For fighting a man in ring, one needed a thick Northern blade, with its straight edge and hard steel. These could pierce armor with a lunge, or could chop through small rings.

Seeing this fine sword abandoned here in the armory gave Orden hope. Raj Ahten marshaled a great number of troops. He might terrify, but he fought in an unfamiliar clime, with inferior Southern steel. How would his desert troops fare come winter?

Eight hundred years ago, the kings of Indhopal had sent gifts of spices, ointments, and silk, along with pet peacocks and tigers, to Orden's ancestors, in hopes of opening trade. In return, Orden's forefather sent back a gift of horses, gold, fine furs, and wool, along with Northern spices.

The kings of Indhopal spurned the gifts. The furs and wool seemed overburdensome in warm lands, the spices unsatisfactory. The horses--which they thought of inferior quality--were fit only for use as draft animals.

But they loved the gold, enough to send the caravans.

So Orden had to wonder how the Indhopalese would acclimate. Perhaps they'd not learn the value of wool or fur until half of them froze. Perhaps they'd spurn mounts bred for Northern mountains, just as they spurned Northern steel.

Last of all, Orden inspected the treasury. The Duke had stocked it with a surprising amount of gold blanks, used for striking coin. King Orden studied the stamps--which bore Sylvarresta's image on the front and the Seven Stones on the back.

It seemed odd that the Duke should be striking coins. A balancing scale sat on the floor, and Orden took a golden coin from his own pocket, placed it on one pan of the scale, then placed the Duke's blank on the other pan of the scale.

The blank was light. Whether it had been shaved too small, or whether it was light because the gold had been mixed with zinc or tin, King Orden could not tell.

But it was clear that the Duke of Longmont had been a counterfeiter before he'd turned traitor. "Scurvy-infested dog!" Orden muttered.

"Milord?" one of his captains asked.

"Go cut down the carcass of the Duke of Longmont. Cut through the intestines that keep him hanging from the keep, then fling the corpse into the moat."

"Milord?" the captain asked. It seemed a singularly disrespectful way to treat the dead.

"Do it!" Orden said. "The man doesn't deserve another night of royal hospitality."

"Yes, milord," the captain answered, rushing off.

After touring the Dedicates' Keep, Orden decided not to tour the others in the castle. The manors for the Duke and his lords seemed paltry. Orden saw no sense in guarding them.

Besides, it would be better to concentrate his men on the outer walls. Longmont was so narrow that an archer on the east wall could shoot the hundred yards to the west wall, which meant that if enemy soldiers managed to breach one wall, numerous defenders could still fire on them.

Fifteen hundred men, maybe sixteen hundred. That was all King Orden had at the moment. He'd sent messengers to Groverman and Dreis, hoped for reinforcements. Perhaps Borenson would return with most of his army intact.

But they would have to get here soon. Reinforcements that did not arrive before dawn would not get in.

King Orden had finished inspecting the Dedicates' Keep when Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess's aide-de-camp, came to meet him, followed by a Days, a plump woman of middle age. Captain Tempest was a stout man, with thick curly brown hair cropped close. He carried his helm in hand, a sign of respect, but did not bow on meeting King Orden. For a flicker of a second, Orden felt slighted, then realized this man was acting lord of the castle. As such, by right, he did not need to bow.

Instead, Tempest reached out to shake hands at the wrist, as an equal. "Your Highness, we are happy to receive you, and offer you and your men such comforts as we can. But I fear there may be a battle soon. Raj Ahten has an army advancing from the south."

"I know," Orden said. "We'd like to fight beside you. I've sent to Groverman and Dreis, begging reinforcements, but I suspect they'll hesitate to honor a request from a foreign king."

"The Duchess also sent for reinforcements," Tempest said. "We should soon see what it gains us."

"Thank you," Orden said, watching the man's eyes.

This was the worst news. If no help had come yet, it meant Dreis and Groverman, on hearing of the invasion, had chosen to fortify their own positions rather than send aid. One could hardly blame them.

After a moment Orden asked, "May we speak privately?"

Tempest nodded discreetly; together they walked into the Duke's Keep, climbed a flight of stairs. Orden's men waited outside. Only Orden's and his son's Days followed him into the room, with the matronly Days who followed Tempest at their heels.

In the great room, blood still smeared the floors from a fierce battle. Wood chairs lay in splinters; a gore-covered axe lay on the floor, along with a pair of long daggers.

The Duchess's battle had come down to knife work in here.

A pair of red hounds looked up curiously as Orden entered, thumped their tails in greeting. They'd been sleeping before the cold fireplace.

King Orden got a torch, lit it, placed it under the kindling in the fireplace. Then he took a seat by the fire, ten feet from Tempest's own chair.

