Magic Casement

1

Since long before the coming of Gods and mortals, the great rock of Krasnegar had stood amid the storms and ice of the Winter Ocean, resolute and eternal. Throughout long arctic nights it glimmered under the haunted dance of aurora and the rays of the cold, sad moon, while the icepack ground in useless anger around its base. In summer sun its yellow angularity stood on the shining white and blue of the sea like a slice of giants' cheese on fine china. Weather and season came and went and the rock endured unchanging, heeding them no more than it heeded the flitting generations of mankind.

Two sides fell sheer to the surf, pitted with narrow ledges where only the crying seabirds went, but the third face ran down less steeply, and on that long mad slope the little town adhered as grimly as a splatter of swallows' nests. Above the humble clutter of the houses, at the very crest of the rock, the castle pointed black and spiky turrets to the sky.

No mere human hand could have raised those stones in a land so remote or a setting so wild. The castle had been built long centuries before by the great sorcerer Inisso, to serve as palace for himself and for the dynasty he founded. His descendants ruled there still, in direct male line unbroken… but the present monarch, good King Holindarn, beloved of his people, had but a single child—his daughter, Inosolan.

Summer came late to Krasnegar. When inhabitants of milder lands were counting their lambs and chicks, the brutal storms still rolled in from the Winter Ocean. While those lucky southerners gathered hay and berries, the wynds and alleyways of the north lay plugged with drifts. Even when night had been almost banished from the pallid arctic sky, the hills ashore stayed brown and sere. Every year was the same. Every year a stranger might have given up hoping and assumed that summer was not about to happen at all. The locals knew better and in patient resignation they waited for the change.

Always their faith was rewarded at last. With no warning, a cheerful wind would blunder in to sweep the ice floes from the harbor, the hills would throw off their winter plumage almost overnight, and the snowdrifts in the alleyways would shrink rapidly to sullen gray heaps sulking in shadowed corners. A few days' rain and the world was washed green again, fair weather following foul as fast as a blink. Spring in Krasnegar, the inhabitants said, had to be believed in to be seen.

Now it had happened. Sunlight poured through the castle windows. The fishing boats were in the water. The tide was out, the beaches were clear of ice and obviously eager to be ridden on. Inos came early down to breakfast, busily spinning plans for the day.

The great hall was almost deserted. Even before the fine weather had arrived, the king’s servants had driven the livestock over the causeway to the mainland. Others would now be outside attending to the wagons and the harbor, cleaning up the winter’s leavings, and preparing for the hectic work of summer. Inos’s tutor, Master Poraganu, was conveniently indisposed with his customary springtime rheumatics; there would be no objections from him, and she could head for the stables as soon as she had grabbed a quick bite.

Aunt Kade sat at the high table in solitary splendor.

Momentarily Inos debated the wisdom of making a fast retreat and finding something to eat in the kitchens, but she had already been noticed. She continued her approach, therefore, practicing poise and trusting that a regal grace would compensate for shabby attire.

“Good morning, Aunt,” she said cheerfully. “Beautiful morning?”

“Good morning, my dear.”

“You’re earlier than—ooof!” Inos had not intended to make that last remark, but her breeches tried to bite her in half as she sat down. She smiled uneasily, and her sleeves slid quietly up her wrists.

Aunt Kade pursed her lips. Aunts could be expected to disapprove of princesses arriving at meals in dirty old riding habits. “You appear to have outgrown those clothes, my dear.”

Kade herself, of course, was dressed as if for a wedding or a state function. Not one silver hair was out of place, and even for breakfast she had sprinkled jewelry around her neck and over her fingers. In honor of the arrival of summer, she had donned her pale-blue linen with the tiny pleats.

Inos restrained an unkind impulse to remark that Kade appeared to have outgrown the pale-blue linen. Kade was short, Kade was plump, and Kade was growing plumper. The wardrobe she had brought back with her two years ago was barely adequate now, and the local seamstresses were all at least two generations out of date in fashioning attire for ladies of quality.

“Oh, they’ll do,” Inos said airily. “I’m only going along the beach, not leading a parade.”

Aunt Kade dabbed at her lips with a snowy napkin. “That will be nice, my dear. Who is going with you?”

“Kel, I hope. Or Ido… or Fan…” Rap, of course, had long since departed for the mainland. So had many, many others.

“Kel will be helping me.” Kade frowned. “Ido? Not the chambermaid?”

Inos’s heart sank. It would not help to mention that Ido was an excellent rider and that the two of them had been out six or eight times already recently in much worse weather than this. “There’ll be somebody.” She smiled thanks at old Nok as he brought her a dish of porridge.

“Yes, but who?” Kade’s china-blue eyes assumed the tortured look they always did in these confrontations with her willful niece. “Everyone is very busy just now. I shall need to know who is going with you, my dear.”

“I’m a very competent horsewoman, Aunt.”

“I’m sure you are, but you must certainly not go out riding without suitable attendants. That would not be ladylike. Or safe. So you will find out who is available and let me know before you leave?”

Restraining her temper, Inos made noncommittal noises to the porridge.

Kade smiled with relief… and apparently with complete innocence. “You promise, Inos?”

Trapped! “Of course, Aunt.”

Such babying was humiliating! Inos was older than Sila, the cook’s daughter, who was already married and almost a mother.

“I am having a small salon this morning. Nothing formal, just some ladies from the town… tea and cakes. You would be very welcome to join us.”

On a day like this? Tea and cakes and burgesses' fat wives? Inos would rather muck out stables.

Disaster! There was no one. Even the youngest and most inadequate stableboy seemed to have been assigned duties of world- shattering importance that could not be postponed. A frenzy of activity possessed everyone still remaining in the castle, and there were few of those anyway. The boys had gone to the hills or the boats. The girls were busy in the fields or the fish sheds. There was no one.

No one of her rank! That was the real problem. All of Inos’s friends were the children of her father’s servants, for Krasnegar possessed no nobility below its king, and no minor gentry either, unless one counted the merchants and burgesses. Her father counted them; Aunt Kade did so unwillingly. But servants and gentry alike, the boys were vanishing into trades, the girls into matrimony. There was no one around with leisure to escort a princess, and the prospect of that spirited gallop along the sands began to fade like a mirage.

The stables were almost deserted, by man and beast both. As she went in, Inos passed Ido bearing a bundle of washing on her head.

“Looking for Rap?” Ido inquired.

No, Inos was not looking for Rap. Rap had long since gone landward with the others and would not be back before winter. And why should everyone always assume that it had to be Rap she wanted?

She spent a wistful while agrooming Lightning, although he did not need it. What he needed was more exercise. She had inherited Lightning from her mother, and if her mother had still been alive, then they… well, no point in thinking about that.

As Inos left the stable, she passed old Hononin, the hostler, a gnarled and weatherbeaten monument whose face seemed to have been upholstered in the same leather used to make his clothes.

“Morning, miss. Looking for Rap?”

Inos snorted a denial and pranced by him, although snorting was not regal. And probably that way of departing was what the writers of romances called a “flounce,” and that would not be regal either. She would not be able to go riding, and Aunt Kade would know she was still around the palace. Would she hunt down her niece to impose the tea-and-cake torture on her? With some relief, Inos decided that Aunt Kade probably wanted her at the affair no more than she wanted to attend. Unfortunately, Kade might decide that duty required her to promote Inos’s education in the social graces.

At that point in her misery, Inos found herself out in the bailey, and there was a wagon heading for the gate.

She had promised Kade that she would not go riding alone. No one had said she could not go down to the harbor unaccompanied… or at least into the town itself… not recently, anyway.

The guard was the problem. The token sentry would not likely say anything, but nosy old Sergeant Thosolin liked to sit in the guard room and watch who came and went all day. He might consider that he had authority to question Princess Inosolan. Even if he didn’t, he probably would.

She hurried across the cobbles to the wagon, then strolled casually beside it as it clattered and jingled through the archway. There was just room for a slim princess to walk between the high rear wheel and the greasy black stones. The noise reverberated astonishingly in that narrow space. She was shielded from the guard room; she marched past the sentry without a glance; a moment later she was in the outer court, feeling like an escaped ferret.

If a king could safely walk unaccompanied around the town, then his daughter could, yes?

Inos did not ask the question aloud, so no one answered it.

She was in no danger. Her father was a popular monarch and Krasnegar a very law-abiding place. She had heard tell of large cities where what she was doing might be foolish, but she was certain that she would come to no harm in Krasnegar. Aunt Kade might object that being unaccompanied was unladylike, but Inos could see no reason why her father’s independent kingdom need be bound by the customs of the Impire.

A single wagon road zigzagged down the hill, but Inos preferred the narrow stairways and alleys. Some of those were open, some roofed over. Some were bright and sunny, some dark, others partly lighted by windows and skylights. They were all steep and winding, and this fine day they bustled. Inos was recognized often. She received smiles and salutes, frowns and surprised glances, all of which she acknowledged with a confident and regal little nod, as her father did. She was growing up—they must expect to see her around often in future. And yet, hurrying down the steep little town, Inos saw no one of any interest, only thick-shouldered porters and wide-hipped matrons, tottering crones and sticky-mouthed toddlers. None but the dull remained in Krasnegar in summer.

