Bound in Blood

XVI Gothregor and Tentir

The Jaran Matriarch Trishien paced back and forth in her empty apartment, hands thrust into her pockets against the chill, her breath clouding the air. All her boxes were packed and gone, those containing books and scrolls far outnumbering all others. She herself was clad for travel with cloak and divided skirt—the last something she would never have worn if the other matriarchs hadn’t long since gone home.

Snow drifted in an open window to lie in rills on the sill and the floor. Perhaps she should have sealed up the suite of rooms, but nothing would be left in it. Trishien had a horror of fusty furniture, the smell, the feel of it. Better to take everything and leave the rooms open to winter’s cleansing breath. Ah, but it was cold.

A knock on the door. Her heart leaped, but it was only the captain of her guard.

“The morning is passing, lady.”

“I know. Just a few minutes more.”

What if Torisen didn’t come? In the past, she hadn’t needed to summon him: he had just dropped in, literally, through the window. Was that in part why she had left it open now? She had waited days, weeks, half a season for the Highlord to visit her after his trip north. At least he had returned Aerulan to her true home and, some said, clashed with Brenwyr in the process. She would dearly like to know what had happened that had left them both relatively unscathed.

Trishien paused in her stride: was it truly the desire to know, or had her vanity been piqued that he had stopped confiding in her? Some of both, she decided, along with a very strong desire to help Ganth’s son in any way that she could, for his father’s sake as well as for his own.

Besides, something had clearly happened to him since his clash or whatever it had been with the Brandan Matriarch. Before they had cleared, the Women’s Halls had been full of rumors.

Another rap on the door. This time the Highlord entered at her call, his wolver pup Yce, as usual, at his heels.

He looked terrible. Skin clung tightly to the bones of his face, purple showed under his eyes, and his hair had whitened noticeably. For the first time, she saw something of his father in the lines of his skull and in his haunted eyes.

“You wished to see me, Matriarch?”

“I wanted to say good-bye, also to see if you were all right. Your people are worried.”

Fretfully, he stripped off a glove and slapped it across his palm. “I feed them. I remember their names. Am I also obliged to be cheerful for their sakes?”

“Of course not,” said Trishien gently. “They simply care about you. As do I. Come. Sit.”

She dusted off the window ledge and perched on it. After a moment’s hesitation, he joined her.

“Now tell me: Have you been eating properly?”

He was surprised into a laugh. “Yes, Mother, when I remember. It was a busy autumn, you know. Once Brant sent the seeds, we had to plant the rye and winter wheat, not to mention hunts every other day now that the yackcarn are running at last.”

“That much I know. And sleeping enough? There, I fancy not.”

He made an exasperated noise, rose, and began to pace, obviously at war with his fatigue, fading in and out of it. “I try. It’s not like the old days when I refused to. But I have such terrible dreams.”

“Tell me.”

At first, she thought that he would refuse, that she had gone too far. Everyone knew about the terror of nightmares that had haunted him for years and driven him to the edge of sanity.

“It’s so stupid,” he now said, angry at himself and at his weakness. “And it’s always the same: I’m in bed, on the edge of sleep, when she comes in.”

“Who?”

“My sister. Jame. Who else? She undresses by the fire. Trinity, but she’s beautiful. When she’s naked, though, I see that her body is covered with red lines almost like writing, but they’re blood, not paint. Then, just as calmly, she starts to peel off her skin in long strips and to hang them from the bed frame. I can’t move. When she’s completely naked, down to red veins, blue arteries and long, white muscles, she parts the red ribbons of her own skin and climbs into bed with me.”

Realizing that her mouth was open, Trishien shut it.

“I . . . see. I think. All else aside, you were there the night that your sister threatened to flay that cadet alive, weren’t you?”

“Trinity, you should have seen her, playing cat to that boy’s terrified mouse. She was drawing bloody lines on him with her cursed nails, and he couldn’t move. I couldn’t move either, except to turn away. Father was right: I am weak, and she is a monster.”

“But she didn’t flay that boy, you know.” Her voice sharpened at his stunned expression. “Highlord, haven’t you been reading your correspondences from Tentir?”

