Sean was grinning as he turned to the similarly outfit ted students. "The Son of the Prophet does you a great honor. Push hard on the word of command... fight!"

The students didn't waste any time on preliminaries; the center man of the triad lunged with blade outstretched.

"Cut! Cut! "

Not bad, Sethaz thought, as he swayed aside and clubbed the trainee on the back of his helmet with the edge of the shield, a short chopping stroke. In the same instant he caught the second's stroke at the side of his leg on his own shete and kicked him in the belly, hard. The armor spread it; the steel-toed riding boot would have killed a man without the plates and padding, and even with he doubled up with an ooof.

That left the third. He came on gamely, shete flash ing. It cracked hard on Sethaz's shield, then rang on the steel of his blade. After a moment he found the rhythm of it, and left an opening. The student's shete lunged and then it was caught between his right arm and his flank, clamped hard by the inside of his arm. The trainee fool ishly tried to wrestle it clear rather than abandoning it and going for a dagger, and took a head butt in the face. Sethaz pulled the blow; that was another one that could kill. It jarred him a little, even with the steel of the helmet and the padding between him and the impact. The youngster's nose broke with a crunching sound and he lurched back to the matting, lying dazed with blood pouring down over his mouth.

Sethaz kept the grin off his face, standing and mak ing the air whine as he whipped the blunt practice shete through figure eights.

"What have you learned from this?" Sean barked at the kneeling spectators.

One of them raised a hand. At a curt nod, the youth said, "Sir, that a fighter should not think only of his shete, just because he has a shete in his hand. Everything is a weapon to the warrior's mind."

"Correct," Sethaz said. "And always use conditions and circumstances, which are unique to each fight. Remember that."

He let the servants strip off the armor, went through into the bathhouse, showered and took the cold plunge. Then he sighed and changed into a robe.

Back to business, he thought, crossing over a street in the enclosed walkway and into the building that housed his private offices and quarters and his Women's House.

The sanctum he used for most of his despised but could not-be avoided paperwork held only a mandala, desk and office furniture, but the broad windows looked out across a vista of river and cottonwoods and snowy pastures, up to the green of ponderosa-pine forest and the glaciers above. A murmur and click of abacus beads came from the offices on the ground floor, but he felt private here-except for a triad of the guards, of course, and his secretary, Geraldine. It had been a refuge when he was younger, still uncertain and feeling his way as the Prophet withdrew into his visions and the generals and priest-bureaucrats jostled for power.

More servants brought him fresh bread and a bowl of lamb stew with onions and potatoes as he read through the most important dispatches. Things were going well down in the Powder River country; the last of the pow erful ranchers there were asking for terms, ready to ac cept the Dictations. And the Sioux had finally yielded all the Hi-Line, retreating eastward into their strongholds in the Dakotas and agreeing to allow missionaries from the Church to preach in their camps.

Let's hope that works, he thought. They make poor slaves but they'd be very valuable subjects.

He clapped hands to have the tray taken out, and sat sipping borage tea. Which left another matter, one less easily solved with a few regiments or preachers.

"Bring him in," he said.

The secretary genuflected and went to the door, and a near-naked figure was thrust through to stumble to a halt and stand blinking. Kuttner was in his thin drawers, teeth still chattering from the cold of the unheated basement cell. His hands were bound before him, and the guards had thrust a pole between his elbows and his back, and were steering him by it. They pushed him down on his knees; Kuttner bent to touch his forehead to the tiles of the floor. There was a crusted slow healing scar on his left cheek, ending in an empty socket.

"I beg for mercy, Son of the Prophet!" he wailed. "I have failed the Prophet and the Church Universal and Triumphant. Mercy!"

Then he sensibly fell silent. There was no excuse for failure; it showed a lack of proper openness to the Dictations.

"I am disappointed in you, Kuttner," Sethaz said, offering none of the usual titles or formulae of polite ness. "We had great hopes... and the Prophet himself has said that the matter of Nantucket is important."