From time to time she caught glimpses of slate roofs below her and the harbor below those. Two ships had arrived already, the first of the season; and there she was headed. The early arrivals always made Krasnegar nervous, for in some years they brought sickness that would slash through the town like a scythe—it was less than two years since one such epidemic had carried off the queen. But the harbor was where the excitement would be, where the fishermen and whalers of Krasnegar itself mingled with visitors come to trade, stocky, urbane ships' captains from the Impire and the foreboding flaxen-hair jotnar of Nordland—tall men with ice-blue eyes that could send shivers down Inos’s arms. She might even see a few sinister goblins from the forest, each leading a party of his wives, loaded with bundles of furs.

Then Inos stumbled to a halt halfway down an open staircase. It was wide and sunny. It was deserted except for two women standing in conversation, but one of them was Mother Unonini, the palace chaplain. From the way the two were poised to move, they were just about to complete their chat. If Mother Unonini looked up and saw Inos unescorted, she would certainly have questions to ask.

A door opened beside Inos, emitting a woman with a package under her arm. Inos smiled at her, took hold of the door, and went in, closing it firmly in a tinkle of silver bell.

The small room was lined by shelves bearing rolls of fabrics. The large lady in the middle was Mistress Meolorne. She looked up, hesitated, and then curtsied.

Rather flattered by that, Inos bobbed in return. She had come shopping, she decided—a most ladylike occupation to which no one, even Aunt Kade, could possibly object.

“Your Highness is the only lady in Krasnegar who could wear this.”

“I am? I mean, why do you say so?”

Mistress Meolorne beamed and bunched rosy cheeks. “Because of the green, your Highness. It exactly matches your eyes. Your eyes are exceptional, remarkable! They are the key to your beauty, you know. I believe you have the only truly green eyes in the kingdom.”

Beauty? Inos peered at the mirror. She was draped in a flowing miracle of green and gold silk. Of course she had green eyes, but now that she thought about it, who else did?

“Imps like myself have dark brown eyes,” Meolorne said. “And the jotnar have blue. Everyone but you has either brown eyes or blue.”

Rap had gray eyes, but Meolorne could not be expected to know a minor palace flunky. Everyone else was either jotunn or imp, one or the other. Imps were short and dark. Jotnar were tall and fair. In summer, jotnar turned red and peeled disgustingly. Imps tended to sicken in winter.

“I’m neither, am I? Mistress, I don’t think I’ve ever thought of that!” Inos’s father had brown hair and… brown eyes. Paler brown than most, she decided.

“You are a diplomatic compromise, your Highness, if I may say so? Your royal father rules both imps and jotnar here in Krasnegar. It would be inappropriate for him to favor either one or the other.”

Inos was about to ask if that made her a halfbreed, then thought better of it. Of course the kings of Krasnegar could not be a pure strain. For generations they had played off their predatory neighbors by taking wives from first this side and then that. Normally when imp and jotunn married, the traits did not mingle, and the children took after one parent or the other, but so many royal outcrosses had eventually produced a true mixture in Inos. She must remember to ask her father about it. How curious that she had never noticed before! She was neither tall nor short. Her hair was a rich deep gold, not the flaxen of a jotunn. She did not peel in summer—indeed she took on a splendid tan. And she certainly did not pine in the long nights, as the imps did. She was a true Krasnegarian, and the only one.

“The bronze for your complexion, the gold for your hair, and the green for your eyes,” Mistress Meolorne murmured. “It was designed by the Gods especially for you.”

Inos looked again at the miraculous fabric that enveloped her. She had never owned anything like this before. She had not known that such material existed. What a gown it would make! Gold dragons on green fields and fall foliage… Whenever she moved the dragons shimmered, as if about to fly. Aunt Kade would be ecstatic over it and delighted that Inos was taking an interest in clothes at last. And her father would certainly not object, for she must expect to start playing her part in formal functions soon, as she neared her coming of age. She would ask Kade to advise her on the design.

“It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Inos said firmly. “I absolutely must have it. How much is it?”

2

No one had ever suggested that Mistress Meolorne might be a sorceress, but the thought occurred to Inos as she panted up the last alleyway that led to the castle. Three and a half gold imperials? How had she ever been bewitched into agreeing to pay so much for a mere swatch of silk?

Aunt Kade would have hysterics.

Aunt Kade must not be allowed to find out.

The best strategy was certainly for Inos to go to her father at once and explain that she had saved him the trouble of choosing a birthday gift for her. True, her birthday was still some time off. Also true, he had never given her anything worth three and a half gold imperials—not close, even—but she was growing up and she needed such little luxuries now. Surely he would understand when he saw the silk itself and she explained why she had chosen it and why it was so suitable. He would be pleased that she was beginning to take more of an interest in ladylike matters… Wouldn’t he?

She had some jewelry of her own that she might be able to sell—if she was able to sneak back into the town again. She might raise a half imperial that way. A straight “three” would sound a much neater, rounder sort of number.

Father would understand, of course, that the only alternative was his dear daughter’s tragic suicide from the highest battlements. Possibly she could live without the silk—she had managed so far—but she could certainly not endure the shame of having to return it. So he would congratulate her on her good taste and see that the money was sent as she had promised.

Wouldn’t he?

She reached the top of the lane and paused to catch her breath, and also to reconnoiter the courtyard. There was only one gate to the castle and it opened into this cobbled outer court. Now there was no wagon in sight to provide cover, only a few ambling pedestrians. The summer sun was high enough to smile in over the ancient stone walls and brighten the pigeons that strutted around, cleaning up the horse droppings. Relics of winter snow bled quietly to death in corners. A man-at-arms was standing as rigid as his pike beside the gate, with two mangy dogs snuffling aimlessly beside him. Within the big arch of the entrance, nosy old Thosolin would be lurking in his guard room.

It was none of Thosolin’s business, she decided firmly. Whether or not he had the right to stop her going out, he certainly could not stop her coming in. She did not recognize the petrified man- at-arms, but he looked as if he were taking his job unusually seriously and so would not interfere. She squared her shoulders, adjusted the silk below her arm, and began to march.

She had every right to go into the town by herself, and if she chose to do so in shabby old jodhpurs and a leather doublet that might have been thrown out by one of Inisso’s stablehands, well, that was certainly not Thosolin’s business either.

She wondered who the guard on the gate was, he must be somebody new. It was not until she had almost reached the arch that—

“Rap!”

He rolled his eyes in alarm and almost dropped his pike. Then he came even more stiffly to attention, staring straight ahead, not looking at her. Inosolan bristled angrily.

His cone-shaped helmet was too small, sitting like an oversize egg in the nest of his unruly brown hair. His chain mail was rusty and much too large. His very plain face was turning from brown to pink, showing up his freckles.

“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded. “I thought you were off on the mainland.”

“I’m just back for a couple of days,” he muttered. His eyes rolled warningly toward the guard room door.

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?” She put her hands on her hips and inspected him crossly. “You look absurd! Why are you dressed up like that? And what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the stables?”

Pudding, the gang had called Rap when they were all small together. He’d had almost no nose then, and not much more now. His face was all chin and mouth and big gray eyes.

“Please, Inos,” he whispered. “I’m on guard duty. I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

She tossed her head. “Indeed? I shall speak to Sergeant Thosolin about that.”

Rap never suspected a bluff. “No!” He shot another horrified glance toward the guard room.

He had grown, even in the short time he had been gone, unless it was those stupid boots. He was taller than her now by quite a bit, and the armor made him seem broader and deeper. Perhaps he did not look quite so bad as she had thought at first, but she would not tell him so.

“Explain!” She glared at him.

“A couple of the mares had to come back.” He was trying not to move his lips, staring straight through Inos. “So I brought them. I’m going back with the wagons. Old Hononin had nothing for me to do, with the other ponies away.”

“Ha!” she said triumphantly. “Well, you still aren’t doing anything very much. You will take me riding after lunch. I’ll speak to the sergeant.”

A mixture of fury and stubbornness came over his face, wrinkling his wide nose until she half expected the freckles to start popping off like brown snowflakes. “Don’t you dare!”

“Don’t you speak to me like that!”

“I won’t ever speak to you again!”

They glared at each other for a moment. Rap as a man-at-arms? She remembered now that he had expressed some silly ambition to play with swords. It was an idiotic idea. He was tremendously good with horses. He had a natural gift for them.

“What good do you think you’re doing standing here with that stupid pike?”

“I’m guarding the palace!”

Inos snorted before she remembered again that snorting was not regal. “From what? Dragons? Sorcerers? Imperial legions?”

He was growing very angry now, she was pleased to see, but he made a great effort to answer civilly. “I challenge strangers.”

Tommyrot! She suppressed another snort; and there, as if sent by the Gods, a stranger came strolling across the yard toward the gate.

“Right!” Inos said. “Challenge this one.”

Rap bit his lip. “He doesn’t look very dangerous.”

“Challenge! I want to see how it’s done.”

He clenched his big jaw angrily. “Stand back, then!” As the stranger drew near, Rap swung his pike to the level, took one pace with his left foot, and demanded loudly, “Who goes there—fiend or froe?”

The young man stopped, raised his eyebrows, and considered the question. “You’re new at this, aren’t you?” he asked in a pleasant tenor.

Rap turned very red and said nothing, waiting for an answer.

Inos suppressed a snigger, letting just enough escape that Rap would know it was there.

“Well, I’m not a fiend.” The stranger was quite young, slim, and not very tall, but a blond jotunn nonetheless. Anyone less like a fiend Inos could not imagine. He wore a brown wool cloak with the hood back, a leather doublet, and rather baggy brown hose. She decided that his clothes were all too big for him, which made him seem shabbier than he truly was. He was fresh-faced and scrubbed and clean—a point of note in Krasnegar—and the sun blazed on his white-gold hair.

