man who committed a crime in a drunken stupor, even the crime of murder, could not be executed.

Which meant that if her father gave the death sentence, the Muyyatin--and all their Indhopalese kinsmen would bridle at the injustice of the execution.

So they threatened a ban.

Iome considered the implications of such a ban. The Southern traders primarily sold spices--pepper, mace, and salt for curing meats; curry, saffron, cinnamon, and others for use in foods; medicinal herbs. But the traders brought much more: alum for use in dyeing and tanning hides, along with indigo and various other dyes needed for Heredon's wool. And they carried other precious goods--ivory, silks, sugar, platinum, blood metal.

If these traders called a ban on the fair, they'd deal a fearsome blow to at least a dozen industries. Even worse, without the spices to preserve food, Heredon's poor would not fare well through the winter.

This year's Master of the Fair, Guildmaster Hollicks--who, as Master the Dyers' Guild, stood to lose a fortune if a ban10 succeeded--was suing for a reconciliation. Iome didn't like Hollicks. Too often he'd asked the King to raise the import taxes on foreign cloth, hoping thus to holster his own sales. But even Hollicks needed the merchandise the Indhopalese brought to trade.

Just as desperately, the merchants here in Heredon needed to sell their own wool and linen and fine steel to the foreigners.

Most of the bourgeois traders had large amounts of money that they both borrowed and loaned. If a ban were enforced, hundreds of wealthy families would go bankrupt. And it was the wealthy families of Heredon who paid taxes to support King Sylvarresta's knights.

Indeed, Sylvarresta had his hand in dozens of trading deals himself. Even he could not afford a ban.

Iome's blood felt as if it would boil. She tried to resign herself to the inevitable. Her father would be forced to release the spy, make a reconciliation. But she would not like it.

For in the long run, Iome knew full well, her family could not afford such reconciliation's: it was only a matter of time before Raj Ahten, the Wolf Lord of Indhopal, made war against the combined kingdoms of Rofehavan. Though traders from Indhopal crossed the deserts and mountains now, next year--or the year after--the trading would have to stop.

Why not stop the trading now? Iome wondered. Her father could seize the merchandise brought by the foreign caravans-- starting the war he'd long hoped to avert.

But she knew he would not do it. King Jas Laren Sylvarresta would not start a war. He was too decent a man.

Poor Chemoise! Her betrothed lay near death, and would not be avenged.

The girl had no one. Chemoise's mother had died young; her father, a Knight Equitable, had been taken captive six years ago while on a quest to Aven.

"Thank you for the news," Iome told Corporal Clewes. "I will discuss this matter with my father."

Iome hurried up now to the knot of soldiers. Sergeant Dreys lay on a pallet in the green grass. An ivory-colored sheet lay over Dreys, pulled up almost to his throat. Blood looked as if it had been poured liberally over the sheet, and it frothed from the corner of Dreys' mouth. His pale face was covered in sweat. The slant of the morning sunlight left him in shadows.

Corporal Clewes had been right. Iome should not have seen this. All the blood, the smell of punctured guts, the impending death--all nauseated her.

A few children from the castle were up early and had gathered to witness the sight. They looked up at Iome, shock and pain in their eyes, as if hoping that she could somehow smile and set this whole tragic thing aright.

Iome rushed to one small girl of nine, Jenessee, and put an arm around the girl, then whispered, "Please, take the children away from here."