“God’s claws, I was there! I saw! Why should I want to read some damn account of it?”

“Clearly, you didn’t see. Do you mean to say that you’ve left official reports unread because of a mere dream?”

At another time, her reverence for the written word might have amused him. Now he could only gape at her.

“Sweet Trinity, do you want to think badly of your sister? If she were a monster, how much easier things would be; but she isn’t, and they aren’t. Instead, you are two complicated people bound by blood and love. Trying to hide from that fact in ignorance doesn’t become you, and it’s dangerous. I watched your father turn the world black and white when truth lies in the gray. It helped to destroy him. Now you are the leader of your people. You can’t afford to sit in the corner like a little boy with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears. Do you even know what that wretched cadet did?”

He didn’t. She told him. He was appalled.

“And Sheth let him stay at Tentir?”

“Yes, although broken in rank—a worse punishment, they thought, than simply kicking him out.”

“I suppose Kirien told you all of this.” It came out half a sneer. The morning sun hadn’t cleared the roofline yet, so half the room lay in shadow, and there he had chosen to pace. On the threshold, the wolver pup stirred uneasily.

“She told me some. The rest, I thought, was common knowledge. And yes, Kirien has friends at the college who report things to her. Do you call that spying, or just good intelligence?”

He made a face. “Better, at any rate, than mine. I see your point. You know, though, how I feel about the Shanir. I’d just come from Falkirr where Brenwyr cursed me and the clothes I stood in.”

“Oh no!”

“It didn’t seem to take, except insofar as it shredded my underwear. No one told me that she’d also cursed my sister.”

“ ‘Roofless and rootless, blood and bone, cursed be and cast out.’ ” Trishien shivered. “A terrible malediction, but it seems to have had as little effect on her as on you.”

“There are worse: ‘Damn you, boy, for deserting me. Faithless, honorless . . . I curse you and cast you out. Blood and bone, you are no child of mine.’ ”

His voice had roughened. Trishien felt a shiver run up her spine. Carefully, she removed the lenses from her mask. That which lay near blurred, but the distance sharpened. Again, that hovering shadow paced with the Highlord, spoke through his lips. Oh, how she had hoped that it was only a trick of the light, and yet to talk to him again after all these years . . .

“Ganth,” she said gently. “Why are you so unhappy? Kindrie spoke the pyric rune that should have freed you. Why are you still here?”

He looked at her out of the shadows, out of the past, the only man she had ever loved, and his face was sick with cruel self-loathing.

“Shall I tell you what I told my son, Trish, there in that cold keep where he hides his pitiful, little soul, where I too am trapped? Do you remember my dear brother Greshan, that filthy Shanir? Just a drop of blood on his knife’s tip, not strong enough to bind for more than an hour or two, just long enough to make the game interesting.

“ ‘Dear little Gangrene,’ he called me, a worthless, sniveling liar whom no one would believe—and no one did.

“ ‘Now open wide,’ he would say, ‘or I’ll break your teeth—again—with the blade. There. Now, come to me.’

“I was a child, Trish, blood-bound and violated. Do you wonder that I could never entirely throw him off? That I should come to hate all Shanir? Oh, I was glad when he died, but it changed nothing. Nothing. And that’s what I became.”

Trishien’s hands covered her mouth. “Oh, my dear,” she said through trembling fingers. “You should have told me. I would have believed you. Oh, how could your father have been so blind? But Greshan was his darling. I always knew that. I just didn’t think . . . ”

Her fingertips turned cold against her lips. “Ganth. You didn’t want your son to leave you, to go against your will. Don’t tell me that you . . . you . . . ”

“What, Trish, what?”

He came out of the shadows in a rush, that well-remembered face overlaying one much younger, and tripped over the wolver pup. The shadow rose off Torisen’s prostrate form and fled, pursued by Yce. They seemed to be running over hills of dead grass under a leaden moon toward the ruined shell of a keep. The shadow slipped in through the door with white teeth snapping at its heels. Then Yce came trotting back.

“Lady?” A doorway into light had opened, spilling morning into the room.

Torisen sat up, shaking his head, dazed. “Must have stumbled. Beg pardon.” The captain of Trishien’s guard helped him to his feet. “What were we talking about?”

