"And if I'm not?" The tone, for a supposedly infatuated lover, was far too mocking, she thought, and she didn't answer. Nor did he wait. There was a rustle in the leaves above, then a thump beside her on the ground.

And then two hands took one of hers quite comprehensively, and brought it not to his forehead but to his lips. Which was all right, though he should have knelt. What was not all right was that he should turn the hand over to kiss her palm and wrist.

She snatched her hand away, horribly aware of the pounding of her heart. She still hadn't even seen him clearly.

As if reading the thought, he moved out of shadow, to where the moonlight could find his bright, tousled hair. And he did drop to a knee then-letting the light fall like benediction on his face.

And so she did see, finally. The eyes, wide-set and deep, were very blue under long, almost feminine lashes. The mouth was wide as well, too much so, and there was no softness in it, or in the lines of the beardless chin.

He smiled, though, and not mockingly. And she realized that from where he knelt she, too, was in the light to be seen.

"Well-" she began.

"Fools," said Diarmuid dan Ailell. "They all told me you were beautiful. Said it sixteen different ways."

"And?" She stiffened, anger ready as a lash.

"And, by Lisen's eyes, you are. But no one ever told me there was cleverness in you. I should have known. Shalhassan's heir would have to have subtlety."

She was completely unprepared. No one had ever said this. Off balance, she fleetingly remembered all her Venassars, so effortlessly handled.

"Forgive me," this man said, rising to stand beside her, very close. "I didn't know. I was expecting to deal with a very young woman-which you are not, not in the ways that matter. Shall we walk? Will you show me your gardens?"

And so she found herself in stride with him on the northern perimeter of the Circle Path, and it seemed foolish and young to protest when he took her arm. A question, however, insinuated itself as they moved in the scented darkness, haloed by the lienae flying all about them.

"If you thought me so simple, how could you write me as you did?" she asked, and felt her heartbeat slow again, as a measure of control came back to her in his silence. Not so easily, my friend, she thought.

"I am," said Diarmuid quite calmly, "somewhat helpless before beauty. Word of yours reached me some time ago. You are more than I was told you were."

A neat enough answer, for a northerner. Even honey-tongued Galienth might have approved. But it was well within her ability to compass. So although he was handsome and disturbing in the shadows beside her, and his fingers on her arm kept shifting very slightly, and once brushed the edge of her breast, Sharra now felt secure. If there was a twist of regret, another downward arc of the mind's falcon, she paid it no attention.

"T'Varen laid out Larai Rigal in the time of my great-grandfather, Thallason, whom you have cause to remember in the north. The gardens cover many miles, and are walled in their entirety, including the lake, which..." And so she went on, as she had for all the Venassars, and though it was night now, and the man beside her had a hand on her arm, it really wasn't so very different after all. I might kiss him, she thought. On the cheek, as goodbye.

They had taken the Crossing Path at the Faille Bridge, and began curving back north. The moon was well clear of the trees now, riding high in a sky laced with windblown clouds. The breeze off the lake was pleasant and not too chilly. She continued to talk, easily still, but increasingly aware of his silence. Of that, and of the hand on her arm, which had tightened and had grazed her breast again as they passed one of the waterfalls.

"There is a bridge for each of the nine provinces," she said, "and the flowers in each part of-"

"Enough!" said Diarmuid harshly. She froze in midsentence. He stopped walking and turned to face her on the path. There was a calath bush behind her. She had hidden there, playing, as a child.

He had released her arm when he spoke. Now, after a long, cold glance at her, he turned and began walking again. She moved quickly to keep up.

When he addressed her, it was while staring straight ahead, his voice low and intense. "You are speaking like someone scarcely a person. If you want to play gracious Princess with the petty lordlings who mince about, courting you, it is none of my affair, but-"

"The lords of Cathal are not petty, sir! They-"

"Do not, please, insult us both! That emasculated whipping-boy this afternoon? His father? I would take great pleasure in killing Bragon. They are worse than petty, all of them. And if you speak to me as you do to them, you cheapen both of us unbearably."

They had reached the lyren again. Somewhere within her a bird was stirring. She moved ruthlessly to curb it, as she had to.