Tempest looked to be in his early fifties, though it was impossible to tell. A man with endowments of metabolism would age fast. But Mendellas could often guess a warrior's age by looking in his eyes. Even with endowments of metabolism, some men maintained a look of innocence, a look of inexperience. A man's eyes stayed young--like his teeth and his mind and his heart-- though his skin might become spotted and wrinkled.121 But Tempest's brown eyes looked full of pain, battle, and fatigue. Orden could tell nothing by gazing into them.

Tempest's eyes looked a thousand years old.

The King decided to lead to his subject tactfully. "I'm curious to know what happened. Raj Ahten obviously garrisoned soldiers here--good force soldiers. How is it that the Duchess defeated them?"

Captain Tempest said, "I--must base my report on hearsay. I myself was forced to give an endowment, and so was housed in the Dedicates' Keep when the revolt took place."

"You say Raj Ahten 'forced' you to give an endowment?"

A strange look came over Captain Tempest, one of revulsion mingled with worship. "You must understand, I gave myself willingly. When Raj Ahten asked for my endowment, his words seemed to be daggers that pierced me. When I looked at his face, it seemed more beautiful than a rose or the sun rising over a mountain lake. He seemed beauty itself; everything else I've ever thought noble or beautiful seemed a dim forgery.

"But after I gave the endowment, after his men dragged my body down to the Dedicates' Keep, I felt as if I awoke from a dream. I realized what I'd lost, how I'd been used."

"I see," King Orden said, wondering idly how many endowments of glamour and Voice Raj Ahten had, that he could gain such power over men. "So, what happened here? How did the Duchess manage this coup?"

"I am not certain, for I was weak as a pup in the Dedicates' Keep, and could not stay awake. I heard only snatches of reports.

"As I understand, the Duke apparently got paid to let Raj Ahten pass through the Dunnwood. But he dared not let his wife know of the payment, and so kept it hidden in his private apartments, not daring to show it.

"After his death, when the Duchess realized that he must have been paid for his treason, she searched his private apartments and found some hundred forcibles."

"I see," King Orden said. "So she used the forcibles to furnish some assassins?"

"Yes," Tempest answered. "When Raj Ahten entered the city, not all our guard was in the keep. Four young soldiers were in the wilds, investigating a report that a woodcutter in Greenton had spotted a reaver--"

"Have you had many reports of reavers hereabouts?" Orden asked, for this was important news.

"No, but last spring we tracked a trio in the Dunnwood."

Orden thought. "How large were the tracks?"

"Twenty to thirty inches long."

"Four-toed, or three-toed tracks?"

"Two were three-toed. The largest was four-toed."

Orden licked his lips, found his mouth suddenly dry. "You knew what that meant, didn't you?"

"Yes, Your Highness," Captain Tempest said. "We had a mating triad."

"And you did not kill them? You didn't find them?"

"Sylvarresta knew of it. He sent hunters after them."

No doubt Sylvarresta would have told Orden of the reavers. We might have hunted more than boars this year, Orden thought. Yet this news bothered him, for he'd heard other troubling reports of reavers moving through the mountains along the borders of Mystarria--war bands of nines and eighty-ones. Not since his great-grandfather's day had he heard so many reports.

And on his journey north, while traveling through Fleeds, Queen Herin the Red mentioned problems with reavers killing her horses. But Orden had not expected the depredations to extend so far north.

"So," Orden said, "you had soldiers on patrol when Raj Ahten took possession..."

"Right. They stayed out of the city, until Raj Ahten left. They saw the Duke hanged, so they sent a note to the Duchess, asking her orders. She sent her facilitator into town with the forcibles, and the soldiers took endowments from whomever would grant them, until they had enough to attack."

"So they performed an escalade?" Orden asked.

"Hardly. They entered casually enough, after Raj Ahten left. They played at being candlemakers and weavers, bringing in goods to display to the Duchess. But they hid daggers beneath the candles, and chain mail beneath folds of cloth.

"Raj Ahten had only two hundred loyal soldiers here, and those young lads--well, they handled the situation."

"Where are they now?"

"Dead," Captain Tempest said, "all dead. They broke into the Dedicates' Keep and killed half a dozen vectors. That's when the rest of us joined the fray. It wasn't easy."

Orden nodded thoughtfully.

"Captain Tempest, I suppose you know why my men and I have come?" It was a delicate subject, but Orden needed to know if Tempest had captured the forcibles, moved them from Bredsfor Manor. Though he'd sent a man to find them, Orden didn't want to be kept waiting, especially if he waited only for bad news.

The captain stared up at him, incurious. "You heard we were under attack?"