“I was about to say that I should be leaving.” She took his hand and kissed it. Only the filigree of scars seemed to generate any warmth. “Eat and rest, my lord. Nothing that you have done should visit you in nightmares . . . unless you continue to ignore your correspondences.”

With that she swept out of the room, striding fast in her swirling, divided skirt, not looking back.

Torisen stood, bemused. His mind felt as empty as the room, like a stage after all the actors have left, but he had no memory of the play after he had told Trishien of Brenwyr’s curse. As much as he liked the Jaran Matriarch, odd things seemed to happen to him when he was around her. But he would miss her too. Spring and her return seemed far away, beyond drifts of snow and curtains of sleet.

In the meantime, of course she had been right: he had been a fool to accept, without question, what he thought he had seen at Tentir. Did he want that badly for his sister to be a monster, the way his father had seen her? Black, white, gray—blood red. Had it all been a desperate excuse not to deal with her at all—and if so, what good had that done him? None whatsoever, it seemed.

Turn your back on the truth, and it bites you in the butt every time.

He was also a fool not to learn what he could about the land and people that he supposedly governed. Back in his quarters was a stack of reports fully a foot high, going back to last autumn. Sighing deeply, he went to make a start on them.

Snow drifted over Jame’s boots except for the toes, on which Jorin crouched, shivering. Her feet and hands ached with the cold, and her eyes watered. This was ridiculous. Only she, Timmon, and Gorbel stood in the drifting square, surrounded by quiet cadets under shelter on the boardwalk. At the end of assembly, they had withdrawn, leaving the three lordan frozen, as if mounting guard on each other. The sun had at least risen to spread some spurious warmth, but they had been at their posts already most of the first class session, without breakfast no less. What was everyone waiting for?

Vant bent down to speak in Damson’s ear. The latter’s heavy-set shoulders hunched as if to deflect his words. Jame wished he would leave his former cadet alone: he always seemed to upset her.

Falling snow dusted her eyelashes. Winter was only a quarter over, yet she felt as if she had been cold forever.

Today they were to choose ally houses for the Winter War. Why couldn’t they get on with that?

Think about warmth. Think about the dream. She was standing in her fire-lit quarters before a mirror. She knew she was alone, yet in the silvered surface she saw Timmon standing behind her, smiling over her shoulder. His hands slid over hers as she undressed. Her skin was painted with the red sigils of seduction. His smirk changed. He too was naked, but his marks bled. He picked at them with growing horror as his skin stripped off at his touch. She turned on him.

“Stop that!”

In the square, Timmon staggered and fell as if actually pushed. The cadets cheered. What in Perimal’s name . . .

Vant whispered again to Damson.

He wants her to do something, Jame thought, but what?

She wobbled, suddenly dizzy as the ground seemed to tilt. What was this, mental arm wrestling? If so, was there an extra player in the game?

Gorbel gave an impatient grunt. “Enough. I’m freezing. Down!”

His glare was like a hard shove. Already tottering, Jame fell over. The cadets cheered again and streamed back into their barracks for a belated breakfast.

Rue helped Jame up and brushed her off. “Ninety minutes. Not bad, Ten. That Gorbel is a tough one, for all his fat.”

“What in Perimal’s name was all that about?”

“You didn’t know? It’s the traditional way we decide who gets first pick of allies for the war. You’re second.”

“No. I mean all that shoving.”

Rue looked confused. “You ordered Timmon to stop and Gorbel ordered you down. Why you were off-balance in the first place, I don’t know.”

Neither did Jame, but she had seen Vant pat Damson on the shoulder and smile.

Still bereft of breakfast, she stumbled after the other eight master-tens into the great hall.

“Why didn’t you warn me it was a test?” she demanded of Timmon under her breath.

He grinned. “What, and give up the chance to surprise you? At that, I still came in last.”

“Will you at least stop badgering me with that dream? It never comes out right, and I hate it when you drag in Tori.”

“Ah, that’s your doing, not mine. It would be so much better if you would just let me guide you through it.”

“And give up control? I don’t think so.”

