Still she'd present the idea, and see what the response was.

She wasn't good company for Ardain at supper. Being company for Ardain isn't your job, she reminded herself, then wondered what was. When they'd finished dessert and she still hadn't heard from Mariil, she decided to have a hot bath, and dismissed Ardain for the day. When she'd finished bathing, she dressed in her uniform again, and was sitting on her balcony appreciating the sunset, when someone rapped. The steward this time.

"Lady Varia," he said, "the Lady Mariil would be pleased to have your company in her suite. In twenty minutes, if that's suitable."

Why not now? she asked herself. As if I haven't waited long enough already. She shook the thought off irritatedly. Don't be petty, Varia Macurdy. She gave you the twenty minutes so you could be ready without hurrying.

"Thank you. Do I go myself, or-?"

"Annith will come for you, if that's all right my lady."

"That'll be fine."

He turned and left. Twenty minutes. Her eyes lit on the dress that had been hung for her that morning; she'd had Ardain leave it out. That, she thought. I'll wear it. Dressed as a soldier, I invite orders. Let her see me as a woman like herself.

She took off her uniform, then her underclothes, and looked at herself in the mirror. She'd grown up among Sisters where youth seemed almost eternal. But among them, on the onset of decline, a Sister was removed from the community, sent to spend her remaining five to ten years at a retreat "in the south," where no one visited. A practice that grew out of Sarkia's unwillingness to confront the loss of vigor and life, Varia thought wryly. At least the ylver honored their elderly.

As for herself-her critical eyes could find no fault with what she saw. Mother of forty-three, wife of two, and abused repeatedly by a squad of Tigers for how many months. The correct ylvin genes, unhindered by counter-beliefs, healed most wounds short of mutilation or death. You still look twenty, she told herself. Except for the eyes and aura, I suppose, and most don't confront the one or see the other. So here you are, coveted as a brood mare by an ylvin high noble.

She dressed and looked again. It wasn't a formal gown, but a dinner frock. Still, she'd never had so nice a dress in her life before, not even for her first wedding. She didn't pirouette in it though, just looked. God, she thought, I'm beautiful after all. Truly beautiful, except for that wretched short hair. Curtis, oh Curtis, I wish you could see me in this.

She felt the damned tears begin to well, and would have changed back into her uniform, except for the knock at her door.

"Come," she said. Mariil's nurse opened it, and Varia left with her, to the east wing and Lady Cyncaidh's suite. Mariil looked up when they entered, and her expression softened visibly when she saw Varia in the frock. She didn't stand, but motioned Varia to a chair in front of hers. "You are truly beautiful," she said softly. "More beautiful than I realized."

"You wanted to talk to me."

Mariil nodded. "To you, with you, about you. I've read the transcript of your interrogation, and there was much personal history in it. You are-even more remarkable than I'd appreciated. Even stronger. Raien had already told me what he knew of you-how he found you after your flight through the wilderness; of your assault on him when he wouldn't free you to find your Curtis; and of your swim. I was impressed. But the things we learned through A'duaill…"

"I trust there was more to it than my life history."

"Much more. Much of use to Raien in planning."

"Planning?"

Mariil shook her head. "We could talk about that for days. And will, I hope. Just now I want to talk about you and Raien."

"Your husband."

"My husband. The man I've loved since I first saw him when he was what he looks now to be: a youth in his early twenties." She smiled at Varia then. "I was seventy-two, and quite lovely. At least I thought so, and I'd been hearing it all my life. My first husband was a pleasant and thoughtful man, if a bit careless with the maids, but Raien-And Erig was in decline.

"Raien, it seemed, was as smitten with me as I with him. I was much older, of course, and we knew that barring violence or accident, the time would come…" She gestured to herself. "The time would come that has."

Varia kept aloof, as best she could. "And you've produced no heir in those thirty or so years."

"Twenty-nine years last equinox."

"You've had the man you love for twenty-nine years. I had mine for a few weeks."

The reply seemed to shrink Mariil, and for a long moment she didn't answer, then nodded. "But it wouldn't work," she said, "even if you could reach him. Your Dynast knows only that you fled. And where to? To Curtis Macurdy or your death." Again Mariil paused. "Your Dynast is ancient and unrelenting. She doesn't easily give up what she thinks of as hers. She'd send someone after you. Idri perhaps."

The thought jarred Varia. She'd recognized the possibility once, then pushed it away out of sight. Oregon. Suppose they went to Oregon. Could Idri sniff her out so far? Could a tracker?

"Your Dynast still has allies," Mariil was saying. "She'll have sent Idri to Oz, with a strong escort from some friendly king, probably Gurtho of Tekalos. With a request to hold you, if you showed up. But not to Ferny Cove; that would be too dangerous."

Mariil's expression was bleak, grim. "Then Idri would go through the Oz Gate with three or four guardsmen to hunt you, and if you'd gotten through, you'd be taken, you and your Curtis. Unless he fought. Then he'd be killed."

Unless he fought. And he would. But he wasn't trained to it; and probably they'd catch him with no weapon. Varia felt herself taut, vibrating like a fiddle string.

"The Cyncaidh could take me there," she said. The words tumbled out of her more rapidly than she'd intended. "With a company of soldiers. Let me get Curtis and bring him through. Then we could live here-you could let us have a servant's cottage-and produce sons and daughters for you. You could choose one of them to adopt. Or more than one."

Mariil shook her head slowly. The discussion and emotions had taxed her strength. "It wouldn't work," she said. "Not for the Cyncaidh, and not for you. It was possible for him to slip around in the Rude Lands with a few half-ylver who could pass as locals. But to ride in with a company-they'd hardly come back alive, certainly not from Ferny Cove. Your captured Sisters weren't the only ones savaged there. The fighting was fierce, and Quaie took no prisoners. Vertorus was quartered, and his body thrown to the dogs. His sole surviving son, Keltorus, has sworn his enmity forever, though being an ill-tongued drunkard of a short-lived family, his forever might be shorter than he thinks. He's ordered that no Sister be allowed within the borders of Kormehr, and any trespass be referred to him for punishment. I can guess what it would be-death, but not quick."

Frowning, Varia gnawed a lip. "And you want me for a brood mare, for Cyncaidh himself to sire his sons on."

"We want you to be Lady Cyncaidh."

Varia stared. "His wife?"

"His wife. I'm in the process of dying, as you see. And he needs more than heirs. To have a blood heir is desirable, but Raien wants and deserves more than that, believe me."

She paused, seeming to gather strength. "Besides, my dear, he loves you." Again she paused. "I'm an old soul, Varia, with many earlier lifetimes whispering to me. Wisps of wisdom, when I manage to hear and recognize them. And I have no doubt you were born to this. I'll be dead within months. I've been declining for more than seven years now, and am very near the end. The Cyncaidh, on the other hand, is fifty-three, and his line tends to longer lives than most."

She paused, looking piercingly at Varia. "Not that I'm useless yet; certainly not to you. I'm a healer of the spirit, and yours has cruel wounds, not healed, just scarred over." She waved a hand as if impatient with herself. "Back to the issue. Like myself, the Emperor's Chief Counselor has reached his decline, though he may continue in office for another year or three. And the Cyncaidh is likeliest to replace him, for when Paedhrig was Chief Counselor, and Raien his aide, they were haft and blade, two parts of one instrument.