"My lord Prince, I must say I am surprised. You can hardly expect less formal conversation, in this, our first-"

"But I do expect it! I expect to see and hear the woman. Who was a girl who climbed all the trees in this garden. The Princess in her role bores me, hurts me. Demeans tonight."

"And what is tonight?" she asked, and bit her lip as soon as she spoke.

"Ours," he said.

And his arms were around her waist in the shadows of the lyren, and his mouth, descending, was upon her own. His head blocked the moon, but her eyes had closed by then anyway. And then the wide mouth on hers was moving, and his tongue- "No!" She broke away violently, and almost fell. They faced each other a few feet apart. Her heart was a mad, beating, winged thing she had to control. Had to. She was Sharra, daughter of- "Dark Rose," he said, his voice unsteady. He took a step towards her.

"No!" Her hands were up to ward him.

Diarmuid stopped. Looked at her trembling figure. "What do you fear in me?" he asked.

Breathing was difficult. She was conscious of her breasts, of the wind about her, the nearness of him, and of a dark warmth at her center, where- "How did you cross the river?" she blurted out.

She expected mockery again. It would have helped. His gaze was steady, though, and he stayed absolutely motionless.

"I used a mage's arrow and a rope," he said. "I crossed hand over hand above the water and climbed a ladder cut into the cliff several hundred years ago. I give you this as between you and me. You will not tell?"

She was Princess of Cathal. "I make no such promise, for I cannot. I will not betray you now in any way, but secrets endangering my people-"

"And what do you think I did in telling you? Am I not heir to a throne, just as you are?"

She shook her head. Some voice within was wildly telling her to run, but instead she spoke, as carefully as she could. "You must not think, my lord Prince, to win a daughter of Shalhassan, merely by coming here and-"

"Sharra!" he cried, speaking her name for the first time, so that it rang in the night air like a bell tolling pain. "Listen to yourself! It is not just-"

And they both heard it then.

The jangling clink of armor as the palace guard moved up on the other side.of the wall.

"What was that?" a gravelly voice exclaimed, and she knew it for Devorsh, Captain of the Guard. There was a murmured reply. Then, "No, I heard voices. Two of you go have a look inside. Take the dogs!"

The sound of armored men walking off jarred the night.

Somehow they were together under the tree. She laid a hand on his arm.

"If they find you, they will kill you, so you had better go."

Incredibly, his gaze on hers, close and above, was undisturbed. "If they find me, they kill me," said Diarmuid. "If they can. Perhaps you will close my eyes, as I once asked." The expression changed then, the voice roughened. "But I will not leave you now willingly, though all of Cathal come calling for my blood."

And gods, gods, all the gods, his mouth on hers was so very sweet, the touch of his hands blindingly sure. His fingers were busy at the fastenings of her bodice, and dear Goddess, her own hands were behind his head, pulling him down to her, her tongue sought his in hunger long denied. Her breasts, suddenly released, strained towards his touch, and there was an ache in her, a burning, something wild being set free as he laid her down on the deep grass and his fingers touched her here, and here, and her clothes were gone from about her, and his from him as well. And then his body along hers was all the night and garden, all the worlds, and in her mind she saw the shadow of a falcon, wings beating wide, fly across the face of the high moon.

"Sharra!"

From where they were, outside the walls, they heard the name cried out within the gardens. "What was that?" one of them exclaimed. "I heard voices. Two of you go have a look inside. Take the dogs!"

Two men moved quickly to obey the sharp command, jogging urgently in the direction of the western gate.

But only for a few jangling strides. After that, Kevin and Coll stopped running and looped silently back to the concealing hollow where the others lay. Erron, whose disguised voice had barked the order, was already there. The soldiers of Cathal were, at that moment, flanked ten minutes' walk away on either side. The timing and the plan were Diarmuid's, worked out as they lay watching and listening to the patrol in the early evening.

Now they had nothing more to do but wait for him. They settled quietly into the dark hollow. A few slept, using the time to advantage, for they would be running back north as soon as the Prince rejoined them. There was no talk. Too wound up to rest properly, Kevin lay on his back and watched the slow transit of the moon. Several times they heard the guards cross and cross again in their circuit of the walls. They waited. The moon reached its zenith and began to slide west against the backdrop of summer stars.