“Definitely I’m not a fiend,” he repeated. “I’m a wandering minstrel, so I suppose I’m either a to or a froe. Yes, I must be a froe.”

“What’s your name, minstrel?” Rap demanded hoarsely.

“My name is Jalon.” But the stranger’s attention had wandered to Inos. He bowed. “And I know who this is. Your humble servant, Highness.”

He had big blue eyes, with a dreamy air that she found quite appealing. On impulse, she held out her hand. He took it in his long minstrel’s fingers and kissed it.

“I saw you when you were very small, Highness.” He had a charming smile. “I knew then that one day you would amaze the world with your beauty. But I see that I underestimated it.”

He was a very nice young man.

“If you’re a minstrel, why haven’t you got a harp?” Rap was still holding his pike at the challenge position.

“How long did you see me?” Inos asked. He could not be so very many years older than she was. She could not recall any minstrel so young. Perhaps he had been an apprentice accompanying his master.

He smiled vaguely at her and turned to Rap. “Harps are heavy.” He pulled a pipe from a pocket in his cloak and played a trill.

“Do you sing, too?” Rap was still suspicious.

“Not at the same time,” Jalon said solemnly.

This time the snigger escaped completely, and Rap shot Inos a murderous glare from the corner of his eye.

Jalon did not seem very worried by the pike. “But I do play the harp and there used to be a good one on the mantel in the hall, so I can borrow that again, I’m sure.” He did not seem as if he would be very worried by anything at all—and there certainly was a harp on the mantel.

“Wait here!” Rap put his pike over his shoulder rather clumsily and swung around, stamping his boots and apparently headed for the guard room.

That would not do at all! Inos did not want Sergeant Thosolin, and perhaps others, coming out and seeing her wandering unaccompanied, carrying home her own purchases. “Rap? Should you go off and leave me helpless with this dangerous stranger?”

Rap stopped and spun around, almost grinding his teeth.

“And the castle!” she exclaimed. “What if a troll comes, or a griffon? And you’re not here to guard us!”

“You come with me, then!” He was quite furious now.

“No!” Inos said. “I think you should take Master Jalon to the guard room with you if you think he is dangerous. You are welcome in my father’s house, minstrel.” That sounded very gracious and regal.

The stranger smiled and bowed to her again. He strolled toward the guard room with Rap. Inos lingered for a moment, then slipped through the archway, unobserved and very satisfied.

Like the town itself, the castle was all up and down, and she was soon puffing again as she hurried up the endless steps toward her chamber. Halfway there she met old Kondoral, the seneschal, picking his way carefully down an especially dark staircase. He was small and stooped and white-haired, with gray, withered skin and eyes so rheumy that she did not like to look at them… but quite a pleasant old relic when he did not talk your ears numb. His memory for recent events was failing. He repeated the same stories endlessly, yet he could remember the remote past quite well.

“Good day to you, Master Kondoral,” she said, stopping.

He peered down at her for a moment, clutching the rail. “And to you, Highness.” He sounded surprised, as if he had expected someone much younger.

“Do you know a minstrel called Jalon?” Inos was still bothered by her inability to recall that polite young man. Minstrels came but rarely to remote Krasnegar.

“Jalon?” Kondoral frowned and pulled his lip. “Why, yes, my lady! A very fine troubadour.” The old man beamed. “Is he come here again?”

“He is,” she said crossly. “I don’t remember him.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t.” The old man shook his head. “Dear me, no. It has been many years! But that is good news. We shall hear some fine singing from Master Jalon if his voice has not lost its thrill. I remember how he brought tears to all our eyes when he sang 'The Maiden and the Dragon'—”

“He doesn’t look very old,” she said quickly. “Not much older than me.” Well, not very much.

Kondoral shook his head again, looking doubtful. “I can recall hearing tell of him when I was young myself, my lady. This must be a son, then, or grandson?”

“Perhaps!” she said, and dodged quickly by, before he could start reminiscing.

Several staircases later she reached her summer chamber, at the top of one of the shorter spires. She had taken it over the previous year and loved it, although it was much too cold to use in winter. It was circular and bright, with walls so low so that the high conical ceiling swooped almost to the floor. There were four pointed dormer windows and from here she could look down on all of Krasnegar. She laid her precious packet of silk on the bed and started pulling off her riding clothes and dropping them on the rug.

To the north lay the Winter Ocean, sparkling blue now and smiling under the caress of summer. The swell broke lazily over the reefs, showing hardly any white at all, and seabirds swooped. To the west stood the castle’s towers and yards, roofs and terraces, a thicket of black masonry. Southward she could see the town, falling away steeply to the harbor. Beyond that lay the beach and then the hills, rounded and grassy. Those hills were certainly part of her father’s demesne. He also claimed the moors that lay beyond the horizon, although she had seen those only rarely, when she had gone hunting with her parents.

Stripped to her linen, Inos grabbed up the silk and attempted to drape it over herself as Mistress Meolorne had done for her. She did not succeed very well, but the effect was still spectacular.

Never had she seen such a fabric. She had not known that threads could be so fine, so soft, so cunningly woven; nor that it was possible to make such pictures with a loom. Gold and green and bronze—the colors shone even brighter in her room than they had in the dingy little store.

And there was so much of it! She tried arranging a train and almost fell over, making the golden dragons writhe. Originally it must have come from distant Guwush, on the shores of the Spring Sea, Meolorne had said—a great rarity in these parts. She had bought it many years ago from a jotunn sailor, who had probably looted it in a trifling act of piracy. Or perhaps it had come over the great trade routes and been pillaged from some unfortunate city. But it was old and very splendid and obviously destined to display the royal beauty of the Princess Inosolan of Krasnegar.

Three and a half imperials!

Inos sighed to the mirror. Her father must be made to understand. Suicide was the only possible alternative.

But why had she promised that the money would be sent that very day? She should have left herself more time for strategy.

Yet a gown fashioned from this glory would be worn only on special occasions, so it would last for years. She had stopped growing taller, so she would not grow out of it. She still had to grow more in other directions—she certainly hoped she had more to grow in other directions—but that could be handled with a little discreet padding that could be removed when it was no longer required. She wondered how much padding Aunt Kade would allow.

Well, there was nothing to be gained by standing in front of the mirror. She must talk to her father. She began to fold the silk again, while pondering what to wear for the interview. Probably her dowdy brown worsted, too small now and patched. That would do very well.

3

It took Inos some time to locate her father, but she was eventually informed that he was in the royal bedchamber, which was astonishing news at that time of day. It also meant more stairs, but anywhere meant more stairs in Krasnegar.

The royal chamber was located at the top of the great tower, known as Inisso’s Tower, and she wound her way up the spiral stairs that ran within the walls. There were far too many levels—throne room, presence chamber, robing room, antechamber… Pausing to catch her breath in the withdrawing room, Inos wondered, and not for the first time, why in the names of all the Gods her father did not move his quarters to somewhere more convenient.

The withdrawing room was her favorite, though. When Aunt Kade had returned from Kinvale two years ago, she had brought a whole roomful of furniture—not the heavy, antique, stuffing- falling-out furniture that cluttered most of the palace, but supremely elegant gilt and rosewood, with incredibly slender legs, with roses and butterflies embroidered on the cushions, and the woodwork all glossy. There was no room more gracious in all of Krasnegar. Even the rugs were works of art. While Inos would never be so disloyal to her mother’s memory as to admit the fact, she loved the withdrawing room as Aunt Kade had remade it.

Sufficiently recovered to move, she crossed the withdrawing room, went up more stairs, across what they now called the dressing room, but which had been her bedroom until quite recently, and finally—more slowly than when she had started—up the final stair to her father’s door.

It was ajar, so she walked in.

With very mixed feelings, she glanced over the clumsy, massive furnishings. She came here rarely now, and for the first time she saw how shabby they all were, the trappings of an aging widower who clung to old familiar things without regard to their state of wear. The crimsons had faded, the golds' tarnished, colors and fabrics become dull and sad. The drapes were shabby, the rugs a disgrace. Her mother’s portrait still hung over the fireplace, but it was blurred by smoke stain.

Many, many icy mornings Inos had cuddled into that great bed between her parents, under the heaped furs of winter, and yet those memories were overlain now by a last transparent image of her mother, burning away in fever when the great sickness had come on the first ship of spring and stalked all that terrible summer through the town.

Never mind that…

No one was there!

Furiously she pouted, glaring around as if the furniture itself were at fault. The drapes on the four-poster were pulled back, so her father was not in bed, and she could not imagine him going to bed in the middle of the day anyway. She eyed the wardrobe, but the chances that King Holindarn of Krasnegar would hide inside a wardrobe did not seem worth crossing a room to investigate. The windows were deeply recessed, but on those, also, the drapes were open. There was nowhere…

Uneasily Inos turned to retrace her steps and then hesitated. A vagueness niggled at the back of her mind. She took another quick glance around, shrugged, and moved toward the stair again…

And stopped again. Her scalp prickled. There was something wrong, and she could not place it.

Well! Setting her teeth firmly, she faced the room. Forcing oddly reluctant feet to move, she began to walk very slowly all around the chamber, looking suspiciously at everything, in everything, and even under everything. This was her father’s bedroom and she was a princess and there could not possibly be anything dangerous to explain this curious apprehension she—

The high dresser at the far side had been pulled forward, away from the wall.