Although she still liked Timmon, she didn’t trust him in this mood. What might once have been mutual pleasure had given way to a feverish need to dominate in imitation, presumably, of his father. Neither of them had been lucky in that paternal regard, but only Jame seemed to realize it. If ever she started acting like Ganth or, worse, like his brother Greshan, she profoundly hoped that someone would break her neck.

The master-tens had gathered around the hall fire and were warming their hands.

“So,” said the Edirr cheerfully. “It’s to be Gorbel, Jameth, and Timmon, in that order. Who will you choose first, Gorby?”

“Randir,” said Gorbel without hesitation, and the Randir master-ten came to stand by his side.

“Knorth?”

“Brandan.” She had discussed this long and hard with her ten-commanders. One chose for the size of one’s ally, also for their compatibility with one’s own cadets. Maybe she could still pick up the Jaran, her own favorite.

“Ardeth?”

“Jaran.”

Damn. That left the three smallest houses.

“Caineron?”

“Coman.” No surprise there. Although the Coman lord was still wavering, his primary alliance lay with the Lord Caldane.

“Knorth?”

“Danior.” The smallest house of all, with only twenty-five cadets at the college, but bone-kin.

“Ardeth?”

“Edirr.”

Three groups of three, ranging from the Caineron’s three hundred thirty-nine cadets to the Knorth’s two hundred thirty-one, with the Ardeth’s three hundred falling in the middle.

The Edirr had been doing some quick calculations. “That means two hundred ten united flag points for the Caineron, one hundred eighty for the Ardeth, and one hundred fifty for the Knorth.”

Flag points started at one hundred for the largest house (the Caineron) and descended by tens to the smallest, twenty for tiny Danior. One gained or lost them along with the flag in question. Individual scarves counted as well, as in Gen, from commanders down to individual cadets.

“That’s it, then.” Gorbel clapped his stubby, chapped hands. “Now for breakfast.”

Winter had definitely come to Tentir.

Inside, some fires burned continuously while others were only lit at night. The internal, interconnecting hall was mostly kept shut to prevent the wind from whistling from one end of New Tentir to the other through it. Windows were shuttered, sleeping furs brought out, and curtains hung to stop the draft. If things got really bad, all stock would be moved inside to the subterranean stable or to the great hall while the cadets would retreat either to the fire timber hall or to those rooms in Old Tentir that were heated by it.

There was talk of restoring the charred Knorth guest quarters in Old Tentir, but to Jame’s relief nothing came of it.

Most outside activities ended except for tending the livestock, adding to the woodpile, and hunting. Certain lessons still were conducted across the snowy fields, but then at least one was moving. For pleasure, there were snowball fights and skating on the frozen Silver with no threat now of falling through the ice.

Inside of an evening, Gen games sprang up everywhere and were played with increasing fervor as Mid-Winter Day approached. Jame added considerably to her pack of hazard cards. Discussions on how they might be implemented within Tentir ranged widely and often concluded with the participants throwing up their hands in praise of their lordan’s imagination, if not of her practicality. How, after all, did one cope with a weirdingstrom or an incursion of shadow assassins or a yackcarn stampede? Jame was dismayed to note that most of her ideas had to do with the hunters or, as they were now called, the scouts, not with commanders. The thought of leading three houses into even mock battle continued to appall her.

As for classes, the three groups now trained with each other exclusively to learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Timmon’s set was perhaps the best matched of the three: The Edirr appealed to his own innate frivolity while the Jaran helped good-humoredly to temper both.

The Caineron and the Randir were at odds from the onset. Clearly, the Randir master-ten, Reef, thought that Gorbel was nothing but a buffoon and treated him as such, casually countermanding his orders and in general assuming a superior air that made the Caineron Lordan grind his teeth.

For her part, Jame was reasonably pleased with the Brandan master-ten, Berrimint, who showed all the solid dependability of her house if rather less imagination and incentive than Jame would have liked. Doni, the young Danior master-ten, tried very hard but deferred too much to his seniors. Still, he was good at converting Gen hazard cards into real situations of potential use in the war.