"Yes," Orden said, "but that is not why I came. All of Heredon is under attack, and I'd have preferred to bend my efforts to freeing Castle Sylvarresta. I came for the treasure."

"Treasure?" Captain Tempest asked. His eyes widened. Almost, Orden believed the man knew nothing about it. But he didn't quite trust that response. Tempest was working too hard to control his emotions, to show no reaction.

"You know what I'm talking about?"

"What treasure?" Tempest asked, with no hint of deception in his eyes.

Had the Duchess kept the existence of the forcibles hidden even from her own aide-de-camp? Orden had expected so, had hoped so.

"You knew the Duke was a forger, didn't you?" Orden asked. He let just a little of the power of his Voice slide into the question, in a tone that would elicit guilt.

"No!" Tempest protested, but his eyes flickered, and his pupils contracted.

The dishonest, miserable cur, Orden thought. The man lies to me now. When I asked about treasure, he thought I spoke of122 the gold blanks in the treasury. Truly, he had not heard of Raj Ahten's forcibles. That interested Orden.

So the Duchess had not trusted Tempest. Which meant Orden could not trust him, either.

King Orden forged ahead with a half-truth. "King Sylvarresta sent a message, saying the Duchess had overthrown Raj Ahten's forces here, and she had hidden or buried a treasure here in the castle. Have you seen signs of digging hereabout? Has anyone recovered the treasure?"

Tempest shook his head, eyes wide. Orden felt sure Tempest's men would be digging within the hour.

"Who did the Duchess trust most? Who would she have had bury the treasure?"

"The chamberlain," Tempest said quickly.

"Where is he now?"

"Gone! He left the castle shortly after the uprising. He--I haven't seen him since!" From the tone of Tempest's voice, he seemed worried that the chamberlain had made off with the treasure.

"What did he look like?"

"A thin fellow, like a willow switch, with blond hair and no beard."

The very messenger Orden had found slain. So the Duchess had sent the message to Sylvarresta using the man who'd hidden the forcibles, then told no one else about them. Captain Tempest might be a fine soldier, capable of defending the castle, but he was obviously dishonest. Knowledge of the treasure would have tempted him, and the Duchess had not wanted to let her king get betrayed again.

This news filled King Orden with sadness, a heaviness. Such a waste, that a fine king like Sylvarresta could suffer from such disloyalty. A whole nation compromised.

If a fine man like Sylvarresta was so little loved by his lords, Orden wondered, how can I trust my own vassals?

"Thank you, Captain Tempest," King Orden said, in a tone of dismissal.

"Oh, and Captain," Orden added, as Tempest hesitated in the doorway, strapping on his helm, "relief will come from Groverman and Dreis, as soon as they make arrangements. I sent a message asking for aid, and I told them of the treasure. The armies of the North will gather here!"

Tempest nodded, breathed a sigh of relief, departed. The matronly Days followed him out.

Orden sat for a long hour in the darkness, in a chair carved of dark walnut, finely wrought--too finely. The chiseled emblems of feasting men on its backboard dug into his flesh. One could not rest in these chairs.

So Orden stoked the fire in the fireplace, threw in a couple of shattered chairs for fuel, then lay on a bearskin, petting the Duke's hunting hounds, who batted the floor with their tails, reveling in his affection.

His Days had been standing in a corner, forgotten. Now the man came and sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs. Gaborn's Days remained in the corner.

Orden had not lain on the floor with a dog since he was a boy. He remembered the first time he'd come to Longmont with his father. He'd been nine years old, on his way home from his first big hunt, a hundred men in his retinue. It was in the fall, at Hostenfest, of course, where he'd met a young prince with long amber hair and narrow shoulders.

Sylvarresta. Prince Mendellas Orden's first friend. His only true friend. Orden had had soldiers who schooled him in the arts of war, and he'd made alliances with fawning sons of minor nobles who might have liked him but who always seemed too much aware how their inherited stations forever separated them from a prince.

Even the other princes had treated Orden with too much deference--always aware that his realm was richer and larger than any other.

It was only Sylvarresta whom Mendellas could trust. Sylvarresta would tell him if some hat made him look stupid instead of stylish, or would laugh at him when he missed a quintain with his lance. Only Sylvarresta ever dared tell him when he was wrong.

King Orden found himself breathing hard. I am wrong now, he realized. Wrong to have sent Borenson to kill Raj Ahten's Dedicates.

What if Borenson kills Sylvarresta? Could I ever forgive myself? Or will I have to bear the scar of it for the rest of my life, as a badge of this war?

Other kings had borne such scars, Orden told himself. Others had been forced to slaughter friends. As a child, Orden had begrudged the men who killed his own grandfather. Now he knew that too often, guilt became the price of leadership.

"Days?" King Orden whispered to the man who sat at his back.