"Who do you think has the harder job?" Turgis whispered to Gerin: "Osnabroc or his girls?"

"I couldn't begin to tell you," the baron answered.

Turgis laughed and nodded. "It's the same with me. I couldn't begin to tell you, either."

Van, though, had no doubts: his eyes were only on the whirling girl. "Just think," he said, half to himself, "of all the ways you could do it with a lass so limber! She all but flies."

"Speak to me not of people flying!" Turgis said as the second girl slid down the pole to a thunderous ovation. She skipped off the stage, followed by her fellow acrobat and Osnabroc. He sagged now as he walked, and his forehead looked puffy.

Van tried to catch the eye of one of the girls, but with no apparent luck. Disappointed, he turned his attention back to Turgis. "What do you have against people flying?" he asked.

"Nothing against it, precisely. It does remind me of a strange story, though." He waited to be urged to go on. His companions quickly obliged him. He began, "You've told me much of the Trokmoi tonight; this story has a Trokmê in it too. He was drunk, as they often are, and since the place was crowded that night, he was sharing a table with a wizard. You know how some folk, when they go too deep into a bottle, like to sing or whatever. Well, this lad flapped his arms like he was trying to take off and fly. Finally he knocked a drink from the wizard's hand, which was the wrong thing to do.

"The wizard paid his scot and walked out, and I thought I'd been lucky enough to escape trouble. But next thing I knew, the northerner started flapping again, and—may my private parts shrivel if I lie—sure enough he took off and flew around the room like a drunken buzzard."

"A boozard, maybe," Gerin suggested.

"I hope not," Turgis said.

"What befell?" Elise asked.

"He did, lass, on his head. He was doing a fine job of flying, just like a bird, but the poor sot smashed against that candelabra you see up there and fell right into someone's soup. He earned himself a knot on the head as big as an egg and, I hope, enough sense not to make another wizard annoyed at him.

"This tale-telling gets to be thirsty work," Turgis added, calling for another bottle of wine. But when he opened it and began to pour, Elise put a hand over her glass. A few minutes later she rose. Pausing only to bestow a hurried but warm kiss on Gerin, she made her way to her room.

The three men sat, drank, and talked a bit longer. Turgis said, "Gerin, you're no fool like that Trokmê was. You're the last man I ever would have picked to make a sorcerer your mortal foe."

"It was his choosing, not mine!" The wine had risen to Gerin's head, adding vehemence to his words. "The gods decreed I am not to be a scholar, as I had dreamed. So be it. Most of my bitterness is gone. There's satisfaction in holding the border against the barbarians, and more in making my holding a better place for all to live, vassals and serfs alike. Much of what I learned here has uses in the north: we no longer have wells near the cesspits, for instance, and we grow beans to refresh the soil. And, though my vassals know it not, I've taught a few of the brighter peasants to read."

"What? You have?" Van stared at the Fox as if he'd never seen him before.

"Aye, and I'm not sorry, either." Gerin turned back to Turgis. "We've had no famines round Fox Keep, despite two bad winters, and no peasant revolts either. Wizard or no wizard, no skulking savage is going to ruin all I've worked so hard to kill. He may kill me—the way things look now, he likely will kill me—but Dyaus knows he'll never run me off!"

He slammed his glass to the table with such violence that it shattered and cut his hand. The pain abruptly sobered him. Startled by his outburst, his friends exclaimed in sympathy. He sat silent and somber, staring at the thin stream of blood that welled from between his clenched fingers.

VIII

After the Alley's hurley-burley, the calm, nearly trafficless lanes of the nobles' quarter came as a relief. Jouner had given the Fox careful directions on how to find Elise's uncle's home. For a miracle, they proved good as well as careful.

Valdabrun the Stout lived almost in the shadow of the Palace Imperial. Despite his closeness to the Empire's heart, the grounds of his home were less imposing than those of many nobles in less prestigious areas. No carefully trimmed topiaries adorned his lawns, no statuary group stood frozen in mid-cavort. Nor did the drive from the road wind and twist its way to his house under sweetly scented trees. It ran directly to his front door, straight as the Elabon Way. The dominant impression his grounds gave was one of discipline and strength.

The baron hitched the horses. Van gave both beasts feedbags, eluding a snap from the Shanda pony. He cuffed it, grumbling, "Poxy animal would sooner have my hand than its oats."

Valdabrun's door-knocker was a snarling bronze longtooth's head. Gerin grasped a fang, swung it up, then down. He had expected the knock to set off sorcerous chimes. Many southern nobles liked such conceits. But there was only the honest clang of metal on metal. After a stir inside, a retainer swung open the door. "Sirs, lady, how may I help you?" he asked crisply.

The man's speech and bearing impressed Gerin: he seemed more soldier than servitor. "Is your master in?" the Fox asked.

"Lord Valdabrun? No, but I expect him back shortly. Would you care to wait?"

"If you would be so kind."

"This way, then." Executing a smart about-turn, the steward led them to a rather bare antechamber. He briefly saw to their comfort, then said, "If you will excuse me, I have other duties to perform." He left through another door; Gerin heard him bar it after himself.

A woman's voice, low and throaty, came from behind the door. Gerin could not make out her words, but heard the steward reply, "I know not, lady Namarra. They did not state their business, nor did I inquire deeply."

"I will see them," the woman said.

The bar was lifted. Valdabrun's man announced, "Sirs, lady, my lord Valdabrun's, ah, companion, the lady Namarra," and went off.

As Namarra entered, Van sprang to his feet. Gerin was only a blink behind. No matter what he felt toward Elise, Valdabrun's companion was, quite simply, the most spectacular woman he had every seen: tiny, catlike, and exquisite. The clinging silk she wore accented her figure's lushness.

Her hair, worn short and straight, was the color of flame. Like a fire, it seemed to give out more light than fell on it. Yet for all that incandescent hair, she was no Trokmê woman; her face was soft, rounded, and small-featured, her skin golden brown. Her eyes, a slightly darker shade of gold, were subtly slanted but rounded as if in perpetual surprise; the strange combination, more than anything save perhaps her purring name, made Gerin think her feline. She wore no jewelry—she herself was ornament enough, and more.

She studied the Fox with some interest, Van with a good deal more, and Elise with the wary concern one gave any dangerous beast suddenly found in the parlor. Out of the corner of his eye, Gerin saw Elise returning that look. He felt a twinge of alarm.

Namarra swept out a lithe arm to point at the baron. "You are—?"

He introduced himself and Van, and was on the point of naming Elise when he was interrupted: "And your charming, ah, companion?" Namarra used the same deliberately ambiguous intonation the steward had applied to her.

Voice dangerously calm, Elise replied, "I am Elise, Ricolf's daughter." The Fox noticed she made no claim of relationship to Valdabrun.

The name of Elise's father meant nothing to Namarra. She turned back to Gerin. "May I ask your business with my lord?"

The baron was not sure how to reply. He had no idea how much of the noble's confidence and trust his woman enjoyed. He was framing an equivocal answer when a door slammed at the back of the house. Seconds later, the steward reappeared, to announce his master's presence.