Only the Falconer’s class continued to meet across game lines, although their animal counterparts might yet be used against each other in play. That prospect pleased none of the Falconeers; while the rules sought to limit violence between cadets, companions were often seen as expendable.

“They don’t understand,” Mouse said, protectively cuddling a handful of fur and busy whiskers. “No one does but us.”

Twenty days before Mid-Winter, the Commandant wrote the Highlord a note that contained a surprising suggestion. Torisen read it with raised eyebrows, then put it aside for consideration.

Ten days before Mid-Winter, something began to prey on the cattle herds when they were left out at night. From the marks of gigantic tooth and claw left on the dismembered carcasses, it was clear that the enemy this time was not human. Guards were set. In the night, in a storm, several were killed. Others spoke of a huge blackness moving among the terrified beasts and of the flash of something white that had driven it away. In the morning, Jame found the horse-master stitching four gashes as wide as the span of both her spread hands on the rathorn’s shoulder.

“It looks worse than it is,” he assured her, fending off the colt’s snap at the needle’s bite. “He’ll be stiff for a while, though.”

Jame touched a raw seam. My baby’s first battle scars. “What do you think did this?”

“Some say dire wolves, others a catamount. Myself, I think it’s a Trinity-be-damned big cave bear, probably an old male strayed out of its territory with the onset of the mating season.”

“Gorbel thinks the same. He’s asked permission to hunt it, and the Commandant has agreed. It will be nice for him finally to have something he can lawfully kill.”

“Huh. If it doesn’t kill him first.”

The scene in the square later that morning strongly reminded Jame of the past summer’s muster to hunt the rathorn, which a wandering golden willow and other natural hazards had frustrated. Here again were horses and riders, the former this time with rawhide boots to prevent the ice from balling under their hooves, the latter in hunting leathers lined with fur. Gorbel was taking four Caineron ten-commands including his own, some to ride, others to run the hounds. A third group waited with bow and arrow to serve as beaters and backup. Three experienced sargents went one each with the three less proficient ten-commands. No one suggested that Gorbel take one, although Reef whispered something to her Five, who snickered.

Meanwhile, dogs of all sorts seethed in their individual packs: lymers to catch the scent, coupled direhounds to course the prey, Molocar (hopefully) to bring it down.

Gorbel had even had his pet pook sent from Restormir to attract its own share of fascinated attention. The shaggy little dog looked like a hassock, one end hardly distinguishable from the other. Moreover, the only way to determine how many feet it had was to flip it onto its back and rub its stomach, whereupon four paws flailed the air in delight and one end or the other of it made whuffling noises.

More stifled laughter rose among the Randir.

“What can it see through all that hair?” called Reef. “What can it smell but itself?”

Gorbel glowered. “Twizzle is a hill-pup. Whatever I ask him to find, eventually he will, however the land folds.”

Twizzle sneezed like an exploding mop. Gorbel rubbed his own nose. Watching, Jame thought, Hmmm.

At last the Caineron swung into the saddle, the hunting horn blew, and they rode out.

On the whole, Jame didn’t envy them. So far the day was bright and the sky cloudless, but the Falconer had warned them that this was only a lull between storms.

Three days passed.

No one was greatly surprised at this: a bear hunt is more like a running battle than the short, sharp pursuit of hare or hind. Because a bear usually hunts a long way from its lair, multiple parties set out to find its scent, each with at least one especially good lymer. When the scent is found, a horn summons the other parties to join the chase. Because of the bear’s stamina, relays of hounds are often used. If the beast is brought to bay at twilight, dogs surround it all night to keep it from slipping away. If slip it does, the chase continues the next day, and the next, and the next. Killing is done with bows, arrows, and spears—anything to keep out of the bear’s lethal reach.

In this case, all close signs had been obliterated by the storm the night before. Consequently, Gorbel sent his parties out in all four directions on the chance that one of the lymers would catch the scent before the pook discovered it by his own slower means.

On the third day they began to come back. Only the western group had found and killed a bear; however, the experts declared it too small to have inflicted such dire wounds on the slain cattle. Gorbel’s northern party straggled in by twos and threes, reporting multiple false trails and occasional sightings of paw prints bigger than any of them would have believed possible.

