"Gave 'em both a brushing and checked their hooves, though," the stable master said.

"Good. My thanks."

The stable master lingered with a silly smile and dancing eyes, like a dog waiting for his master to toss him a bit of meat.

"That's all for now," Gavin said. "Leave us."

The portly man bowed as he backed away. "Yes, sire. O'course. Just holler if you need me."

Without a mirror, Gavin had to focus more on altering his appearance by referring back to the memory of his reflection. Until now, he'd had little use for mirrors. He gave himself bushy red hair and a thick, scraggly beard. He used his finger to guide the placement of a scar through his right eyebrow and another beside his mouth, and hid his own bear-given scar.

"Try green eyes," Daia said, a.s.sessing him. He did, and she nodded approvingly.

To Daia he gave blond hair to go with her natural pale-blue eyes, a crooked nose and a missing tooth in front. Though she couldn't see her disguise, she would have approved.

Golam swung his head around to regard them, still chewing a mouthful of hay, and reached for Daia's ear with outstretched lips. She pushed his big head away with a laugh. "You never give up, do you?"

Gavin wondered whether his horse could see the disguise and didn't care, or if the illusion worked only on people. Maybe one day he'd visit the stable disguised as a woman to see if Golam tried his flirtatious trick. The horse had no preference for a particular kind of woman - blonde, brunette, heavy, slim, comely or homely - none of it mattered to Golam. Every woman had ears that begged to be nibbled.

"Hey, why don't you look for Cirang again before we leave." As much as Daia tried to rea.s.sure Gavin that the former Sister wouldn't try to hurt his wife, he could see she merely masked her concern for his sake.

He nodded and connected with her conduit gift, and then sent his hidden eye up over the stable and speeding off towards the orphanage. Cirang's dark haze wasn't there, nor did he find it in the merchant district where Feanna had planned to go. He found his wife, however, and her haze glowed with joy. He moved on towards the Good Knight Inn, hoping to see Cirang still in the room or hovering between the hazes of Calinor and Brawna as they escorted her to gaol. She wasn't there either. He moved his hidden eye higher to get a broader look at the city, but he didn't find her anywhere in the city or outside its boundary. Her haze was gone.

Cirang was dead.

He returned to his normal consciousness, excited. Relieved. "They must've found her and executed her. Her haze is gone."

Daia looked at him with hesitant disbelief. "Gone? Are you sure?"

"There's no sign of her in the city, in the surrounding fields or on the roads leading away."

"There's another possibility. If she drank some of the water from the wellspring-"

"No," he said. "The guardians said they scared her off afore she got to it."

Daia smiled. Her disguise was gone. "Then it's good news. I suppose there's no need to follow Feanna now, though if you're concerned about brigands or other malefactors, I won't mind."

"Did my disguise fall while I was soaring about?"

She nodded. "I suppose you can't use your hidden eye and keep up the disguises at the same time."

"d.a.m.n. Maybe with practice I can do both. It's good we found this out now instead of in the middle of a crowd o'people."

They left their horses with two of the armsmen and wove their way through the crowd to watch Feanna with a half-dozen orphan children as they went about their shopping. She wore a genuine smile, and Gavin knew she was enjoying the outing as much as the children were. He admired her ability to lose herself in pleasant activities. He hoped for a day when he would have few worries to plague him. Life was supposed to become easier with wealth and power, but so far, he thought that to be a myth.

Around him were normal people, happy to have a glimpse of the new queen while she did her charity. They spoke kindly of her to each other, even spoke well of the king, whom they believed wasn't present.

"He should've come too," one woman said. She rose on her tiptoes to see the queen while patting the back of the infant in her arms. "What could he possibly have to do in that big palace all by himself?"

Gavin snorted. He supposed he might have wondered the same thing if he'd worn their boots. The lordovers didn't always appear to do much but dine well and dance, at least from the perspective of a peasant trying to feed his family.

The baby was looking up at him with interest. With one chubby finger pointed at Gavin's face and then touched her own cheek. Could she see through his disguise? He grabbed Daia's elbow and moved her away, just in case. "Let's move that way to get a better look." The infant was too young to report what she saw, but he didn't want any attention drawn to him.

The sun was low in the sky when Feanna returned to the orphanage. Gavin and Daia retrieved their horses and followed her. They waited for an hour outside while dusk settled. While they'd made no plans to dine together, Gavin had a.s.sumed they would. He needed time alone with his wife, and he hoped she wanted to talk through their differences.

He and Daia returned to the lordover's guesthouse and waited in the common room, Gavin in brooding silence. When he heard a pair of footsteps approaching, he stood, expecting Feanna. He was disappointed when Calinor and Brawna entered, but he put his feelings aside for the time being. "She's dead?"

Brawna shook her head, but it was Calinor who explained, "We didn't find her. When we got to the inn, her room was empty, but she left my horse there. We searched the streets, asked everyone we saw. Brawna talked to someone who seen her."

All eyes turned to the young blonde battler. She swallowed and straightened her shoulders. "A woman said she saw a dark-haired First Royal carrying a knapsack. She only noticed because the battler was on foot, walking down the street as though she had somewhere to go, not on horseback. From her description, I'm sure it was Cirang."

