“Think? I think I know nothing about the Fair Folk, Lord Steward. She has lost much blood.” The monk shook his head. “As have I! But she had lost far more before she came here, and she survived that.”

Her nakedness was disconcerting—in repose she looked much like an ordinary, slender young woman. Pasevalles was about to reach down and pull the coverlet up over her lower body when the Sitha-woman’s eyes fluttered open again. For a moment, they seemed to rove unfixed, then they narrowed. She tried to fling herself off the bed again, but was hindered by her bound ankles and only succeeded in bucking off Etan, who tumbled onto the floor on the far side of the bed and cracked his head against the stone flags so loudly that Pasevalles could hear it. Meanwhile, it was all Pasevalles could do to hold onto the curtain tie knotted around her wrists. She cried out in what he guessed was her Sithi tongue, but the stream of rapid, fluid sound meant nothing to him.

“Lady!” he cried again, as Etan slowly crawled back onto the bed, a red lump already showing itself above his eye, “Lady, stop! We will not hurt you! You have been wounded, and you must not fight us!”

It took a moment, but he saw something like understanding pass over her, and her features softened, but she still fought against the restraints.

“Where . . . where are they?” she said in perfectly understandable Westerling. “Where are my things?”

“Things? Lady, stop fighting, we mean you nothing ill. Do you mean your saddle bags? We brought them with you. Here! Brother Etan, they are in the corner. Bring them to her!”

The monk half ran, half stumbled to the corner, holding his head as though it might come off if he let go. He found the white leather bags and carried them to her. She snatched them away and began to paw through them despite her wrists being tied together. Pasevalles had gone through the bags himself when she had first been brought here, and knew that other than a few small tools, a roll of very strong twine wound from fine hairs, and a carved wooden bowl, they did not contain much. He also could not avoid the sight of her nakedness without looking away altogether, and although Brother Etan had done just that, Pasevalles felt a kind of fascination.

The Sitha was slender, long-backed and narrow-hipped, but firm muscles moved beneath her smooth, evenly golden skin, and Pasevalles knew as well as anyone could what strength was in them. Her tangled hair was silvery, wet with perspiration and blood. Her face, subtly different from a mortal’s, tilted oddly at cheek, forehead, and chin so that it seemed almost feline. She might have been some heathen goddess of the hunt, running unclothed beneath the moon at the front of a savage pack. Had she been a mortal woman, he would have guessed her to be less than two dozen summers old.

He was staring at her small breasts, Pasevalles realized. He felt a sudden clutch of confusion and looked away.

“It is not here!” the Sitha suddenly wailed. “Is this all you found? Where is Spidersilk? Have you seen him?” Some blood was dribbling anew from the wound in her chest, and Etan was trying to stanch it with a cloth.

“Spidersilk? Who is that? You were alone when we found you. We thought you dead,” said Pasevalles.

“My horse! Where is he?”

“We found no horse. The bags were hung willy-nilly, half-hidden in a bush. Doubtless the horse ran and they caught there.”

She swayed, then dropped the bags as suddenly as if they had caught fire. She looked at Pasevalles and her eyes again were unfixed and confused. He could see that she was now struggling to remain upright. “Was there . . . did . . . was there aught else?”

“No, my lady. But we will search again, if you tell me only what you have lost.”

She sank back onto the bed and drew one forearm over her eyes, as if she no longer wished to see what surrounded her. “No . . . I must go there . . .”

“You are in no fit shape for that.” Pasevalles waved to Etan to resume binding her wounds. He reached out himself and pulled the coverlet up from the floor and draped it across her lower limbs, then pulled it up to her collarbone, and felt a kind of relief when he had done so. Her damp skin seemed to glow like honey in the bright noon light that blazed through the uncurtained windows.

She said something in her own tongue that he could not understand; her voice had become heavy and slow as syrup. She opened her mouth to speak again, but instead her head rolled to one side and her eyes closed.

Pasevalles stared. “Is she . . .?”

“She still lives, God be praised,” said Etan. “But she has cruelly tired herself—and me, too, I must say, not to mention nearly breaking my skull. I will bind the wounds again.”

“When you’ve finished, I will watch her for a while in case she wakes,” Pasevalles says. “You must rest. But first, I will beg a favor of you. It is something I was to do myself, but I have not the heart.”

Brother Etan looked as though he would have preferred to be released without more duties, but he only nodded and, from somewhere in his deep weariness, pulled up a smile. “Of course, Lord Steward.”

The monk was a patient old soul in a young body. Pasevalles decided he would remember that. “You have my gratitude, Brother. You must go and wash yourself first, though—tend your wounds and put on something less blood-spattered, too. The lady to whom I am sending you, you will not have to fight with.” He laughed, despite his own great weariness. “Or at least, not the kind of fight we have just had. But she may be less than sweet when she finds I have sent you in my place.”

“As long as she keeps her nails to herself,” said Etan, “I will thank God and be content.” He began wearily gathering up his medicaments, which had been scattered widely about the chamber, but stopped to ask, “What of the Sitha lady’s possessions, from her saddle bag?”

“I will gather up those,” Pasevalles said. “You have done enough here, Brother.”

His knock echoed for a while. Brother Etan waited, then knocked again. At last, a pretty young woman opened the door.

“Her Highness is expecting you,” she said, but she looked as if he was anything but what had actually been expected.

Etan followed her in. The retiring room was handsomely appointed, draped from high ceilings to floor in tapestries depicting the famous tale of Sir Tallistro of Perdruin; it was many times the size of Etan’s own cell in the monk’s dormitory at St. Sutrin’s. Princess Idela sat in a tall chair beneath one of the windows with her sewing on her lap. The sun touched her red hair and made it seem almost a fiery halo.

“Your Highness,” Etan said, getting down on his knees and touching his shaved head nearly to the floor. “Your pardon, but Lord Pasevalles said that you sought advice on some books belonging to the late prince, your husband. I am Brother Etan.”

“Very kind of you, Brother. I know you—I have seen you about the palace.” But she did not look entirely pleased by the chance to meet him. “And how is our lord chancellor? Not ill, I trust?”

“No, Princess. Only weary from a long day’s labors and with still more duties before him. But he was anxious to send help to you as soon as possible, even if he could not come himself.”

“Lord Pasevalles is too kind.” Her tone suggested otherwise. “Will you have some wine, Brother?”

Etan hesitated. “Ordinarily I would thank you but decline, my lady. Today, I think, I will take up your kindly offer. The Lord will forgive me, I hope.”

She signaled to one of her ladies. “Then be seated, please.” As Etan turned to look for a suitable chair, the princess saw the raw, red marks on his cheek for the first time. “Merciful Elysia! Surely those are fresh wounds on your face! Are you badly hurt, Brother? What happened?”