Last to arrive, with a storm building on his heels, was Kibbet, white with fatigue. He all but fell out of the saddle, but at the Commandant’s approach made an effort to pull himself together.

“Where is Gorbel?”

“Dead, Ran.”

Randon, sargents, and master-tens gathered in the officer’s mess where Kibbet sat at a table, picking at a bowl of stew.

“We went north,” he began, meeting no one’s eyes. “It was a fragmented trail when we finally found it. First Obidin, Amon, and Rori split off to follow one lead; then Higbert and Fash, another; finally Dure, Tigger, and Bark a third.”

“Why didn’t Bark stay with his master?” asked the Commandant as he circled the table, hands clasped behind him. He spoke gently, but with a steel click to his heels on the stone floor. They were, after all, speaking about his lord’s son.

“Bark wanted to, but Ten said that Dure and Tigger didn’t know what they were doing and needed their hands held. That left Ten, me, and the pook.”

In a sheltered place, they had found huge footprints, twice the length of a man’s and four times as wide. Gorbel had sounded his horn, but no one answered, only echoes off the steep mountain slopes of the ravine into which they had ridden. Kibbet wanted to go back to collect the others, but Gorbel was hot for the kill and the pook Twizzle was whuffling with excitement. Then the bear had come at them from around a boulder. It towered, roaring, over Gorbel’s horse, and with one great blow ripped off both the saddle’s cantle and most of the horse’s rump. The horse went down, squealing, and the bear fell on it.

“I think Ten got his spear butt braced on the ground and the bear fell on that too. I heard bones breaking, but I couldn’t see Ten at all under that mountain of black fur. It quivered, then it was still.”

Kibbet fingered his wrist and drew down the cuff, but not before Jame had seen a ring of bruises encircling it.

He had tried to free Gorbel, he said, but had only managed to drag out one hand. It had no pulse. Then, because there was no way that he could shift that vast weight by himself, he had come back for help.

“Did you mark the ravine entry?” asked the Commandant.

“Why, no, Ran, but I’ll recognize it when I see it again.”

“You mean ‘if,’ ” growled Harn. He himself looked not unlike a bear with his bloodshot eyes, glowering countenance and disordered hair. Jame wondered if he was ill. “There are thousands of gorges and ravines in that part of the mountains, in case you hadn’t noticed, and like everything else in this bloody valley they move around at will if not nailed down.”

The Commandant sighed. “Very well. In the morning, if the snow has stopped, we will try to find the body.”

“What do you think of that?” Timmon asked Jame as they left the mess hall.

“Not much, perhaps for a silly reason: the pook didn’t come home.”

It stormed most of the night. Wind rattled the shutters as if trying to pry them off and snow sifted through the cracks. Jame lay in her furs listening to the whoop and roar, watching the flames under the copper cauldron dance in errant breezes and snow drift down through the smoke hole above. Toward dawn, when the storm’s clamor faltered and ceased, she rose, dressed in her warmest clothes and, leaving Rue and Jorin snugly asleep behind her, went down to the tack room to collect Death’s-head’s gear.

She found the rathorn by tripping over him curled up, more like a cat than a horse, in the lee of a boulder. Underneath his shaggy winter coat, the slashes on his shoulder were still red and sore; however, the stitches held and the cuts were healing.

“We’ll just have to take it easy,” she told him, knowing how ridiculous that sounded under the circumstances, and saddled him while he munched on a slab of roast venison that she had palmed the previous night at dinner.

They set off northward with the college barely astir behind and below them.

The storm clouds drifted off southward and the sun came out to cast dazzling light on the new-fallen snow. At the mountains’ feet, drifts crested in a sea of frozen waves, a foot deep in the troughs, shoulder high at the summits. Farther up, snow swirled around boulders, blew in veils off the heights, and smoked from laden trees as if they were being consumed with sparkling, white fire. The storm had swept away all trace and scent. She could only hope that the rathorn’s instincts were similar to the pook’s, allowing him to follow prey over the folds of the land even without normal scent markers.