"She didn't say where the battler went?"

Brawna shook her head. "I searched in the direction she said, but n.o.body else remembered seeing her."

Gavin pondered the news. "Maybe the lordover's armsmen killed her for some crime. What else could explain why she's gone from my sight?"

"Is there a way she could hide from your hidden eye?" Daia asked.

"Underground?" Brawna asked. "There's an old mining tunnel in the south part of Ambryce. Maybe if she's in there, you can't see her?"

Everyone turned to look at her, and a blush flooded her face. "That's a very good question," Gavin said. "It's worth a look. We'll go at first light."

"How come we don't go now?" Brawna asked.

"If she's hiding in there," Gavin said, "she'll come out at night to get food. She might see us afore we see her."

Daia nodded. "If we go during the day when she's hiding, we have a better chance to catch her."

"No," Gavin said. "There's no catching her. She dies on sight." He looked at each of them in turn. "Agreed?"

They all did.

Chapter 42.

Cirang awoke to the rattle and clang of metal, followed by the creak of the cellar hatch opening. She leaped to her feet and pulled the bag of powder from her boot.

A robed figure climbed down the ladder carrying a flickering candle. The hood and veil had been pushed back to reveal the fresh face of a young girl, perhaps sixteen, probably the one who'd been filling the cups at the sacramental font. Her white robe had not even a single cuff band, indicating she'd only recently taken her vows.

The girl reached the bottom of the ladder and took a step forward before stopping short. She gasped. "Who-who are you? What are you doing here?"

Cirang's gaze was drawn to the rounded b.u.mp of her belly beneath the robe. She smirked. The nun's story was a cliche - unchaste, unwed, unwanted, and now unloved except by her G.o.d. "I'm First Royal Guard Cirang Deathsblade. What's your name, Doma?" The girl probably hadn't been conferred the t.i.tle of Doma yet, but Cirang had found that overstating respect, even falsely, was more disarming than showing the proper level of deference.

"Altais, named for the dragon's head constellation."

"I need your real name, not your acolyte name. I have a message." She tapped a little powder into her left palm.

"Oh! Is it from Dafid? Please tell me."

Cirang gestured at the woman's swollen belly. "I'm sure you can understand the personal nature of the message. Tell me your name so I don't reveal secrets meant for another."

"It's Marita. Marita Sorae."

"Marita, yeh. You're the one. I need to tell you this..." Cirang lifted her hand and blew the powder into the nun's face.

The girl staggered and darted out both hands, one still holding the candle, to steady herself. Cirang took the candle from her, turned to set it on the crate, and then stepped in with her left foot and threw a right punch, twisting her hips to drive more power into the blow. She felt the pain in her knuckles as they met the flesh and bone of the girl's left cheek.

The acolyte's head snapped back, and her feet flew out from under her. She landed hard on her back with a grunt.

Cirang fell to her knees atop the girl, grabbed her head and twisted. When she didn't hear the crack she was expecting, she did it twice more, and then pressed her forearm across the soft throat until there was no pulse. The last thing she wanted was to have to use her knife and get blood on the acolyte's clean robe. Or the final death s.h.i.t and p.i.s.s, for that matter. She quickly pulled the girl's robe and shift off to keep them from getting soiled.

d.a.m.n it, she thought, clutching her injured side. She really needed to rest for a few days to give her body a chance to heal.

She looked down into the staring eyes and gaping mouth, smirking. "I'm Altais now, named for the dragon's head." After taking a moment to catch her breath, she dragged the naked body to the corner, thinking she could use the darkness of night to find a place to hide it.

The temple's bells tolled twelve times, the last chime for the night. Soon the bell-ringer would find his bed, and the temple would be dark and quiet.

Cirang removed her sword, mail, and clothes, changed her wound's dressing, and pulled on the acolyte's shift and robe. She pulled the lace veil down over her face, placed the hood atop her head and looked at herself in the sliver of mirror. Though she was confident she couldn't be identified, she wasn't pregnant. She thought about wadding up her own clothes to make a false belly, but she didn't have a way to strap it to her abdomen. Well, she had b.l.o.o.d.y rags. If someone asked, she could say she miscarried.

She took the candle and waterskin, and climbed the ladder.

The temple was dark. The candles on the altar had been extinguished. Cirang stood in the doorway and listened for someone moving about. All was quiet.

She went up the steps of the dais, cursing softly when she stepped on the hem of her robe and tripped. Because Asti-nayas didn't strike her down for cursing in the temple, she made a rude gesture at the statue and laughed. "Nasty-Eyes, hah! You're a weak, pitiful G.o.d unworthy of all this adulation." Standing before the font, she raised the candle to get a better look at the embodiment of Asti-nayas.

The granite statue was about twice the height of a man, with amazing detail on its angular face and slender hands, down to the ridges on the knuckles and line of cuticle at the base of each fingernail. The gold skull cap atop the smooth head was reputed to provide the means for Asti-nayas to energize the statue with His holy power, thus blessing the water in which it stood.

