The next few bells were a blur. He held Areana and tried to say comforting things while the servants changed the girl, cleaned her up, and put her on her bed.

"She was so unhappy," Areana said when things starting coming back into focus. "Do you think…"

"I don't know," he said. "She told me yesterday that she heard the dead singing at the well, that she saw her mother. I told her not to go there anymore, but I should have-I should have stopped her."

"It's not your fault."

"It's all my fault," he replied. "If I had never written that cursed music. If I had watched her more carefully…"

"You loved her," Areana said. "You gave her more than anyone else in her life. You showed her a little of what she was capable of."

He just shook his head, and she took him by the temples and kissed his forehead.

"Why are you crying?" Mery asked. She was standing in the doorway in the fresh dress they had put on her. Her hair was still wet.

PART III

FEALTY AND FIDELITY

To pledge fealty, one must first know what it is, my lord. Thus, although a dog might be loyal in an unreflective fashion, it can never give you fealty. You are surrounded by dogs, my lord, and I am not one.

- THE TESTIMONY OF SAINT ANEMLEN AT THE COURT OF THE BLACK JESTER

I see. Well, dogs must eat.

- THE BLACK JESTER, IN RESPONSE

Decios mei com pid ammoltos et decio pis tiu ess Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.

- VITELLIAN PROVERB

CHAPTER ONE

THE HELLRUNE

DAWN HADN'T yet shown her rosy hair when Alis gently woke Muriele.

"Berimund remembered his promise, apparently," she said. "A lady has come to fit you into a riding habit."

"Really," Muriele said, rubbing her eyes. "They hunt at night here?"

"No, but early. You'll want to look your best, won't you?"

"Doubtless. Very well. Give me a moment and let her in."

She went to the window. The air was cool, and most of the city below was a dark mystery, with only a few pinpricks of light. The stars were diamonds and sapphires still. There was that faint smell of differentness in the air, or she might have been looking out of the Wolfcoat Tower at sleeping Eslen.

What was happening there? Was Anne well?

An image flashed through her mind of Anne at four, her hair in long red braids, scrunched up in the window of the chamber of Saint Terwing, dressed in boy's clothing, singing a little song to herself as she fiddled with a toy sword. Muriele hadn't meant to spy on her, but the girl hadn't seen her in the darkened hall, and she had watched her daughter for long minutes without knowing why.

She remembered Fastia with her long dark hair and prim humor and Elseny, never too bright but so sweet, so full of life.

Gone now. She'd once thought she heard Fastia whisper "mother" in Eslen-of-Shadows, but that had faded, and nothing remained of her beautiful girls but those things in their coffins.

But Anne had survived. Anne whose mischief often had crossed the line into caprice, who'd never thought herself pretty, who had tried to keep out of the way of the family and its affairs her whole childhood.

Anne, who had seemed at times to hate her. Anne, who probably needed her now more than she ever had.

Why had she left her only remaining daughter?

Maybe she couldn't bear not to.

A throat cleared softly behind her.

"I'm ready, thank you," she said.

The sun was a hand above the horizon when she met Berimund in the courtyard. The young man's face was flushed, and his eyes a bit glassy.

"I hardly believe you can walk," Muriele said. "I'm impressed."

"Practice," Berimund said. "Long practice from childhood."

"Well, I thank you for remembering your promise."

"About that," he said. "There's still time to change your mind."

"Why would I? I'm looking forward to meeting your father."

He nodded, looking as if he wanted to say something but not saying it.

"You make that riding habit look very nice," he said finally.

"Thank you," she replied. "It's an interesting dress."

The overskirt was cut rather like a knee-length hauberk, split up the front and back and made of wool felted into myriad patterns of serpents, falcons, and horsemen in muted golds, reds, and browns. It was sleeveless, so she wore a darker brown shirt beneath and numerous underskirts to protect modesty. Her calf-high buskins fastened at the top with a wolf's head and were laced over woolen stockings. It seemed silly and barbaric, and she had thought at first that the dress was an attempt to humiliate her.

But Berimund was attired in equally outlandish pants and a robelike coat.

"Interesting," he repeated, grinning. "I sense an understatement."

"I'm not familiar with the fashion, that's all."

"It's a recent one. My father has an interest in the ancient times, and his scholars have determined that our mountain tribes are more like our revered ancestors than we folk of the cities. We have therefore adopted some aspects of their dress."

"I see. I had no idea the mountain tribesmen wore Safnian silk shirts."

"Well, there have been a few adaptations, I'll allow."

"When I first came to Eslen, the men were favoring floppy woolen caps like the ones the Cresson brothers wore at the battle of Ravenmark Wold. It seems silly now."

"I wouldn't make that comparison," Berimund said stiffly. "Or call our fashions silly. Is it a bad thing to remember the virtues of our forefathers?"

"Not at all," Muriele said. "I wish you and your father were more reminded of them, as a matter of fact, since your forefathers helped in originating the ancient covenant of embassy."

Berimund actually seemed to wince slightly, but he didn't reply.

"Shall we go to the hunt?" he asked instead.

The horses were clad in similarly strange harness, and her mount was provided with a quiver of arrows and a spear with a broad leaf-shaped head.

So caparisoned, she and Berimund and six of his retainers rode out of Hauhhaim through Gildgards, a tidy neighborhood with so many gardens that it seemed almost like countryside. She asked Berimund about it.

"The merchant guilds are given land within the walls for farming," he explained. "In good times, they sell their surplus and profit from it. When Kaithbaurg comes under siege, their produce reverts to the king. Anyway, it makes the city more pleasant, don't you think?"

Muriele agreed, and not much later they passed through the Gildgards gate and into a countryside of vast barley fields and small villages. After perhaps a bell, their path took them into the lowlands around the river and finally into Thiuzanswalthu, Marcomir's hunting preserve, a vast, parklike evergreen wood. Soon they came upon a bustling camp sprawled out around a large tent. A group of horsemen and horsewomen were mustering like a small army, and they were all dressed much as Berimund and she were.

Berimund dismounted, took the reins of her horse, and led her over to the group.

Marcomir was a bit of a shock. She had met him once when she was fourteen and he had come to the Lierish court. At that time he had been in his fifties, but she still had been struck by the physical power that seemed to animate him, and she'd been a bit infatuated, taking every excuse to hover around while he was visiting.

Even now, she had a clear image of him in her mind.