Midday, barely five miles from the college and into rough terrain, Jame saw movement ahead. At first she thought it was a large bird trying unsuccessfully to take flight. Closer to, she heard it woof at the top of each leap before disappearing back into the snowy well that its own weight had dug. Drawing up alongside, she looked down into a face—or was it a bottom?—turned upward toward her.

“Woof,” said the pook Twizzle again, with evident satisfaction, and scrabbled up into the saddle in front of her.

They were at the mouth of a steep-walled ravine.

Several steps inside, the colt stopped, nostrils flaring. Even Jame could smell the bear’s rank scent although at first she didn’t see him, he was so big, like another of the shed-sized boulders that had tumbled down from above. This one, however, had tufts of black fur blowing through the crust of snow that covered it. There was no question that it was dead.

Dismounting, Jame walked warily around it.

On the leeward side, the fur had been ripped open and something lumpy had inserted itself within the tear against the monster’s flayed side. It stirred when it heard the crunch of her feet on the snow crust and peered out.

“About time,” it croaked.

“Glad to see you too, Gorbel.”

The Caineron Lordan looked awful, his face blotchy with bruises and stubble, everything about him caked with dried blood and bear fat. Jame sat on her heels before him with the pook draped, panting happily, over one knee.

“Are you injured?”

“Some ribs that hurt like blazes, thank you, and maybe a broken collarbone. The horse took most of the impact, poor brute. Where is everyone else?”

“By now, out searching for your body. Kibbet said that you were dead.”

“Huh. Much obliged to him, after that grip I got on his wrist.”

“He’s wearing the bruises of it.”

They considered this, without speaking.

“How many times has someone tried to kill you since Autumn’s Eve?” Jame asked at last.

“Four, counting this.”

“It’s about his brother, you know.”

“I know. Kibben died this autumn of brain congestion. He never did get his feet properly under him again, no matter who told him to stop standing on his head. Including me.”

“Well,” said Jame, after another pause, rising, “we can’t do much about your ribs or shoulder out here. Time we got you back to the college.”

Although obviously in pain, he only grunted as she helped him up. He regarded the cave bear.

“Damn. What a trophy to leave to rot.”

“You could cut off his forepaws.”

“I couldn’t, not with this shoulder. You could.”

“Later maybe. Come on.”

Jame supported him around the carcass, where they came face to face with the rathorn. The colt clearly remembered that Gorbel had also tried to make a trophy of him. His ears flattened, his crest rose, and he hissed. Jame swatted him on the nose, bruising her hand.

“Oh, behave.”

Gorbel regarded them sourly.

“I should have known,” he said.

Getting Death’s-head to carry them both and the pook back to Tentir was no easy business, but at last he grudgingly consented with an air of You owe me one, “one” no doubt being the largest roast chicken Jame could find. They reached the college at dusk, left the rathorn grumbling sore-footed among the boulders, and descended to amaze the returned search parties.

Some time later Jame stood outside the Knorth barracks watching the peach glow of the Map Room’s windows. A light snow fell. Her breath was a plume on the cold air, and she settled more deeply into her fur coat.

Brier emerged from the barracks. “Well?”

“That depends. The Commandant, Gorbel, and Kibbet are up there.”

They fell silent as the door to Old Tentir opened. Kibbet stood on the threshold. He looked around the square, taking in the lit windows and the warm fellowship inside, then turned and reentered the keep. As he hadn’t shut the door, they saw him walk down the length of the great hall, open the front door, and slip out through it into the night.

“He has no coat,” said Rue, who had emerged to join them. “He’ll freeze to death.”

“He has chosen the White Knife of winter. For that he doesn’t need a coat.”

A note had arrived for Jame while she was away. She opened it as cadets, unbidden, formed a bucket brigade to fill her bath. It was from Kirien and read:

“Your servant Graykin has left Mount Alban. We thought at first that he was hiding or I would have informed you sooner, but then word came that he had taken a post horse and ridden south.

“Postscript: he also seems to have taken some particularly dangerous herb from Index’s shed. Index being Index, he won’t tell me what it is or what it does, but he advises, if found, to make notes of its effect before you destroy it.”

Note in hand, Jame entered her uncle’s dark quarters. One of the two chests had been smashed open and its contents, the Lordan’s Coat, was gone. Graykin had returned.