That gold cap would buy her pa.s.sage to Nilmaria and then some.

A stone ledge atop the font's retaining wall was about the width of a hand and roughly the height of her knee.

She set the waterskin on the floor and the candle on the edge of the font. With one foot on the ledge, she placed her other foot on the knee of the granite G.o.d, grasped its elbow, and tried to step up. Her higher foot slipped off the smooth knee and splashed down into the water, wetting her boot and the bottom of her robe. "s.h.i.t!" Now that the sole of her boot was wet, she couldn't get purchase on the G.o.d's knee at all. She tried switching legs, but her left leg wasn't as strong because of the injury to her hip. The hat was out of reach unless she used the cellar's ladder. First things first.

She climbed back down and picked up the waterskin. The pious people of Ambryce would soon commune with their G.o.d in a way they'd never imagined.

She uncorked the skin and emptied its contents into the sacramental font. The sound of the water falling into the font reminded her she needed to p.i.s.s. She couldn't wait to hand cups to worshipers the next day and then watch their faces when they drank the water of the enlightened, changing their lives forever.

When the waterskin was empty, she replaced the cork and put it back into her bag. She lifted her robe and the shift underneath and sat on the edge of the font. As she let more water trickle into the font, she wondered how long Kinshield would stay in Ambryce searching for her.

News of the twice-blessed water at this temple would spread quickly, and if the king were still here, he would know where to find her. Perhaps she should have waited until he was gone, but it was too late now. With the help of some indebted worshipers, she could trick him into riding to some faraway city, like Keyes, leaving her free to return to the site of the landslide to fill a few dozen skins. She could travel to other cities, negotiating with High Clerics across the country for their temple to become so blessed by their esteemed G.o.d. Soon, it wouldn't be a blessing from Asti-nayas but from Altais, a G.o.d in her own right.

Chapter 43.

Gavin spent the night with his wife, both overlooking their disagreements. When she brought up her concerns about the children being alone, he rea.s.sured her they would survive in the palace for a few more days. "You're leaving tomorrow, aren't you?" he asked her. She lay with her back against his front, wrapped in his arms.

"No," she said, "I want to visit with the children once more and pay my respects to Asti-nayas before I go. I'll leave first thing the next morning. What about you? When will you be home?"

"Hopefully a few days after you. I don't want to leave afore I find Cirang or her corpse."

"Hurry, Gavin. We need you home."

He smiled in the darkness and kissed her neck. "As soon as I can. I promise."

He arose shortly before dawn and woke Daia, Calinor and Brawna, eager to get going. Disguised as a burly warrant knight slightly different from the burly warrant knight he used to be, Gavin led his companions to the entrance of the old mine shaft in the south district of Ambryce.

Homes and shops surrounded the mine entrance as if it were just another building in a moderately populated neighborhood. He'd never known it to be actively mined and suspected it had dried up many years before he was born. The entrance had been boarded up, though now and then, a group of mischievous boys would pull off enough wood to create an opening large enough to wriggle through.

That stopped when one of them fell and broke a leg, requiring the lordover to organize a rescue. From that day on, anyone caught tampering with the barricade was guilty of trespa.s.sing and imprisoned. Years ago, he caught two adolescent boys trying to sneak in, but he hadn't the heart to arrest or brand them. A harsh reprimand from a huge, scarred warrant knight was usually enough to make a young boy think twice next time he was tempted into mischief.

It was dawn when they reached the site of the mine entrance and dismounted. He'd been certain they would find Cirang here, but the entrance to the shaft and the hillside it burrowed into looked undisturbed. The boards covering the entrance were old and weathered, nailed together haphazardly. On the sides of the shaft opening, the boards appeared to be affixed to the hillside with mortar and nails as thick as Gavin's thumb. He tugged a few boards and found them secure.

"Is there another entrance?" he asked.

The others shook their heads slowly, arms crossed and faces reflecting Gavin's disappointment.

"It was a good guess," Calinor said. "I was sure she'd be in here."

"You there!" an armsman called, approaching on horseback. "Get away from there. The mine shaft is off limits."

"Awright," Gavin said. "We're leaving." He motioned with his head for the others to mount up. "Did you patrol this area overnight?"

The armsman eyed him warily. "I did."

"Did you see a woman battler with short, dark hair?"

"No, now move along, 'ranter."

Gavin was tempted to let his disguise drop and ask the armsman to repeat himself, but others were in the area, people going about their early morning ch.o.r.es, and he didn't want someone else to accidentally notice him, and so he let it go. He climbed into his saddle and started north. "Let's ask Trayev if he's seen her since yesterday."

The innkeeper at the Good Knight Inn greeted Gavin warmly and enthusiastically with a strong left-handed handshake when he walked in. Trayev had lost his right hand to a beyonder as a child and often bartered his rooms in exchange for help with repairs and other labor he and his son couldn't manage themselves. Gavin had stayed at this inn many times during his time as a warrant knight because of his willingness to work for his room.

"Listen, Trayev," Gavin said, "we're looking for a swordswoman with short, black hair and thick lips. Have you seen her?"