If that's not just his madness speaking, Sethaz thought, then pushed the deadly siren song of doubt away. I must have faith.

Kuttner licked his lips. He was a capable spy, and they'd spent years infiltrating him into the household of the young bossman of Iowa before he inherited from his father; his file indicated that he was cynical, but fundamentally loyal, ambitious, and highly intelligent. Brains were in far shorter supply than zeal. Now there was something in his single remaining eye that made Sethaz a little uneasy.

"Son of the Prophet, the Prophet's words were truer than my weak and doubting spirit could have imagined. There is something dangerous on the island. Some thing... I don't understand, something beyond the world of men. Our previous expedition disappeared without trace, until I found that shete with our mark. My attempt penetrated the mystery."

"Yes," Sethaz said, looking down at the report on his desk.

How much of it can I believe? he mused. Kuttner used to be a reliable man.

"And we'd have known more of it if you hadn't let this man Vogeler escape. To be precise, he penetrated the mystery; you were lost in visions."

Kuttner licked his lips again. "I was sure that he had made submission to the Church and was ready to learn the Dictations," he said.

"And you thought you had established a secure control link."

"I was not wrong, Son of the Prophet. I... just didn't have time to use it. I was careless."

"And lost an eye because of it," Sethaz said.

Though that is fortunate for you, he thought. If you had not been so badly wounded, we might have suspected collusion.

Kuttner went on in desperate haste: "But Son of the Prophet, he did tell me of his vision before I revealed myself. He had no reason not to, and no reason to lie while he still thought I served the bossman of Des Moines. The vision of the sword, and the dreams that told him to take the news to the far west and seek this Sword of the Lady."

Sethaz came to a decision, and motioned. One of the guards drew his shete and flicked twice at the cords in the same blur of motion. Kuttner remained motionless while the knife-sharp weapon went tick against the wood of the pole. The staff clattered on the floor of the sanc tum; another flicker of steel between his bound hands, and Kuttner grunted as he rubbed his wrists and felt the pain of circulation returning.

"However, the men I sent to the west didn't do too well with Vogeler either," Sethaz said. "A most obdurate apostate and traitor. In fact, the observation team saw him carried out of this Sutterdown place towards the lair of the Witch Queen herself... and that is precisely who we wanted to keep Vogeler's story from. You are pardoned, provisionally, and restored to your rank of High Seeker of the God-flame. You have until snowmelt to come up with a plan. Consult the archives and interview agents as you wish."

Kuttner rose to his feet, met Sethaz's eyes, gave a sin gle bow of precisely the right depth, turned on his heel and left.

Sethaz smiled to himself and opened a drawer, taking out a box and resting it on his table. In it was a clock; not just a pre-Change model, but made new of steel and brass, its exposed interior a mass of gearing. If the pagan witchcraft of the far West wasn't enough to bring the attention of the Church Universal and Triumphant, such blasphemous meddling with forbidden things would be.

He glanced at the agenda on his Rolodex. "All right, Geraldine. Generals Walker and Graham next."

The war against New Deseret was necessarily on hold for most of the winter, but that didn't mean there weren't steps that had to be taken before the spring grass grew enough to support horse soldiers.

Barony Gervais, Portland Protective Association Willamette Valley, Oregon February 18, CY22/2021 A.D.

"Welcome home, my lord baron!" Odard Liu caught the apple the shopkeeper tossed. It was still fairly crisp, and he bit into it as he rode through the gloomy drizzle of a February afternoon, waving thanks with his free hand as he enjoyed the rush of sweet juice.