Carde saw him first, a black-clad, bright-haired figure on the top of the wall. Quickly Carde checked right and left for the patrol, but the timing, again, was flawless, and rising briefly to be seen, he gave a thumbs-up sign.

Seeing it, Diarmuid leaped, rolled once, and was up running lightly and low to the ground. When he dropped into the hollow beside them, Kevin saw that he was carrying a flower. Hair dishevelled, doublet loose and half unbuttoned, the Prince's eyes flashed with an intoxicated hilarity.

"Done!" he said, raising the flower in salute to all of them. "I've plucked the fairest rose in Shalhassan's garden."

CHAPTER 7.

"He will be found, I promise it." So he had said. A rash promise, and uncharacteristic, but it had been made.

So at about the time Paul and Kevin began their ride south with Diarmuid, Loren Silvercloak was galloping north and east alone in search of Dave Martyniuk.

It was rare for the mage to be solitary-alone, he was stripped of his powers-but he'd needed Matt to stay in the palace, the more so since word had come of the dead svart in the garden. It was a bad time to be away, but his choices were limited, and so, too, were the people he could trust.

So north he rode, gradually curving eastward through the grain land amid the dry crackle of the ruinous summer. All that day and the next he traveled, and not slowly, for a sense of urgency was strong within him. He paused only to ask discreet questions in the farmyards and half-empty towns through which he passed, and to note again, and despairingly, the impact of famine on those to whom he spoke.

There was no word, though. No one had seen the tall dark-haired stranger or heard tell of him. So on the third morning Loren mounted early from where he'd passed the night in a copse of trees to the west of Lake Leinan. Looking eastward he could see the sun rising from the line of hills past the lake and he knew Dun Maura lay beyond. Even by daylight, with a blue sky above, there was for the mage a darkness about that place.

There was no love lost between the Mormae of Gwen Ystrat and the mages who had followed Amairgen's lead out from the dominion of the Mother. Blood magic, thought Loren, shaking his head, picturing Dun Maura and the rites of Liadon enacted every year before Conary came and forbade them. He thought of the flowers strewn by the maidens chanting his death and return as the spring: Rahod hedai Liadon. In every world, the mage knew; but his very soul rebelled against the darkness of this power. Grimly he turned his horse away from the country of the Priestesses and continued north, following the Latham on the long ride to the Plain.

He would ask aid of the Dalrei, as he had so often done before. If Dave Martyniuk was somewhere among the great spaces of the Plain, only the Riders could find him. So north he rode, a tall, grey, bearded figure no longer young, alone on a horse in the wide sweep of the level lands, and the baked earth resonated beneath him like a drum.

He was hoping, even though it was summer, to find a tribe of the Riders in the south Plain, for if he could speak to even one tribe then word would be sent to Celidon, and once his message was lodged at the mid-Plain, then soon all the Dalrei would know, and the Dalrei he trusted.

It was a long ride, though, and there were no villages now among the broad grazing lands in which he could take food or rest. And so he was still galloping alone as that third day drew towards sundown and then dark. His shadow lay long on the earth beside him, and the river had become a glimmering, muted presence to the east, when the urgency that had lain within him since he had left Paras Derval exploded into terror.

Grappling at the reins, he brought his mount to a rearing halt, then held it rigidly still. One moment he remained so, his face drawn suddenly tight with fear, then Loren Silvercloak cried aloud in the onrushing night and wheeled his horse hard to ride in the dark, back, back towards Paras Derval, where something overwhelming was about to happen.

Drumming furiously home under the stars, he gathered his mind and hurled a desperate warning southward over all the empty leagues that lay between. He was too far away, though, much too far away, and without his power. He urged his horse faster, driving like wind in the darkness, but he knew, even as he did so, that he was going to be too late.

Jennifer was not happy. Not only was Dave missing, not only had Kevin and Paul ridden off that morning on some crazy expedition with Diarmuid, but now Kim had left as well, with Matt guiding her to the home of the old woman whom people in the Great Hall the day before had called a witch.

