"Father. My lord high cleric." She managed that much, then stopped.

Ceinion looked at her, stood quickly. Could be seen to make a decision of his own. "Prince Gareth, of a kindness will you have a servant bring the brown leather purse from my rooms? Your sister needs a remedy I can offer her."

"I'll get it myself," said Gareth, and hurried out the door. Ceinion spoke a quiet word. The three scribes stood up at their desks, bowed to the king, and went out past Kendra.

Her father was still here.

"My lady," said Ceinion, "is this more of that matter of which we spoke before?"

She hesitated, in pain, in something more than pain. They burned witches, for heresy. She looked at her father. And heard Ceinion of Llywerth say, gravely, changing the way of things one more time, "There is no transgression here. Your royal father also knows the world of which you speak."

Kendra's mouth fell open. Aeldred had also stood, looking from one to the other of them. He was pale, but thoughtful, calm. Kendra felt as if she were going to fall down.

"Child," said her father, "it is all right. Tell me what you are seeing from the half-world now."

She didn't fall. She was spared that shame. They helped her to a high stool where a cleric had been working. The manuscript in front of her on the tilted surface of the desk had a gloriously coloured initial capital, half a page in height: the letter «G» with a griffin arched along its curve. The word it began, Kendra saw, was Glory.

She said, as clearly, as carefully as she could, "They are through the spirit wood. Or the Cyngael prince, Alun ab Owyn, is. He's the one I can… see. There are blades drawn, there is fighting."

"Where?"

"I don't know."

"Athelbert?"

She shook her head. The movement hurt. "I don't… see him, but I never did. Only the Cyngael, and I don't know why."

"Why should we understand?" her father said after a moment, gentle as rain. He looked at Ceinion, and then back at her. "Child, forgive me. This comes to you from me, I believe. You have the gift or curse I carry, to see that which most of us are spared. Kendra, there is no sin or failing in you."

"Nor in you, then, my lord," said Ceinion firmly, "if that is true, and I believe it is. Nor need you punish yourself for it. There are purposes we do not understand, as you say. Good, and the will of the god, are served in different guises."

She saw her father look at the grey-haired cleric, in his pale yellow robe of the god. The brightness of the robe hurt her eyes. "They are fighting?" her father said, turning back to her. "Someone is. I see swords and… and another sword." "Close your eyes," said Ceinion. "You are loved here and will be guarded. Do not hide from what you are being given. I do not believe there is evil in it. Trust to Jad."

"To Jad? But how? How can I—"

"Trust. Do not hide."

His voice held the music of the Cyngael. Kendra closed her eyes. Dizziness, disorientation, unrelenting pain. Do not hide. She was trying not to. She saw the sword again, the one she'd asked the cleric about before, small, silver, shining in darkness, though there were no moons.

She saw green again, green, didn't understand, and then she remembered something, though she still did not understand.

Green was wrapped around this, as a forest wrapped a glade. She cried out then, real pain, grief, in a bright room in Esferth. And on a slope in Arberth above where two men were fighting to the death, someone heard her cry, in his mind, and saw what she saw, what she gave him, and knew more than she knew.

She heard him say her name, in fear, and wonder, then another name. And then, with exquisite courtesy, given what she'd just done to him and what he had understood from it, he paused long enough to offer clearly to her, mind to mind, across river and valley and forest, what she surely needed to be told, so far away.

Who can know, who can ever know for certain, how the instruments are chosen?

Kendra opened her eyes. Looked at her father's hand which was holding hers the way he hadn't done since she was small, and she gazed up at him, crying, first time that day, and said, "Athelbert is there. He came alive through the wood."

"Oh, Jad," said her father. "Oh, my children."

+

If you wanted to defeat a man like this you had a narrow path to tread (and you kept your feet moving). Brand Leofson wasn't going to fall to some reckless thrust or slash and he was too big to overpower. You needed enough time to mark him, discover inclinations, the way he responded to what you tried, how he initiated his own attacks, what he said. (Some men talked too much.) But the time passing cut both ways as it slashed by: the Jormsviking was fast, and younger than you were. You'd be lying to yourself, fatally, if you thought you could linger to sort things out, or wear him down.

You had to do your watching quickly, draw conclusions, if there were any to be drawn, set him up for whatever it was you found. Such as, for example, a habit—clearly never pointed out to him—of turning his head to the left before he slashed on the backhand, to let the good right eye follow his blade. And he liked to slash low, sea-raider's attack: a man with a wounded leg was out of a fight, you could move right past him.

So you knew two things, quite soon in fact, and if you wanted to defeat a man like this you had an idea what needed to be done. You were also, a quarter-century past your own best years, still more than good enough to do it.

And no lying to the self in that. Thorkell Einarson hadn't been prone to that vice for a long time. There was a hard expression on his face as he retreated again and read the backhand cut one more time. He blocked it, didn't let it seem too easy. Circled right around again, below and then back to level, denying the other man the upslope he wanted. Not hard, not really hard yet. Knew what he was doing still. Could be worn down, would grow tired, but not too soon if Leofson kept signalling half his blows like that. There was a sequence you could use when you knew the other man had committed to a backhand slash.

The light was really very bright, an element in this combat, the westering sun shining along their slope, striking the two of them, the trees, the grass, the watchers above and below. No clouds west, dark ones piled up east—and those, underlit, made the late-day sky seem even more intense. He'd known evenings like this among the Cyngael, perhaps more valued because of the rain and mist that usually wrapped these hills and silent valleys.

A land some men could grow accustomed to, but he didn't think he was the sort, unless in Llywerth by the sea. He needed the sea, always had; salt in the blood didn't leave you. He parried a downward blow (heavy, that one) then feinted a first low, forehand blow to see what Leofson would do. Overreacted—he would worry more on that side because of his eye. Hard on the hip, though, slashing that way. Ap Hywll's wife had named her husband's ailments. It might have been amusing, somewhere else. Thorkell's could have done the same with his. He briefly wondered where Frigga was now, how the two girls were faring, the grandsons he hadn't seen. Bern was here. His son was here.

It had been, thought Thorkell Einarson, a long-enough life.

Not without its share of rewards. Jad—or Ingavin and Thünir, whatever was waiting for him—hadn't been unkind to him. He wouldn't say it. You made your own fortune, and your own mistakes.

If you wanted to defeat a man like this… He smiled then, and began. It was time.

The raider facing him would remember that smile. Thorkell feinted again, as before, to draw the too-wide response. Followed, quickly, with a downward blow that Brand blocked, jarringly.