No, that could not be important…

WHY?

Why had the dresser been moved? And why had she not noticed it at once? With goose bumps crawling over her arms, she forced herself to peer around behind this errant dresser. The door there was ajar. The shivery feeling vanished, leaving a sense of disapproval. Why had Inos never known that there was a door there? She glanced up at the horizontal beams and the planked ceiling. In all the other towers, the top room had a pointed roof, as her own chamber did. So there was another room above this one! She had never realized.

How very curious!

Procrastination was not one of her failings. Carefully holding her precious silk away from the cobwebby back of the dresser, Inos moved to that diabolically tempting door.

She saw steps, of course, as she had expected—another flight curved around inside the wall, just like all the other stairs. These were very dusty. The tiny windows set every few paces were exactly as she would have expected, also, but gray with grime and draped in cobwebs. The musty air was rank with the odor of mold.

A secret room? How very, very interesting! Now she did hesitate, but only for a couple of seconds. Curiosity overcame caution and even the silk was forgotten as she slipped through the narrow gap and started to climb.

Quietly, though.

Probably there was nothing up above here at all, and her father would welcome her just as happily as he would do anywhere else. On the other hand, it was very peculiar that she had never heard anyone ever mention this unknown room. It could not be any of her business. She was trying to be on her best behavior. She was holding a packet of silk that had cost three and half imperials. She…

“… is much too young!” said her father’s voice.

Inos froze against the icy stones of the wall. She was almost at the top and obviously the door was open. The voice had echoed as if the unseen chamber were bare and unfurnished.

“She’s not as young as all that,” another voice replied. “You take a good look at her. She’s very nearly a young lady now.”

Her father muttered something she did not catch.

“In the Impire they would regard her as old enough already,” said the other. Who could that be? She did not recognize the voice, yet it must be someone who knew her, for there could be no doubt who was being discussed.

“But who? There’s no one in the kingdom.”

“Then Angilki, perhaps?” It was a dry, elderly voice. “Or Kalkor? Those are the obvious choices.”

Now Inos could guess what was being discussed. She gasped, and for a moment considered marching straight in through the door and announcing that she had no intention of marrying either Duke Angilki or Thane Kalkor or anyone else for that matter. So there! Only the packet of silk stopped her.

“No, no, no!” her father said loudly, and Inos relaxed a fraction. “Either of those two, and the other would start a war.”

Or I shall! she thought.

An infuriating silence followed, one of those pauses when meanings pass without words, in smiles or nods or shrugs, and the speakers are not even aware that they have stopped speaking. But eavesdroppers are. It was not regal—it was not even polite—to eavesdrop. Inos knew that. But she told herself firmly that it was not polite to talk about someone when they were not there, either. So she was perfectly entitled to listen to—

“I never met Kalkor.” That was her father again, farther away.

“You can live without the experience, my friend.”

Friend? She knew of no one who addressed the king that way.

“Bad?”

“Rough!” The stranger chuckled quietly. “Typical jotunn… winter-long drinking parties, probably wrestles she-bears for exercise. Sharkskin underwear, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“That one’s out, then!”

Inos certainly agreed with her father on that.

“Angilki’s too old for her,” he said. “It will have to be a neutral. But you’re right about Kinvale. Next year, perhaps.”

The stranger spoke quite softly, so that she had to strain to hear. “You may not have that much time, friend.”

Then another pause, but not so long.

“I see!” Her father’s voice, curiously flat and expressionless.

“I am sorry.”

“Hardly your fault!” The king sighed. “It was why I sent for you—your skill and your honesty. Honesty and wisdom. And I knew you would not hold back the truth.” Another pause. “Are you sure?”

“Of course not.” Inos heard footsteps on bare planks, receding. Then the strangers from farther away: “Have you tried this?”

“No!” That was her father’s monarch voice.

“It might tell you.”

“No! It stays shut!”

“I don’t know how you can resist.”

“Because it causes trouble. My grandfather discovered that. It has not been opened since his time.”

“Thinal saw one like it once,” the visitor muttered. “It stayed shut, also. For the same reasons, I suppose.”

She had no idea what they could be talking about. They seemed to have moved to the far side of the room, near the south window. She strained to hear the voices over the thumping of her own heart.

“Even if I am right… about you… then there might be hope… if we two were to cooperate.”

“No, Sagorn, my friend. I have always refused and I always shall, even for that. Don’t think I don’t trust you.”

The stranger—Sagorn?—sighed. “I know whom you do not trust, and you are right. And you have not told your daughter?”

“Heavens, no! She is only a child. She couldn’t handle that!”

Handle what? Inos wanted to stamp her foot with frustration, but of course she was hardly daring to breathe, let alone stamp.

“But you will?”

Another pause.

“I don’t know,” her father said softly. “If… if she is older when… or maybe not at all.”

“You must!” The stranger spoke in a tone that no one used to a king. “You must not let it be lost!” His voice reverberated in the empty room.

“Must?”

Inos could guess at her father’s mocking, quizzical expression.

“Yes, must! It is too precious… and it is Krasnegar’s only hope for survival. You know that.”

“It would also be her greatest danger.”

“Yes, that is true,” the stranger admitted. “But the advantages of having it outweigh the disadvantages, do they not?” His voice became diffident, almost pleading. “You know that! You… you could not trust me with it? If I promised that later I would tell her?”

She heard her father’s dry chuckle. He had come closer. She must be prepared to run.

“No, Sagorn. For her sake. I trust you, friend, but not… certain others.”

The other man sighed. “No, certainly not Darad. Never trust him. Or Andor.”

“You keep them away, both of them!” That was a royal command.

“Yes, I will. And so will Jalon.”

The stranger’s voice was suddenly very close. Inos wheeled around and started down the stairs as fast as she could safely and silently go. Jalon? The minstrel? She was sure that was the name she had just heard. What had he to do with this? And who was this Sagorn?

Then—-

Dust! With horror she saw her own footsteps below her, mingled with those of her father and his visitor, giveaway marks on the deposits of years. Coming up, she had not noticed them, but going down they were obvious, even in the dim glow coming through the grimy panes. Panic! They would know that she, or at least someone, had been listening.

At the bottom she stumbled against the heavy door and the rusted old hinges creaked horribly. She squeezed through the opening, dashed across her father’s bedroom, and was plunging down the next stairs when she heard a shout behind her and then a clatter of boots.

It was a race, then. She must escape from the tower and, certainly, she must hide her precious packet of silk until the storm blew itself out.

She reached the dressing room, skidded on a rug in the middle of it, regained her balance, dashed down the next flight, and burst into the withdrawing room, into an astonished collection of six matronly ladies just sitting down to Aunt Kade’s midmorning salon.

For a long moment Inos wavered on one foot, with the other still in the air and arms spread like a cormorant. She stared her horror back at their surprise, poised on the verge of sprinting through their midst and out the door on the far side. She was very tempted—at least she would be able to dispose of the silk—but the way was cluttered by all those ladies on the edges of their gilt and rosewood chairs, by Kel the footman with a serving trolley laden with Aunt Kade’s finest china and her magnificent, enormous, silver tea urn giving out its usual disgusting odor of burning whale oil… And then Aunt Kade had risen, and all the others did so also, and it was too late.

Aunt Kade’s plump face was turning pink and assuming that fretted look that Inos so often provoked these days. Whether to welcome or scold… She was probably also chewing over problems of protocol and the dowdy brown worsted. Then she made her decision.

She beamed. “Inosolan, my dear! How nice that you can join us! May I present these ladies? Mistress Jiolinsod, Mistress Ofazi…”

Feeling as if her head had come off and floated out through a window, Inos forced a smile on a face not there. Tucking the silk behind her in her left hand, she offered her right to each of the simpering matrons. To be invited to one of Princess Kadolan’s tea parties in the palace was a screaming social success, and to meet Princess Inosolan as well was probably a stupid honor.

Especially, she realized, when the princess was wearing her dowdy brown worsted, regally emblazoned—at least on the right sleeve—with silver cobwebs. Oh, horrors! There were probably cobwebs on her hair and face, also, while the society ladies were all dressed in their best gowns and bonnets, and loaded with every piece of jewelry they owned or, likely, had been able to borrow.

Boots on the stairs! With a wail, Inos jumped loose from the fourth introduction and started backing away from the door.

Her aunt spluttered at such gaucherie. “Inos!”

And then the door flew wide and a man appeared in the doorway—an elderly man, tall and stooped. He folded his arms and straightened, and his gaze swept the room. Inos had never seen him before, she was certain, yet he had known what she looked like. He had a gaunt face, with a hooked nose like an eagle’s beak and fierce blue eyes. Deep clefts ran down at the sides of his mouth, emphasizing the nose and the strong chin. Wisps of white hair showed under the brown hood of his cloak. His gown bore traces of cobwebs.

“Doctor Sagorn!” Aunt Kade exclaimed in delight. “How nice that you are able to join us! May I…” Her voice tailed away as she saw how the newcomer was staring ferociously at her niece, as that niece continued to edge backward.

Inos was fighting a spring tide of panic, drowning in rising terror before that deadly glare. Her hips touched the trolley and she could back away no farther. Where was her father? Why had he not come, also?

And how in the world had this sinister old man come down the stairs so quickly? He must have outrun her and her father both, yet he was not even panting. She was.

“Inosolan?” Aunt Kade sounded vexed. “What are you holding behind your back, dear?”

Her mouth opened and nothing came out.