The rain fell in a mist of steady silver-gray, flattening the smoke from the chimneys and dappling the puddles in the asphalt streets. Hooves-his palfrey, the chargers of the two men-at-arms and the rouceys of the half-dozen mounted crossbowmen who followed him-landed on it with an endless hollow wet clop-clop-clop-clop; he could catch glimpses of the streaked concrete of the castle's towers over the shingle roofs. The column of horsemen swerved now and then to avoid an open oxcart full of split firewood, or covered ones hauling bales and boxes and sacks. A priest signed the air as he went by in his one horse, twin-wheeled carriage with its collapsible hood, and they all bowed their heads in respect.

Gervais wasn't very large, more of a big village than a town or city, and not much survived of the pre Change settlement save the southwest northeast grid of the layout and the roadside trees. Lamplight spilled out onto the street, amid a pleasant tap and tinkle and clang of folk at work, with the whirring moan of spinning wheels and the rattling thump of looms beneath it. A wave of doffed hats, respectful bows and curtsies and greetings followed him, often with umbrellas above.

Odard liked being popular here. It wasn't very dif ficult; he didn't chase any girl who really didn't want to be caught, collected no more than his legal due and was ready to remit a bit when times were hard, made sure the baronial court was honest, and kept his vassal knights from fighting out their quarrels over the tenants' crops and homes. Most of that had been his mother's policy before him and he intended to continue it now that he was of age.

He sighed heavily. Unfortunately, his mother didn't seem to realize that he was of age, or that he wasn't always going to fall in with her idea of what the Baron of Gervais should do. He hoped Mathilda didn't have the same problem with the Regent when she turned twenty-six.

I'm not looking forward to this homecoming.

A wet moat separated the castle from the town, but the drawbridge was down and the portcullis up. Spear men and crossbowmen snapped to attention to either side of the gate and on ramparts and towers above, and a trumpet sounded.

Castle Gervais was built to one of the standard plans the Association had used back in the early days. A curtain wall with towers had a gatehouse facing the town and another on the eastern wall. Within was the Outer Ward, an open paved space on all four sides. Within that was the keep, a square block with tall round tow ers at all four corners, and two big U-shaped ones for the inner gatehouse, all built to overlook the outer works.

He rode through the inner gatehouse with more ceremony, and dismounted in the Inner Ward, ringed around with smithy, stables and the great hall and lord's apartments. Odard returned the salute of the watch and nodded to his escort. From the bustle and the lights a welcoming feast was in preparation; nobody was in the stocks in the center today, he noted.

"Gavin, Armand, go get dry, get something hot to drink and then report to the seneschal. I'll be here some days, possibly weeks."

The men at-arms had hooded cloaks of the same un fulled wool that Odard wore, but theirs were over hel met and hauberk, a gleam of oiled gray under the wet cloth. The pennants on their tall lances drooped likewise, the wet canvas clinging to the ashwood. Sergeant Gavin grinned at him, the smile white in his brown face; he was in his late thirties, old for his trade, and as a young man had served Odard's father, the first baron.

"Yes, my lord. Good to be home, eh?"

"Better than being out in the rain."

The steward greeted him in the vestibule of the hall with a mug of priceless hot cocoa, along with the rest of the senior staff.

"Ah, Romarec, you're a lifesaver," he said.

He sipped at the hot sweetness as a servant took his cloak and another offered him a heated towel to dry his face. There was a slug of good brandy in the cup, too.

"Your lady mother waits to greet you in the solar after you've refreshed yourself, my lord," Romarec said.

Well, that's Mom, Odard thought wryly, nodding to several of the others and giving his old nanny a hug before heading for his private quarters.

His valet had come ahead by train from Todenangst with the baggage. Odard's own rooms were in the south east tower of the keep, four stacked one above the other. All of them were brightly lit, with fires crackling on their hearths, and had been for long enough to take the curse off the winter's day-not easy, in a structure made of thick mass concrete and in this climate, even when all the walls were paneled and hung with tapestry.

Alex Vinton was a small foxy-faced man with red hair and freckles, about six years older than Odard, wearing a soberly rich tunic of russet dyed linen, shoes with turned-up toes, and a gold-link belt. He did not wear the usual servant's tabard over it, and wore only a discreet livery badge clasped to the brim of his hat. He'd proved extremely useful in a number of ways.

