i) A secret device, a secret admirer

Elana rose wondering if Bragi had reached Mocker's safely. How soon would he be home? The forest was a refuge for Itaskia's fugitives. Several bands roamed the North Road. Some had grievances with Bragi. He took his charter seriously, suppressed banditry with a heavy hand. Some would gladly take revenge.

She went to a clothing chest and took out an ebony casket the size of a loaf of bread. Some meticulous craftsman had spent months carving its intricate exterior. The work was so fine it would have eluded the eye but for the silver inlay. She did not know what the carving represented. Nothing within her experience, just whorls and swirls of black and silver which, if studied overlong, dazed the mind.

Her names, personal and family, were inset in the lid in cursive ivory letters. They were of no alphabet she knew. Mocker had guessed it to be Escalonian, the language of a land so far to the east it was just a rumor.

She didn't know its source, only that, a year ago, the Royal Courier, who carried diplomatic mail between Itaskia and Iwa Skolovda, had brought it up from the

' capital. He had gotten it from a friend who rode diplomatic post to Libiannin, and that man had received it from a merchant from Vorgreberg in the Lesser Kingdoms. The parcel had come thither with a caravan from the east. Included had been an unsigned letter explaining its purpose. She didn't know the hand. Nepanthe thought it was her brother Turran's.

Turran had tried Elana's virtue once. She had never told Bragi.

With a forefinger she traced the ivory letters. The top popped open. Within, on a pillow of cerulean silk, lay a huge ruby raindrop. Sometimes the jewel grew milky and light glowed within the cloudiness.

This happened when one of her family was in danger. The intensity of light indicated the peril's gravity. She checked the jewel often, especially when Bragi was away.

There was always a mote at the heart of the teardrop. Danger could not be eliminated from life. But today the cloudiness was growing.

"Bragi!" She grabbed clothes. Bandits? She would have to send someone to Mocker's. But wait. She had best post a guard all round. There had been no rumors, but trouble could come over the Silverbind as swiftly as a spring tornado. Or from Driscol Fens, or the west. Or it could be the tornado that had entered her thoughts. It was that time of year, and the jewel did not just indicate human dangers.

"Ragnar!" she shouted, "come here!" He would be up and into something. He was always the first one stirring.

"What, Ma?"

"Come here!" She dressed hurriedly.

"What?"

"Run down to the mill and tell Bevold I want him. And I mean run."

"Ah..."

"Do it!" He vanished. That tone brooked no defiance.

Bevold Lif was a Freylander. He was the Ragnarsons' foreman. He slept at the mill so he would waste no time trekking about the pastures. He was a fastidious, fussy little man, addicted to work. Though he had been one for years, he wasn't suited to be a soldier. He was a craftsman, a builder, a doer, and a master at it. What Bragi imagined, Bevold made reality. The tremendous development of the landgrant was as much his doing as Ragnarson's.

Elana didn't like Bevold. He presumed too much. But she acknowledged his usefulness. And appreciated his down-to-earth solidity.

Lif arrived just as she stepped from the house.

"Ma'am?"

"A minute, Bevold. Ragnar, start your chores."

"Aw, Ma, I..."

"Go."

He went. She permitted no disobedience. Bragi indulged the children to a fault.

"Bevold, there's trouble coming. Have the men arm themselves. Post the sentries. Send someone to Mocker's. The rest can work, but stay close to the house. Get the women and children here right away."

"Ma'am? You're sure?" Lif had pale thin lips that writhed like worms. "I planned to set the mill wheel this morning and open the flume after dinner."

"I'm sure, Bevold. Get ready. But don't start a panic."

"As you will." His tone implied that no emergency justified abandoning the work schedule. He wheeled his mount, cantered toward the mill.

As she watched him go, Elana listened. The birds were singing. She had heard that they fell silent when a tornado was coming. The cloud cover, just a few ragged galleons sweeping ponderously north, suggested no bad weather. Tornados came with grim black cumulo-nimbus dread­noughts that flailed about with sweeps of lightning.

She shook her head. Bevold was a good man, and loyal. Why couldn't she like him?

As she turned to the door, she glimpsed Ragnar's shaggy little head above a bush. Eavesdropping! He would get a paddling after he brought the eggs in.

ii) Homecoming of a friend

Elana sequestered herself with her teardrop the rest of the morning. She held several through-the-door conversa­tions with Bevold, the last of which, after she had ordered field rations for dinner, became heated. She won the argument, but knew he would complain to Bragi about the wasted workday.

The jewel grew milkier by the hour. And the men more lax.

In a choice between explaining or relying on authority, she felt compelled to choose the latter. Was that part of the jewel's magic? Or her own reluctance to tell Bragi about Turran's interest?

By midafternoon the milkiness had consumed the jewel's clarity. The light from within was intense. She checked the sky. Still only a scatter of clouds. She returned the casket to the clothing chest, went downstairs. Bevold clumped round the front yard, checking weapons for the twentieth time, growling.

"Bevold, it's almost time. Get ready."

Disbelief filled his expression, stance, and tone. "Yes, Ma'am."

"They'll come from the south." The glow of her jewel intensified when she turned the pointed end toward Itaskia.

"Send your main party that way. Down by the barrow."

"Really..."

What Lif meant to say she never learned. A warning wolfs howl came from the southern woods. Bevold's mouth opened and closed. He turned, mounted, shouted. "Let's go."

"Dahl Haas," Elana snapped at a fifteen-year-old who had insinuated himself into the ranks. "Get off that horse! You want to play soldier, take Ragnar and a bow up in the watchtower."

"But..."

"You want me to call your mother?"

"Oh, all right." Gerda Haas was a dragon.

Elana herded Dahl inside, stopped at the weapons rack while he selected a bow. The strongest he could draw was her own.

"Take it," she said. She took a rapier and dagger, weapons that had served her well. She had had a bit of success as an adventuress and hire-sword, herself. She added a light crossbow, returned to the horse left by Dahl.

She overtook the men at a barrow mound near the edge of the forest, not far from the head of a logging road which ran to the North Road.

In military matters Bevold was unimaginative. He and the others milled about, in the open, completely unready for action.

"Bevold!" she snapped, "Can't you take me seriously? What'll you do if fifty men come out of the woods?"

"Uh..."

"Get run over, that's what. Put a half dozen bowmen on the barrow. Where's Uthe Haas? You're in charge. The rest of you get behind the barrow, out of sight."

"Uh..." Bevold was getting red.

"Shut up!" She listened. From afar came the sound of hoofbeats. "Hear that? Let's move. Uthe. You. You. Up. And nobody shoots till I say. We don't know who's coming." She scrambled up the mound after Haas.

Lying in the grass, watching the road, she wondered what prehistoric people had built the barrows. They were scattered all along the Silverbind.

The hoofbeats drew closer. Why wasn't she back at the house? She wasn't young and stupid anymore. She should leave the killing and dying to those who thought it their birthright.