“Silk!” said the terrifying Sagorn. “Silk with yellow dragons on it.”

A sorcerer!

Inos screamed in terror and turned to flee.

The trolley crashed over, spilling cakes and wine in all directions.

Aunt Kade’s special and enormous silver tea urn seemed to shake the castle as it struck the floor with a deafening boom. Tea exploded over half the ladies.

Staggering, Inos trod a creamy chocolate flan into the rug and almost fell. Then she hurtled out and down the stairs, leaving Aunt Kade’s midmorning salon in ruins and confusion.

4

Whimpering in her panic, Inos fled down all the rest of the staircases; raced in turn across antechamber, robing room, presence chamber, and throne room; burst out into the great hall; and there alarmed a group of small children being fed an early lunch. Out on the terrace she ran, not at all sure where she was going. Startled pigeons and seagulls clawed their way skyward, while the yellow cat that had been stalking them flew over a wall. She rounded a corner and saw ahead of her the open doorway of the palace chapel. She dived through it, seeking refuge in religion. Surely she would be safe from a sorcerer in the house of the Gods?

She skidded to a halt in the cool dark interior, panting and deafened by the thunder of her heart, which seemed to be beating inside her head. The chapel was a small building, with room for only twenty or thirty people on its ancient pinewood pews. Its walls were immensely thick and it was said to be even older than the rest of the castle. At one end stood the offering table, before the two sacred windows, one bright, the other black and opaque, and on the table stood the sacred balance, its pans of gold and lead symbolizing the battle between good and evil. The air was clammy and musty.

She hurried forward to the table and was about to drop to her knees when a dry voice spoke behind her.

“Well!” it said. “Do we have a sudden repentance?”

Inos uttered a shrill squeak and jumped.

Arms folded, Mother Unonini was sitting stiffly erect on the front pew. The palace chaplain was a dark, grim woman, who seemed very tall when seated. With swarthy face, black hair, and black robe, she was indistinct in the gloom, except for a clear glint of satisfaction shining in her eyes. “To what do the Gods owe the pleasure of this visit, my dear?”

“There is a sorcerer in the palace!”

“A sorcerer? How unusual!”

“Truly!”

“Come and sit by me, then, and explain,” the chaplain said. “We can’t have you spouting random prayers in your condition—you might summon all the wrong sort of Gods. Long meditation and right thinking are essential prerequisites for prayer.”

Still trembling, the reluctant Inos went and sat beside her. Her head was immediately lower than Mother Unonini’s, but at least Inos’s feet still touched the floor. The chaplain had never forgiven Inos for imitating her waddling gait during the last Winterfest party, even though the king had made his errant daughter apologize in public afterward. Inos’s attendance record at church school was not going to help much, either.

“What is that you have in your hand? Let me see.” Unonini took the silk and unfolded some of it and held it down for the light to shine on. “Well! You were bringing this as an offering, perhaps?”

“Er… no.”

“The table could certainly do with a new cloth. This is very nice. Where did you get it?”

“It’s my birthday gift from Father . .”Inos trailed off weakly.

“Does he know that?”

“Well… I mean, not yet.” Inos twisted round to make sure that the sorcerer was not standing in the doorway. She felt trapped now, snared in this dark little room with the unfriendly Mother Unonini, and a sorcerer possibly lurking outside.

“Perhaps you had better begin at the beginning.”

Inos hung her head and began at the beginning. Her breath was returning and her heart slowing down. Little as she cared for Mother Unonini—who bore a strong smell of fish that day—at least a chaplain ought to know what to do if that terrifying Sorcerer Sagorn came after her. When she had finished, there was a pause.

“I see.” Mother Unonini sounded as if she had been impressed in spite of herself. “Well, let us hear your interpretation of these strange events.”

“What?”

“Don’t say what like that. It is not ladylike. You know what I mean. All things and acts contain both the Good and the Evil, child. We must try to be on the right side in their eternal conflict. It is our duty always to choose the Good, or at least the better. Let us begin with the sorcerer, if that is what he is. Is he evil or is he good?”

“I… I don’t know. If he is a friend of Father’s… Perhaps he murdered Father?”

“I hardly think so. Don’t jump to conclusions! His Majesty probably stayed behind to close the door again. He certainly would not want unauthorized prowlers up in Inisso’s chamber.”

“You knew about that room?”

“Certainly!”

“You’ve seen it?”

“No,” Unonini admitted, with a hint of annoyance. “But I could guess that it would be there. Inisso was a great sorcerer—a good one, of course—and so he would have had a place of puissance at the top of his tower. There may be all sorts of arcane things still up there, things that do not concern prying young ladies.”

Inos decided that the old witch was probably right. She had not been choosing the Good when she went snooping, nor when she listened to the conversation. So perhaps she had been on the wrong side of the eternal conflict. In that case, the sorcerer might be a good sorcerer, and his anger had been directed against the wickedness in her. It was very upsetting to think that she might be on the side of the Evil, and she suddenly wanted to weep. Preferably on someone’s shoulder, but certainly not on Madame Unonini’s.

“This silk, now,” Mother Unonini remarked. “Let us talk about that. Tell me what good and evil lie in this silk.”

Suppressing a snivel, Inos said, “I should not have taken it until I could pay for it.”

“That is correct, child. Go on.”

“Or at least until Father agreed to buy it for me.”

“Very good! So what must you do now?”

“Take it back?” Inos wondered if this was how a breaking heart felt.

“Oh, I think it is too late for that.” Mother Unonini sighed a heavy waft of cod. She wiggled her dangling feet. “Mistress Meolorne may have already made arrangements to spend the money you promised her.”

Hope flared in Inos like the brightness of the window. “I can keep it?” Then she saw the look in Mother Unonini’s eye and the brightness of the Good turned to the darkness of the Evil. “No?”

“We must not seek to profit from malefaction, Inosolan. Is this not correct?”

Inos nodded.

“So, what must you do?”

Inos tried to think of the appropriate text. “Find the greatest good?”

The older woman nodded with satisfaction. “Now, as I said, the offering table could do with a new cover—”

“Don’t bully the child!” said a voice with the brazen authority of a trumpet fanfare.

In front of the offering table stood a God, a figure so brilliant as to be unbearable to look on, although it shed no light on the rest of the room.

With simultaneous gasps, Inos and Mother Unonini fell to their knees and bowed their heads to the floor.

Perhaps Sagorn was a sorcerer, Inos thought, or perhaps not; but this was certainly a real God. All her terror came pouring back tenfold and she wished she could melt into the ground.

“Unonini,” said that terrible voice—somehow it sounded like thunder and yet it was not loud and it did not echo, “what do you know about this man Sagorn?”

Mother Unonini made a sort of croaking noise and then whispered, “His Majesty told me that he was coming. That he is a great scholar…” She paused.

“Go on!”

“That he was an old friend of his Majesty’s. They traveled together in their youth.”

There was a tense silence. That dark and icy chapel should be hot and brilliant from the divine fire, but it was not. The flags were cold and gritty under Inos’s knees. They smelled of dust.

“So?” the God asked in a voice that Inos thought would not be heard outside the door and yet could have laid low the hills.

With obvious reluctance, Mother Unonini said, “So I do not think he is evil, or a sorcerer. I… I should have told her that, to reassure her.”

“Yes, you should!”

Inos had covered her face with her hands. Now she opened her fingers just a tiny bit and peered through them. She could see the God’s toes. They blazed so brightly that her eyes hurt, yet the floor beside them was still dark. Greatly daring, she sneaked a glance upward at the glory of the God.

He… it… she… No, They, she remembered. Gods were always “They.” They were a female figure, or so it seemed. They seemed to be without clothes, but she felt no shock or shame as she would have done if they had been really naked. For one thing, her eyes were watering so much that she could not see them properly. For another, there was a white rainbow glow about them, a radiant nimbus that flowed incessantly, a surging tide of iridescence. Within it she seemed to catch glimpses of a female body of incredible beauty and grace, radiating also compassion and affection—

Then suddenly it had a maleness of strength and power, and a terrifying anger that made her very glad she was not Mother Unonini. Inos could feel the chaplain trembling at her side as that divine wrath washed over her.

Her eyes ached so much that she closed them quickly and bent her head again. It had been like trying to see the rocks in a tidal pool when the sun was shining on the ripples, but these ripples were waves of beauty and strength and maleness and femininity and love and splendor—and now anger. Yet in that glimpse of unbearable blazing glory, she had the strange feeling that she had seen familiarity. Her mother, perhaps? Could that have been her mother’s face in their coldly burning radiance? She did not feel quite so fearful, then. Probably the God was well meaning and just could not help looking so awesome.

“Unonini,” the voice rumbled, and somehow it was now male, also, although the pitch did not seem to have changed, “what is wrong with the cloth on this table?”

The chaplain whimpered. “Nothing, God.”

“So where is the Good and where is the Evil in frightening the girl into making an offering of something she does not own and does not want to offer?”

The chaplain wailed louder. “God, I was wrong! It was more an Evil than a Good.”

“You are sure? Gods can mislead, also, remember!”

“I am sure, God. I was being spiteful.”

“Very well,” They said, more gently. “Repent!”

The waves of anger faded, to be replaced by something which so wrenched Inos’s heart that she wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. After a moment’s silence, the cowering Unonini began to make very curious noises that Inos eventually decided were sobs.

Then the God spoke again, and this time the voice had returned to being softer, feminine. “Inosolan?”

