"Then there's prophecy in you as well, Lord Verminaard. Father or no father, Nidus is yours-not by blood, but by virtue and might. Soon there will be worlds elsewhere to conquer. But now, in the wake of your victory, there are smaller and sweeter conquests as well."
Verminaard glanced at him curiously.
Cerestes returned the look as his smile broadened to a leer. "When you took up the mace, you traded one girl for another. But the first one is still there-the first fruits of your power, if you'd have her. Go to her, lad. If you are not too late with your caution and false kindness, there is still a chance that she will be yours, and yours tonight. After all, she saw Nightbringer in your victorious hand."
It was something Verminaard had not considered. He had been too busy with rescues, with caverns and ogres and fires. But now the girl seemed like the first and best prospect. Verminaard's eyes grew bright, and he threw back his head and laughed harshly.
Cerestes had seen the look before on the face of young men-not courting swains bearing sonnets and flowers, but the young raiders at the borders of the enemy, bearing arms into unprotected country.
As the first of Daeghrefn's soldiers nodded with wine and the late hour, Aglaca pushed away from the table.
He had eaten little, drunk less. The events of the last nights and days had been unsettling. Now was a time for moonlight and fresh air. A walk in the bailey would clear his senses and leave behind the smoke and noise.
Silently he crossed the dark courtyard. The silver harp of Branchala, a score of white stars, shone in the cloud-crossed sky, and he passed by the dimly lit stable, where the new groom struggled with the uneasy horses.
In the shadow of the southern wall, something turned slowly, a pale garment catching the edge of the moonlight. Instinctively Aglaca reached for his dagger. Then Judyth stepped from the shadows and stared calmly at him, her remarkable eyes charged with reflected starlight. Gazing into them for a brief, breathless moment, Aglaca saw the blue in the depths of lavender.
"What should we do about Verminaard?" she began. "I-I saw him storm up to the battlements. He'll kill Daeghrefn, if not now, eventually. And then what shall we-"
Aglaca stepped forward and gently placed a finger to her lips. He pulled her back into the shadows, out of the sight of sentries and dangerous rivals.
"Nothing," he whispered. "For we can do nothing. 'Tis a struggle between son and father. It began long before I came. Who knows when and how it will end?"
"But you saw what Verminaard did."
"That and worse," Aglaca conceded. "But we can do nothing yet, except ward against a growing evil."
He handed Judyth the little dagger.
"I think of Verminaard getting the hero's portion," Judyth muttered hotly, slipping the weapon up her sleeve,
"then I think of you, going about acts of kindness instead of butchery. How you helped those helpless men to horse, risking yourself at each moment. An ogre could have wakened, could have risen up and-"
"You did the same, Lady Judyth," Aglaca said, brushing her hair from her eyes. "Entirely the same, in the prospect of the same fire and ogres." "But you were the one in the tunnels." "And you showed me how to master the warding." They laughed, and Aglaca thought it was good that there were shadows here, that Judyth could not see his face grow red.
"I suppose we both have earned the true hero's portion," he murmured. Slowly he wrapped his arms about her waist and drew her closer.
Her eyes closed in the dark, and her lips parted.
Descending from the battlements, Verminaard heard muffled laughter from the shadows below.
He stopped on the ladder, caution giving way to curiosity. After all, sounds such as these promised no ambush, no escaping hostage or prisoner. Quietly, holding his breath, he leaned forward on the ladder …
And saw the couple kissing, embracing, the girl's dark hair caught in a thin shaft of moonlight.
Dark hair, dark skin…
He imagined the lavender eyes, the tattoo, and he knew who it was that stood with her in the dark beneath the walls. For a moment, he reeled on the ladder, and the thoughts of murder that rose through the heart of his anger were murky and monstrous, as deep as the caverns that spawned them.
I shall not forget this, Aglaca, he thought. And he
perched there, huddled in blackness like a roosting raven until the couple walked across the bailey back toward the lamplit keep.
Chapter 14
In the hands of the druidess, the seneschal recovered miraculously.
Robert had expected the mending to take weeks, perhaps months, given his age and the severity of the broken bone. But within two days, the bones had knitted, and in a week's time he was walking-warily, unsteadily, and with a hardwood cane, but walking nonetheless.
L'Indasha had carried and dragged him above the worst of the fire, to a small cave in the foothills due east of the Neraka Forest. The cave itself was pleasant enough, bright and neat and well settled. In its recesses, surrounded by a cage of drasil roots, a fresh underground spring bubbled and spouted, and the druidess's stores-barrels of dried fruit and waybread wrapped in moist, preservative vallen-
wood leaves-had escaped the burning when the ogres' fires razed the countryside. The stores served L'Indasha and her guest as their sole source of food while Robert was immobilized and the forest began to heal.
In that same week, as Robert grew stronger, L'Indasha had grown increasingly distressed. Robert had watched as the woman's bright auburn hair became muted and brown, as though she were enduring a kind of gloomy autumn of the heart. Her once-bright eyes grew dull and lifeless, and her skin seemed to tighten, to become almost transparent, until one afternoon, three days after the fire, the seneschal believed she would just dwindle away. He feared that the next morning would find him disabled and alone on the hilltop, his only companion and guardian fallen like a dried leaf.
That had been a week ago. There were signs of late that L'Indasha was now recovering, but from what ailment, what mishap, Robert could only guess.
At first he had thought it was the strange and lingering discomforts of an unknown intrusion, for when L'Indasha had brought him back to the cave, she discovered that someone else had been there. While she tended to Robert's leg, the druidess had fretted over the disarray that someone had wrought amid the kindling and stores, and- oddly enough, the seneschal thought-seemed even more concerned about a wooden bucket that had been moved. Finally, and as the last insult, she had discovered that some prized piece of jewelry, a pendant with a purple stone, was missing.