"Hi, Alex," Odard said, lowering himself into the steaming lavender-scented water of the bath. "Christ, that feels good... Been busy?"

"Yes, my lord," he said, folding the clothes Odard had discarded. "I've been back two days now and there's quite a bit of gossip."

"Oh, God and His merciful saints"-Odard steepled his hands in mock prayer and rolled his eyes upward-" tell me she didn't have those assassins here at the castle!"

"No, no, my lord," the valet said. "The hunting lodge over at Fairfax."

"Ten miles away and in a swamp, that's something, " Odard said meditatively, scrubbing at his fingernails with a small brush; he was a fastidious man and bathed every day when he could. "When did she meet them?"

"She didn't, my lord. She had her younger brother Sir Guelf do it."

"That's also something. Not much, but something."

Alex held the towel for him as he stepped out on the mat, then helped him dress with foppish care in the latest fashion, just below the court-appearance standard-dark trousers cut closer than had been the custom in his father's time, tooled-leather shoes with little golden bells on the upturned toes and ceremonial gold spurs on the heels, a knee-length tunic of heavy indigo-dyed silk with silver embroidery on the square-cut neck and elbow-length sleeves whose flared points extended half way to his knees, and a white silk shirt beneath it. He added a ring or two and examined himself in the full-length mirror, smiling at what he saw.

"Not bad," he said, taking a belt of leather covered in worked-silver plates and buckling it around his waist.

It had a purse and a ten-inch poignard; the hilt had patterned silver and gold wire inlaid in the black stag horn grips, and a pommel in the shape of a silver cat's head. You didn't usually wear a sword inside in time of peace, but a gentleman didn't go unarmed outside his own chambers, either. Alex added the round hat with the roll around its brim and flicked the long silk tail from the side to lie over Odard's right shoulder. The badge at the fore was the mon arms of the House of Liu in a turquoise that set off his eyes.

"You're the pattern of chivalry, my lord," the valet said unctuously, then spoiled the effect with a grin.

"All right, I admit it, I like looking well," Odard said.

"Tell the comptroller when he has to pay the bills, my lord," Alex said, grinning still wider.

There was something to that. Barony Gervais was rich in anything grown or made within its boundaries or available in local trade, but the silk came from Burma or New Singapore or Hinduraj, and it cost-regular trade with the portions of Asia not irretrievably wrecked by the Change was just getting started again. The price of fashion was one reason he was just as happy to get away from court for a while.

"See if there are any details you could find," he said to the valet. "Talk to Guelf's men; maybe you can smoke out something."

Odard whistled a tune he liked as he walked through the corridors towards the solar, looking his usual cheerful self. Hearing it, someone within earshot began to sing the words-a woman's voice: I forbid you maidens all That wear gold in your hair To come or go by Carter Hall For young Tam Lin is there Inside, he was on edge; a little like the time just before a fight when you wondered which bush hid a man with a crossbow bolt ready to punch through your armor, or a hunt for a tiger or boar. Usually politics was something he enjoyed, even the junior jostling for position that heirs did, and he'd been getting more and more in volved in the real thing as he approached the magic age of twenty one. Having to play the game with your own mother was another kettle altogether.

It wouldn't do to let it all show. Instead he raised his own voice for a moment: None come or go by Carter Hall But they leave him a pledge Either your rings or green mantle Or else your maidenhead...

And then laughed as he took the spiral staircase.

The castle solar was in the south-facing upper turret of the southwestern tower, the one nearest the hall; that height let it have real glazed windows all around the cir cumference of the big round room rather than arrow slits, though today more light came from lanterns of brass and mirrored glass. It glowed on the tapestries, the pale tile of the floor, on polished metal and bright rugs, on a big rood cross of black walnut inlaid with semiprecious stones.