Now it was her turn and she had been on the side of the Evil. “Yes, God?” she whispered.

“You will have to try a little harder, won’t you?”

Inos heard teeth chattering and realized they were hers. “I shall return the silk, God.”

“No need for that.”

She looked up in astonishment and had to close her eyes at once against the sudden agony, “You mean Father will buy it for me?”

The God laughed. It was simultaneously a quiet chuckle and an awe-inspiring explosion of vast, immortal enjoyment. It should have been deafening and it should have echoed around and around the tiny chapel, but it did neither. “That and many others; We do not say that you deserve this. We are only making a prophecy. There are hard times ahead for you, Inosolan, but you may find a happy ending if you choose the Good.”

She said, “What must I do, God?” and was astounded to realize that she was questioning them.

“Seek to find the Good,” They said, “and above all, remember love! If you do not trust in love, then all will be lost.”

And they had gone. Without waiting for a reply or thanks, without demanding praise or prayers, neither worship nor ritual, the God had vanished.

5

Mother Unonini had uttered a great wail and prostrated herself completely.

Inos considered that procedure for a moment and then decided that it was not called for. Nor did the chaplain seem to want to continue their earlier conversation. Come to think of it, old fishy-breath Unonini had been most divinely snubbed and put down. The God had made their appearance to save Inos from Mother Unonini’s spite.

Feeling very calm and pleased now, Inos rose and walked out of the chapel, blinking at bright sunshine that was nothing compared to the brightness of a God. She had seen a God! Most people lived all their lives without such an honor. What a pity she had been wearing her dowdy brown worsted, she thought, and then scolded herself for such improper vanity.

Nevertheless, she decided to go back to her room and change. Once she was looking a little more regal and princessy she would see what she could do to patch things up with Aunt Kade and the man who was obviously not a sorcerer. And she must show Father the silk that he was going to buy for her. That and many others, the God had said? Most curious!

She had seen a God! It would be a topic of general interest at dinner.

She headed toward her chamber, walking with her head very high, feeling elevated. Yes, elevated! It was as if she weighed nothing at all and had to reach her toes down to touch the ground as she walked. If she passed anyone on the way, she did not notice. She came to the stairs and began to float up them…

But by the time she struggled to the top, her mood had changed totally and she seemed to weigh as much as the whole castle. She dragged her reluctant carcass up the last few steps and could hardly find the strength to open the door. She staggered in and the first thing she saw was herself, in the mirror, her hair still all smeared with cobwebs and her face as white as a seagull, with a seagull’s round, bright eyes.

And behind her reflection, her father was sitting on her bed, waiting for her. She saw an expression of impatience change instantly to alarm. He jumped up and held out his arms and then he was hugging her tight and holding her head as she buried her face in his soft velvet collar and began to sob.

Still holding her tight, he sat her down beside him on the bed and held her for a long time as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

And sobbed.

At last she was able to find one of her mother’s linen handkerchiefs and wipe her aching eyes and blow her nose and even, somehow, manage a small smile. Her father regarded her with a worried frown. He was wearing a deep-blue robe and he looked very regal with his short brown beard—very comforting and reassuring. A little tired, perhaps. His velvet collar was stained with tears and cobwebs, and she dabbed at it with her handkerchief, feeling stupid now, and childish.

“Well!” he said. “You haven’t had a good cry like that in a long time, young lady. What provoked all that?”

Where to begin? “I thought he was a sorcerer!”

“Sagorn?” Her father smiled. “No! He’s a very learned man, but he’s not a sorcerer. I don’t think it would be possible to eavesdrop on a sorcerer, my princess.” Then the smile faded. “He’s also a very private man, Inos. He does not like to be spied on. How much did you hear?”

“You said you would not marry me off to Kalkor. Or Angilki.” She paused and thought carefully. “I didn’t understand the rest, Father. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” He laughed ruefully. “You realize that you almost burned down the castle?”

“No! How could I… Oh, no! The urn?”

“The urn,” he agreed. “That disgusting, smelly, hideous old thing that your aunt is so absurdly attached to. The oil went everywhere. Luckily young Kel was quick-witted enough to throw a rug over the flames… Well, don’t do it again! And that’s all? All that weeping because you thought you’d met a sorcerer?”

She wiped her eyes again and fought down an insane desire to laugh. “No. Then I met a God.”

“What? You’re serious?”

She nodded, and told him. He believed her, listening solemnly. Then he stared at the floor and tugged his beard for a while, looking worried.

“Well, I’m not surprised you were upset,” he said at last. “Meeting Gods must be a very scary experience. I fear it means trouble. We must discuss it with Sagorn. But I’m not sorry to hear about Mother Unonini, I must say.” He glanced sideways at her, his eyes twinkling. “I can’t stand the woman, either! But don’t tell anyone I said that!”

“You can’t?” She was astonished at both his words and his conspiratorial grin—not regal at all!

He shook his head. “It’s very hard to find a suitable, well-educated chaplain willing to live in a place like Krasnegar, Inos.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Krasnegar,” she protested.

He sighed. “Well, I agree with you. But many wouldn’t. Now, what was all this about silk?”

She jumped up and fetched the silk from where it lay beside the mirror. She shook it loose and draped it over her shoulder for him to see and, before he could speak, she hurriedly explained how the gold matched her hair and the bronze was just right for her skin and the green for her eyes. “I was hoping you would buy it for my birthday?” she finished hopefully.

He shook his head and motioned for her to sit again. She dropped the silk, feeling her spirits drop with it. As she sat, he lifted a small leather box from the bed beside him.

“I am giving you these for your birthday.” He opened the lid and she gasped.

“Mother’s jewels!”

“Yours, now.”

Pearls and rubies and emeralds! Gold and silver!

“They’re not a great fortune,” he said, “but they are all good pieces. Beauty, not riches. Some of them are very old. This belonged to Olliola, Inisso’s wife…”

She was overwhelmed, listening with open mouth as he told her the history of some of the jewels. Then she hugged him and wanted to start trying them on, but he closed the box.

“As for the silk . .”

Trouble! “Yes, Father?”

“Where did you ever find something like that?”

“Mistress Meolorne’s.”

“I might have guessed!” He smiled. “How much?”

“Well, more than I meant to pay, but—”

“You sound just like your mother,” he said. “How much?”

Inos bit her lip and whispered the terrible truth.

“What?” He stared at her. Then he quickly turned away, and after a moment she realized that he was laughing.

“Father!”

He looked around at her, and his laughter exploded aloud. He bellowed with laughter. “Oh, Inos, my pet! Oh, princess!” He laughed some more.

She felt hurt, and almost angry.

“Come!” he said at last, still fighting down amusement that she did not understand. “Come and meet Doctor Sagorn.”

Once it had been called the Queen’s Room, but now it was His Majesty’s Study. Inos had not been in it very much recently, although it was almost the only place in the castle that could ever be classed as cozy in the winter. She preferred now to seek warmth and friendship in the kitchens, mostly. The familiar chairs and sofa had not changed since her mother’s time, but they suddenly registered on her as the furniture in her father’s bedroom had done—old and shabby, and not regal. She was annoyed to see the long and bony form of Doctor Sagorn stretched out in her mother’s favorite chair.

He rose awkwardly and bowed to her, and she curtsied. She had insisted on changing and felt much better in her cypress-green wool. It was too warm for this weather, but it did have a hint of padding and it did make her look older.

Keeping her gaze firmly on the threadbare rug, she apologized.

He bowed again. “And my apologies to you, Highness, for frightening you.” She thought he could have put a little more conviction into the words. “Your father and I were perhaps a little too trusting in not locking the bedroom door.” The old blue eyes gleamed nastily. “We put too much faith in the aversion spell. It must be wearing thin, I suppose, after so many centuries.”

“Spell?” Inos echoed. “Sorcery?”

“Did you not feel it?”

“She thought you were a sorcerer,” her father remarked, smiling as if that were a big joke.

“Alas, no! I should hardly go around looking like this if I were a sorcerer, now would I?” Doctor Sagorn attempted to match her father’s smile, but his angular face looked even more predatory when he did that.

Inos could not think of a ladylike answer to that question, so she countered with one of her own. “How did you know about the silk and the dragons?”

“I saw you in the road! You were clutching it as if you thought all the Imperial armies would be trying to snatch it from you. You went by me at a tremendous rate.”

Her father chuckled and gestured for her to sit. “Like the time you befuddled the customs men in Jal Pusso, Sagorn?”

Sagorn guffawed and folded himself back into the chair. “More like you and the meat pies!”

Her father laughed in turn. Evidently these were old adventures that Inos would not be invited to share. Now he had produced a decanter of dwarfish-cut crystal that she had only seen once or twice before, and three of the precious matching goblets—three! To her astonishment she found herself sitting on the edge of the sofa and holding one of those goblets. Sagorn must have noticed her surprise, and her father had noticed that he had noticed.

“I think Inos has earned this,” he said. “Sip, my dear. It’s powerful.”

Sagorn sipped and sighed. “Superb! I would not have expected this in Krasnegar. Elvish, of course.”

The king smiled. “Valdoquiff itself. Kade brought a cask of it from Kinvale. I hoard it like a dwarf.”

He was answering a question that had not been asked. Obviously Sagorn and he knew each other well. Inos felt a little reassured, and sipped at her drink. She did not care for the taste—like drinking nettles, and the fumes burned the inside of her nose—but certainly it was an honor—and a sign of forgiveness? She felt very grown-up!