Which left her in a large room on the cooler west side of the palace, sitting in a low window seat, surrounded by a gaggle of court ladies whose principal yearning in life seemed to be to elicit all they could from her about Kevin Laine and Paul Schafer, with special and explicit focus on their sexual predilections.

Parrying the questions as best she could, she barely managed to conceal a growing irritation. On the far side of the room, a man was playing a stringed instrument under a tapestry depicting a scene of battle. There was a dragon flying over the conflict. She hoped profoundly that it was a mythical confrontation.

The ladies had all been briefly presented to her, but only two names had registered. Laesha was the very young, brown-eyed lady-in-waiting who seemed to have been assigned to her. She was quiet, which was a blessing. The other was the Lady Rheva, a striking, dark-haired woman who clearly enjoyed a higher status than the others, and to whom Jennifer had taken an effortless dislike.

Nor was this in any degree lessened when it became clear, because Rheva made it clear, that she'd spent the night before with Kevin. It was evidently a triumph in a continuing game of one-upmanship, and Rheva was exploiting it for all it was worth. It was aggravating in the extreme, and Jennifer, abandoned, was in no mood to be aggravated.

So when another of the women gave a sulky toss of her hair and inquired whether Jennifer had any idea why Paul Schafer had been so indifferent to her-"Does he, perhaps, prefer to spend his nights with boys?" she asked, with a barb of malice-Jennifer's brief laugh was entirely humorless.

"There are more obvious possibilities, I should think," she replied, aware that she was making an enemy. "Paul is somewhat discriminating, that's all."

There was a brief silence. Someone tittered. Then: "Are you suggesting, by any chance, that Kevin is not?" It was Rheva, and her voice had gone very soft.

Jennifer could handle this. What she could not handle was having it continue. She rose abruptly from the window seat and, looking down on the other woman, smiled.

"No," she said, judiciously. "Knowing Kevin, I wouldn't say that at all. The trick, though, is to get him twice." And she moved past them all and out the door.

Walking swiftly down the corridor, she made a very firm mental note to inform Kevin Laine that if he took a certain court lady to bed once more, she would never speak to him again as long as she lived.

At the doorway to her room, she heard her name being called. Her long skirt trailing the stone floor, Laesha came hurrying up. Jennifer eyed her inimically, but the other woman was laughing breathlessly.

"Oh, my," she gasped, laying a hand on Jennifer's arm, "that was wonderful! The cats in that room are spitting with anger! Rheva hasn't been handled like that for years."

Jennifer shook her head ruefully. "I don't imagine they'll be very friendly the rest of the time I'm here."

"They wouldn't have been anyway. You are much too beautiful. On top of your being new, it's guaranteed to make them hate you for existing. And when Diarmuid put out word yesterday that you were reserved for him, they-"

"He what?" Jennifer exploded.

Laesha eyed her carefully. "Well, he is the Prince, and so-"

"I don't care who he is! I have no intention of letting him touch me. Who do they think we are?"

Laesha's expression had altered a little. "You mean that?" she asked hesitantly. "You don't want him?"

"Not at all," said Jennifer. "Should I?"

"I do," said Laesha simply, and flushed to the roots of her brown hair.

There was an awkward silence. Speaking carefully, Jennifer broke it. "I am only here two weeks," she said. "I will not take him from you or anyone else. I need a friend right now, more than anything else."

Laesha's eyes were wide. She took a short breath.

"Why do you think I followed you?"

This time they shared the smile.

"Tell me," Jennifer asked after a moment. "Is there any reason we have to stay in here? I haven't been outside at all. Can we see the town?"

"Of course," said Laesha. "Of course we can. We haven't been at war for years."

Despite the heat, it was better outside the palace. Dressed in an outfit much like Laesha's, Jennifer realized that no one knew she was a stranger. Feeling freed by that, she found herself strolling at ease beside her new friend. After a short while, though, she became aware that a man was following them through the dusty, twisting streets of the town. Laesha noticed it, too.

"He's one of Diarmuid's," she whispered.

Which was a nuisance, but before he had left in the morning, Kevin had told her about the dead svart alfar in the garden, and Jennifer had decided that for once she wasn't about to object to having someone watch over her. Her father, she thought wryly, would find it amusing.