The Dowager Baroness Liu was sitting there with her women-mostly sisters or daughters of knights who held land in fief from the barony-and his younger sister Yseult. Everyone stopped what they were doing and rose as he stood in the doorway, except his mother; as he turned to her the ladies-in-waiting curtsied, a wave of colored flowers in their cotte-hardis and headdresses.

"Ladies," he said, taking hat in hand and bowing in return with a sweeping gesture. "I'm enchanted to see you all again. Would you excuse my mother and me? We've a good deal to discuss, and I'll see you all in the hall at dinner."

He smiled charmingly as he said it. Some of the younger and prettier women smiled back invitingly, but he wasn't going to make a fool of himself in that direc tion, beyond a little light flirtation. They were all of a rank that could expect marriage, and he was the heir to the barony and a notable catch. Almost all of them also had male relatives equipped to resent misbehavior with edged metal; people of their generation were a lot stricter about such matters than their parents had been. Odard fancied himself with a sword, but he also disliked real fighting without a very good reason.

Yseult squealed and ran towards him and then-being just turned fourteen-slowed her pace and curtsied gravely. He reached out and tweaked her nose, which made her squeak again and got their mother frowning.

"Greetings, my lord brother," she said, kissing his extended hand, and then both his cheeks.

"My lady Yseult," he said, bowing in turn. "You're looking good, sis."

She was; she'd gotten their mother's blond hair, worn loose to her shoulders under a simple headdress in maiden's fashion, but more of their father's face, high cheekbones, blue eyes sharply slanted and nose a graceful tip-tilted snub, complexion like pale honey. He suspected that in a few years she'd be making the young gentlemen of the district do some real suffering to win the right to carry her handkerchief to a tourney.

"My lady mother," he went on, with a deeper bow.

She nodded and stuck her needle in the half-finished tapestry in its frame by the hearth. The women were working on yet another something with warriors and dragons and a very large wolf, probably from the cover of some trashy book his mother had liked when she was young-it seemed that every woman who'd been in the Society before the Change had that weakness, even Lady Sandra, and the others had all caught it, like some chastely ideational form of the clap.

Dried sachets scented the air, along with the fruity smell of the alcohol lanterns and faint cedarwood from the hearth. A page in livery sat on a stool not far away, strumming a lute-his younger brother, Huon. He frowned at that. The kid should be doing page service in someone else's household, to bind the families and get the best training as page and then squire, but his mother had been dragging her feet about it.

So... No time like the present to establish publicly who's boss now.

"Hello, Huon," he said, as the boy stopped playing and came forward to pour a cup of the mulled wine from the flagon heating on the tiled stove. "Lord Chaka says he could use a page, and then a squire, over in Barony Molalla."

The boy's dark eyes lit with eagerness. Odard went on: "Talk to me about it after dinner."

Several servant women in their double tunics and tab ards stood motionless on call, eyes cast down and hands folded before them. One glided forward to refill a tea cup from a pot that rested over a little spirit lamp; they all turned and tripped out of the room when he made a gesture.

When everyone was out of earshot, he kissed his mother's hand and then her offered cheek, kicked a padded leather settle over close and sat. His mother's eyes were as blue as his own, and colder-nobody had ever said Mary Liu operated on charm-but he favored his father in his lithe build. His features were a compro mise, which left his nose straight but short, unlike her slightly hawkish beak.

"Were you trying to wreck the family fortunes?" he demanded, preempting her complaint about Huon. "You and my precious hothead of an uncle?"

He could see her considering denying everything. Instead she stuck her needle in the fabric and shrugged.

"It was an opportunity to get some revenge for your father, and my older brother," she said flatly. "With... plausible deniability."

"Plausible to the Spider?" Odard asked incredulously. "You expected to keep it secret from the Lady Regent?"

She frowned, lines appearing between her plucked fair eyebrows and touching her wimple.

"That was a risk," she admitted.