“Now, Inos,” her father said, settling back in his chair. “Tell Doctor Sagorn about the God.”

“God?” The eagle’s eyes flashed to her again.

Inos related her experience once more. When she was done, she thought she had managed to maintain a very matter-of-fact decorum. There was a long silence. Sagorn scratched at his cheek in deep thought. He emptied his goblet. Her father rose and refilled it.

“Had the God not come, Holindarn, what would you have done?”

She had never heard anyone except her mother and Kade call her father by name like that.

Her father shrugged at the question. “Given my daughter a hard scolding, sent Meo a couple of crowns, and dispatched Unonini out of here on the first boat.”

The old man nodded, then smiled mockingly. “The silk would have stayed in the chapel, then?”

“I do not steal from Gods!”

“Quite! The silk seems unimportant. If the Gods did not want this chaplain woman to return to the Impire, They could have found a simpler way to produce the effect, I should think.” Sagorn turned his calculating eyes on Inos again. “So the message to you seems to be the important part. But Gods do not meddle in trivial matters… Are you in love at the moment, young lady?”

Inos felt herself turn very pink. “No! Of course not!”

“Hardly!” her father protested mildly.

Sagorn sent him an odd glance. “So she is going to fall in love? She will have a choice to make? Highness, has your father ever explained the importance of Krasnegar?”

Inos shook her head dumbly.

“Well, Krasnegar is very unusual. You have jotnar here and you have imps. There are very few places in all Pandemia where that combination exists in peace. Did you ever hear of the Mad Sorcerer?”

She shook her head, surprised at the sudden shift in subject.

“It’s a name that was given to Inisso. Does it not seem strange that a man of such vast power would choose to build his tower in a barren, isolated spot like Krasnegar? But he was not so crazy as he seemed, I think. This is a very strategic little town. It has the only good harbor in the north.”

Why was he telling her this? He seemed very solemn. Inos glanced at her father, and he frowned as if to tell her to listen carefully.

“Both Nordland and the Impire think they should own Krasnegar. Is that not so, Majesty?”

“It has always been so.”

“And it has always had a king, not a queen regnant!” Sagorn said triumphantly. “So you see, Highness, the thanes and the Impire will all take a great deal of interest in whomever you choose as husband. Yet they both need you.”

“Need me?” she asked. “Us?”

He nodded. “Need Krasnegar. There is much your father must teach you if you are to rule here after him. Salt, for instance. Even humble things like salt. The jotnar need salt to store their meat over the winter. Salt doesn’t sail well, so most of it comes overland from the south in the summer, to Krasnegar. Goblins and jotnar trade furs for it. The Impire wants furs. Things like that. The imperor would not like to see a jotunn king in Krasnegar. Nordland wouldn’t like you to marry an imp.”

“But they’ll both accept me as queen?” she protested, looking to her father. She had hardly ever thought about being queen. That would be after he died, and she was not going to think about that.

He nodded—a little doubtfully, she thought. “If you are old enough and strong enough, and if they approve of your choice of husband. Most husbands like to give the orders, you know.”

She snorted, not caring that snorting was not regal.

“Well, that doesn’t have to be for years yet, does it?”

For just a moment… Then he seemed to change his mind. “I certainly hope not. What I think my learned friend is saying, though, is that you may have to choose a husband quite soon—in a year or two, even. And your decision will be important to very many people. The God was telling you to remember love when you decide—a divine hint. Right, Sagorn?”

Inos spoke first, suddenly seized by a horrible doubt. “You’re not going to marry me off to some horrible old duke, are you, Father?”

Her father laughed. “Not unless you want me to. No, Nordland would not stand for it, anyway. That’s what I mean—your decision might start a war, Inos!”

She gasped at such a horrible idea, and swallowed the last of whatever it was in her glass. It made her cough. If enjoying this vile stuff was a requirement for adulthood, then she had farther to go than she had thought.

Her father rose. “I’ll send for some lunch, Sagorn, unless you’d prefer the hall?”

It was a hint of dismissal for Inos, and Inos had still not settled the terrible matter of the silk.

“No. A snack here would be fine,” the old man said, with a strange smile at her father. “As you know, Sire, I am not much of a party man.”

“Tonight, perhaps, though? I understand that we have a very fine minstrel visiting us. Kade is organizing something.”

Inos was being edged to the door. “Father? The silk?”

He looked surprised, then laughed loudly again. “Three and a half imperials, you said?”

She nodded miserably, and he laid heavy hands on her shoulders. “Inos, darling, that much would buy Meo’s whole stock!”

“Meo?”

He smiled and, perhaps, blushed a little. “Meo and I are very old friends. You used to play with the servants' children when you were little; so did I. I’ve known Meo all my life. I even thought I was in love with her once. Who went with you this morning?” he added, suddenly suspicious.

She confessed—no one.

He sighed and patted her shoulder. “This has to stop, Inos! You’re growing up. You’re not a child anymore. You can’t run around by yourself. Nor with stableboys and scullery maids—clambering after bird’s eggs, digging clams… I’ve been neglecting you.” He chuckled. “Perhaps Meo thinks I have been neglecting her—I haven’t seen her in years. Or else she was sending me a message.”

“Message?”

He nodded. “A message that my beautiful daughter should not be wandering the town by herself. No, Meo doesn’t expect three and a half gold imperials!”

That was better. Much better.

Her father chuckled. “I’m very tempted to send the guard down to arrest her for extortion and then sentence her to stay to dinner, but her neighbors would gossip. Did she have any other quality stuff?”

With sudden excitement, Inos remembered what the God had said. “Only one other silk, Father. It had flowering trees on it. Apples, she said. Do apples really grow from flowers? But she has a drooly turquoise satin and three soft linens and a roll of silver mohair—-”

He laughed. “I was going to send you out with your aunt this afternoon, but perhaps I’ll come as well. If Doctor Sagorn will excuse me for a little while, I shall visit my old friend Meo. She’s a widow now. I expect she’s lonely. But you can have all of those, and more besides—all the fine dresses and gowns we can make or find for you.”

“Father! You mean it? But—but why?”

He smiled sadly. “I wasn’t going to tell you yet, but I suppose I must. Because you have to leave Krasnegar.”

6

Jalon’s voice floated through the great hall like flower petals. Inos felt shivery listening to it. She thought of the glory of the God she had seen that morning; she thought of moonlight on snow, of the string of pearls she was wearing, and of white gulls against blue sky. Great beauty always made her shivery and she had never known such singing. Any other minstrel she had ever heard was a honking goose compared to this Jalon. The hall was full of people, yet there was no sound except the tremulous throb of the harp and a gloriously clear tenor voice floating under the high rafters.

Flower petals!

Inos was sitting with her father and his guests at the high table, on the dais at one end of the great hall. More townsfolk and the senior castle staff flanked tables along both sides. At the far end the lesser folk sat on the floor in front of the big fireplaces. The stones above them were black with the grease and smoke of centuries, and the high rafters overhead were black, also. Many a winter’s day she had shivered at this table, staring wistfully along the length of the hall to the leaping flames hissing and spluttering as grease dripped into them from the creaking spits, a princess envying servants. But today the hearths were dark and bare and the hall was hot, not cold. The sun loved Krasnegar in summer and would not leave it. Men fell down from exhaustion before the sun did, and after an hour or so it came smiling back, ready for another endless day. So the sun was still shining in the windows, laying sparkling bridges of light across the room in the floating dust.

It was warm up there at the high table with her father and Aunt Kade and all the distinguished guests who had been rounded up from the town at very short notice to hear this minstrel… and perhaps to say good-bye to Princess Inosolan? No, never mind that.

Aunt Kade had dug out her ancient lapis lazuli velvet, which made her seem plumper and shorter than ever and was usually worn only at Winterfest. It was much too hot a garment for this weather and her face was pink and shiny as she smiled contentedly around at the guests. She’d had her hair blue-rinsed. Smiling at the thought of Kinvale? Not No! Think of that tomorrow.

Mistress Meolorne was there, beaming happily, perhaps musing on all the wonderful fabrics she had sold to the court that afternoon—and all of them for less than a single imperial, as the king had predicted. He and she had laughed together like old friends.

Her father did look tired, almost as if he were sitting in shadow when everyone around him was in sunshine.

There were merchants there, with their wives, and a few ship captains, and the bishop and the school teachers; old Kondoral, cupping his ear, tears running in his wrinkles; Chancellor Yaltauri; and Master Poraganu. There were few of the castle staff, for so many were away in the hills, and especially not many young folk, but she could see Lin, who had broken his arm cutting peat of all things—how could he have managed that?—and Kel and Ido and Fan…

And Rap of course.

They were all sitting on the floor at the far end, near the great fireplace—small, wide-eyed children at the front, cross-legged or hugging knees, entranced by the music; the junior staff like Rap gathered behind him. As always, the palace dogs had clustered as close to Rap as they could get.

Before the children, flanked by the lesser tables, the center of the hall was empty except for one chair, and, on that chair the minstrel sat and pleated moonbeams.

Mother Unonini was not there. Mother Unonini was under the care of the physicians, resting in a dark room on a light diet, and Inos could not help but think that there was a small good in that evil, and the thought made her feel guilty,

The fearsome Doctor Sagorn was not there, either—another small good. Even if he was an old friend of her father’s, his glittery eagle gaze and beak nose still frightened her, and she was quite happy that he had pleaded travel weariness to excuse his absence.

Jalon’s song ended and the hall exploded with applause—clapping and cheering and drumming of heels on the stones. The minstrel rose and bowed to the king and then to the rest of the company, and then he came back up to his seat at the high table.

“Your throat must be dry, minstrel?” her father said.

“A little, Sire. And the audience could use a rest, also.”

“That I do not believe. Steward!”

Jalon gratefully accepted a new tankard and said something about fine northern beer before quaffing it. All around the hall conversations began to poke up like spring flowers through snow, as the spell he had painted faded away.

“The imperor has appointed a new marshal of the armies, minstrel?” demanded one of the pompous burghers.

Jalon smiled vaguely. “The old one died, didn’t he?”

The burgher made an impatient noise. “But the new one? Is he warlike?” Inos could not recall that burgher’s name. He looked like a rooster, with red wattles and hair that stuck up. He had perhaps drunk a little too much of the fine northern beer.

“I expect so,” Jalon said. “They usually are, aren’t they?”

“And the witch of the west is dead?” another asked.

The minstrel looked blank and then said, “Yes,” uncertainly.

“This dwarf who’s replaced her—what do you know of him?”

“Er… nothing? Yes, nothing.”

One of the stately matrons frowned at him severely. “Then the Four now consist of three warlocks and only one witch, isn’t that so? Only one of the wardens is a woman, Bright Water.”

Jalon looked even more blank. “Her Omnipotence Umthrum? She’s a woman, isn’t she?”

There was a long, puzzled pause, and then a little, ferrety sailor said, “She died years ago. Before I was born.”

The minstrel sighed. “I’m afraid politics is not a great interest of mine, master.”

Jalon had come from Hub itself, capital of the Impire. The honored guests, eager for news and gossip, had been firing questions at him all evening, but he never seemed to have answers. He was a very sweet young man, Inos thought, but as insubstantial as a morning mist. She wondered how he ever found his way from castle to castle or town to town; he was probably always fro-ing when he should be to-ing, she thought, and chuckled to herself, with a glance in the direction of Rap.

“We have heard rumors of much dragon damage in the southern provinces,” another burgher proclaimed, meaning it as a question to Jalon. “On Kith, especially.”

“Oh?” the minstrel said. “I’m afraid I must have missed that.” The worthies of Krasnegar exchanged glances of exasperation.

“What sort of gowns are the ladies wearing in the Impire these days, Master Jalon?” That was Aunt Kade, who must be worrying about all those fabrics and how many of them she could purloin for her own use and where she would find enough seamstresses to sew them all in the few days before departure.

“Very high waists,” Jalon said firmly. “Flowing out like trumpets at the floor, with fairly short trains. Puffed at the shoulders, sleeves tight at the top, flaring at the wrist. Lace cuffs. Necklines are high, with lace trim, also. Floral prints are very popular, in cottons or silk.”

The table reacted with stunned silence to this unexpected note of authority. Inos noticed that her father was grinning.

“Master Jalon is a fine artist, also,” the king remarked. “Would there possibly be time for you to paint my daughter’s portrait before you leave, Jalon?”

Jalon studied Inos for a moment. “Had I a lifetime to spend I could hardly do justice to such beauty, Sire.”

Inos felt herself blush and everyone else laughed. They did not have to laugh quite so hard, she thought.

The minstrel turned back to the king. “If I can lay my hands on materials, Sire… they might not be readily available here. But a drawing, certainly. It would be a labor of love.”

“Could you sketch us some of these gowns you have just described, Master Jalon?” Aunt Kade inquired, blinking eagerly.

“Of course, Highness.”

Aunt Kade beamed with evident relief and turned to Mistress Meolorne to ask her opinions on seamstresses.

Inos looked longingly at the young folk beyond the tables. They were chattering and laughing, Rap telling a story, Lin topping it. What use was it to be a princess if you could not do as you pleased? Why did she have to be trapped up here with all these stuffy old folks? Quietly she eased her chair back.

Aunt Kade’s head flicked round. “Inos?”

“I thought I might—”

“Let her,” the king said softly. He did not say “It is the last time,” but she thought that he was thinking it.

Gratefully Inos rose, smiled a politeness around the guests, and muttered something inaudible. Then she hurried across the so-empty center of the hall to the group on the floor. The young ones saw her coming and started to open a path for her, and they cleared an opening all the way to Lin and Rap. Rap shoved at a couple of dogs, and Lin heaved himself aside one-armed. Now why did they all assume she would want to sit just there?.

But she did.

As she settled down, he turned to look at her and his big gray eyes grew even bigger at the sight of the pearls.

They smiled doubtfully at each other.

“How was the man-at-armsing?” she whispered. .

He grinned sheepishly. “Boring!”

She smiled. Good! In that case… “I’m sorry I was nasty to you, Rap.”

He turned a little pink, looked down at his knees, and said, “Then we can still be fiends?”

They sniggered in unison.

She put her hand on the floor, next to his.

His hand slipped over hers.

No one would notice.

He had big, strong hands, warm and calloused. Man’s hands.

Yes, he was taller. It had not been the boots, and his worn old doublet was tight across the shoulders. A friendly smell of horses always hung around Rap.

Running about with stableboys, her father had said…

“Rap, I’m going away!”

She had not meant to mention that problem. He looked at her with surprise all over his plain pudding face, though it was a lot less pudding than it used to be.

“South,” she said quickly. “To Kinvale. To learn how to be a lady. With Aunt Kade. On the next ship.”

Inos bit her lip and stared at the distant high table. The hall had gone rather misty.

His hand tightened on hers. “How long?”

“A year.” Inos took a deep breath and made a big effort to be regal. “You see, the duke is a sort of relative—Duke Angilki of Kinvale. Aunt Kade was married to his uncle. And my great-grandfather’s sister was his… Oh, I forget. Inisso had three sons. One became king here after him, one went south and became duke of Kinvale, and one went to Nordland. Kalkor, the thane of Gark, is descended from him. But it’s much more complicated…”

She stopped, because Rap would not be interested, and it was not very nice to talk of all those ancestors when he did not have any. Well; none that he knew of, she decided. He must have had just as many as she had, only not of noble blood. Her father said that the branches of her family tree were all knotted. There were not many noble families in the north country, so they tended to intermarry every few generations, as soon as it was decent.

Inisso had had three sons. Apparently that was important.

“When you are queen of Krasnegar, then I shall be your sergeant-at-arms,” Rap said.

Oh, Rap!

“I would rather have you as master-of-horse, I think.”

“Sergeant-at-arms!” he insisted.

“Master-of-horse!”

Pause. “Both!” they said together, and laughed together.

Apparently Jalon was not going to start singing again just yet.

For a few minutes nothing more was said, and Inos realized she was sitting smiling like a dummy at Rap, and he was smiling just as stupidly back at her. Why should she be smiling at a time like this?

Go away? To-horrible Kinvale? What good was it to be a princess if you had to do things like that? And creepy old Sagorn had hinted that she might start a war if she ever fell in love with a man…

“I saw a God today.”

She had not meant to mention that, either. In fact she had promised her father that she would not.

But Rap’s solemn gray eyes were waiting for her to explain. So she did. And she told him about Doctor Sagorn and the silk and everything that had happened. She was not sure why she did, but she felt better afterward. After all, Rap could be trusted not to blabber to others, and no one was more levelheaded than Rap.

He listened carefully and then ignored the God. “Who’s this Doctor Sagorn? Is he up there?”

“No,” she said. “He was tired by his journey. Not a party man.”

“Are you sure he isn’t a sorcerer?” He was being very serious.

“Oh, of course!” she said. The idea seemed so idiotic now—she had been a fool. “He’s an old friend of my father’s.”

“Who has not seen him in many years?”

“Yes, but…” she said. This was not like Rap at all! “And even the God had said…” No, They had not said; it had been Mother Unonini who had said that Sagorn was not a sorcerer. She fell silent, worried by the look on Rap’s face.

“Tell me again what he looks like.”

“Tall, gray-haired. Big hooked nose. Deep clefts down here. Rather pale face. I expect he doesn’t go out much.”

“What’s wrong, Rap?” Lin had appeared to be toying with the cast on his arm, but he had been listening nevertheless. Lin was purebred imp—short and dark and notably nosy. He had grown, also, Inos noted; but his voice was still treble. A late developer.

Rap was scowling. “Nobody like that came in today.”

Inos’s heart jumped a beat and then carried on as if nothing had happened.

“Don’t be silly!” she said. “You must have missed him. You couldn’t possibly have seen every single person who came through the gates.”

Rap said nothing, just scowled at the floor.

“Tell her, Rap!” Lin said.

“Tell me what, Rap?”

Rap stayed silent.

Lin said hotly, “Thosolin was a pig to him, Inos. He put him on guard and made him stand there all day in the sun. In armor! Didn’t even let him go for a pee. No lunch. He does that with beginners. Testing, he calls it, but he just likes to see them faint from too much standing.”

She squeezed Rap’s hand fiercely. “Is that true?”

He nodded. “But I didn’t faint.” He turned and looked hard at her. “And your Doctor Sagorn didn’t come in the gate.”

“Rap!” Inos squealed. That was absurd! “I expect he walked in beside a wagon. I went out that way.”

“I saw you,” Rap said, without smiling. “You walked right by me. But no wagons came in today.”

“He was following me up the hill, he said. And it wasn’t very long after that that I heard him talking to Father—less than an hour.”

“He did not come in the gate,” Rap said.

His big jaw looked as stubborn as the rock of Krasnegar itself.