"I have the storeroom keys." She held them up.

"How did you? . ." Tirone was uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

"Lord Tolocamp made plain his position when he received the request for medicines. I helped harvest and preserve them." "Lady? . . ." Capiam could not recall her name.

"Nerilka." She supplied it quickly with the faint smile of a someone who does not expect to be remembered. "I have the right to offer you the products of my own labor." She gave Tirone an intense, challenging stare. Then she returned her direct gaze to Capiam.

"There is just one condition."

"If it is within my giving." Capiam would give a lot for medicines. "That I may leave this Hold in your company and work with the sick in that horrid camp. I've been vaccinated." A wry smile lifted one side of her mouth. "Lord Tolocamp was expansive that day. Be that as it may, I will not stay in a Hold to be abused by a girl younger than myself. Tolocamp permitted her and her family to enter this hallowed Hold from the fire-heights yet he leaves healers and harpers to die out there!"

And he left my mother and sisters to die at Ruatha. Her unspoken words were palpable in the brief silence.

"This way, quickly," she said, taking the initiative and pulling at Capiam's sleeve.

"I'll remove our Craftspeople from this Hold on my way out,"

Tirone said. He walked quickly toward the hall.

"Young woman, you do realize that once you leave the Hold without your father's knowledge, particularly in his present frame of mind-"

"Master Capiam, I doubt he'll notice I'm gone." She spoke with a light disregard for the matter, obviously more bitter about her sire's new wife. "These steps are very steep," she added and nicked open a handglow.

Steep, circular, and narrow, Capiam realized as his foot slipped on the first short step. He disliked blind stairways, of which Fort had more than its fair share. The Ancients had been fond of them in the construction of the first holds as auxiliary access between the levels of what were, essentially, natural caves. He was grateful for Nerilka's guidance and the soft glowlight but the descent seemed to take ages. Then the darkness lightened and they emerged on to a landing, with narrow high halls branching in three directions. Beside the circular stair they had just left was a second one that he hoped they would not need to use.

Nerilka led him to the right, then down a short broad flight and to the left. He was completely disoriented. Nerilka made a second left turn. Three drudges who had been lounging on long benches by a heavy wooden door got to their feet, their faces impassive.

"You are prompt, I see," Nerilka said, nodding approval to them. "Father appreciates promptness," she said to Capiam as she was separating the keys. Unlocking the door took three of the larger ones. Opening required the effort of one of the drudges and then Capiam could smell the mingled stillroom aromas, astringent, bitter, fragrant, and oddly musty.

Nerilka pulled open the glowbasket inside the door to illuminate sinks, braziers, tables, high stools, measuring apparatus and implements, gleaming basins and glass bottles. Capiam had been in the room often and when he had, he'd approached it from the other direction in the company of Lady Pendra. Now Nerilka was unlocking the storeroom and beckoning him to follow her. She smiled when she heard his surprised gasp.

Capiam had known that Fort Hold's storage rooms were ample, but he had not been beyond the dispensary. They were standing on a wide tier, balustraded from the vast, dark interior, with steps leading down to the main floor. He could hear the slither and rustle of tunnel snakes fleeing the sudden light. Capiam saw shelves, reaching, it seemed, to the high vaulted ceiling. Barrels and crates and drying racks, were ranged in rows and dusty ranks. He had the impression of staggering resources and doubly condemned Tolocamp's parsimony.

"Behold, Master Capiam, the produce of my labors since I was old enough to snip leaf and blossom or dig root and bulb." Nerilka's sarcastic voice was intended for his ears only. "I won't say I have filled every shelf, but my sisters who have predeceased me would not deny me their portions. Would that all of these hoarded supplies were usable, but even herbs and roots lose their potency in time. Waste, that's the bulk of what you see, fattening tunnel snakes. Carry-yokes are in the comer there, Sim. You and the others, take up the bales." She spoke in a pleasant authoritative tone, gesturing to the drudges. "Master Capiam, if you do not mind-that's the fellis juice." She pointed to a withy-covered demijohn. "I'll take this." She lifted the bulky container by its girth strap. In her other hand, she swung a pack over one shoulder. "I mixed fresh tussilago last night,

Master Capiam. That's right, Sim. On your way now. We'll use the kitchen exit. Lord Tolocamp has been complaining again about the wear on the main hall carpets. It's as well to comply with his instructions even if it does mean extra lengths for the rest of us." She covered the glowbaskets.

She set down the demijohn to lock the storeroom, ignoring Capiam's expression, for it was apparent to him that she had gone to some pains to organize the unauthorized distribution. Her eyes met his once as she swept the chamber with one last long glance. The drudges were already halfway down the corridor with their burdens.

"I would like to take more, but four drudges added to the noon parade to the perimeter are not going to be noticed by the guard."

Only then did Capiam realize that Nerilka was dressed in the coarse fabric allotted the general worker, a plainly belted tunic over dark-gray trousers and felted winter boots.

"No one will care in the least if one of the drudges continues on to the camp." She shrugged. "Nor will anyone at the kitchen exit think it odd for the Masterhealer to leave with supplies. Indeed, they would wonder if you left empty-handed."

She had locked the outer door and now looked speculatively at the bunch of keys. "One never knows, does one?" she said to herself in the habit of one used to solitary tasks. She stuffed the keys in her belt pouch and then, noticing Capiam's look, gave him that little half smile. "My stepmother has another set. She thinks it is the only one. But my mother thought the stillroom a very good occupation for me. This way, Master Capiam."

Capiam followed. The docility of the Fort daughters had been the source of ribaldry at the Halls whenever Lady Pendra had invited unmarried men of rank to the Hold. Nerilka, Capiam was chagrined to remember, was one of the oldest of the eleven daughters, though she had two full elder brothers, Campen and Mostar, and four younger. Lady Pendra had been constantly pregnant, another source of indelicate comment among the apprentice healers. It had never occurred to Capiam-and certainly not to his shameless juniors– that the Fort Horde had any wits or opinions of their own. In Nerilka, rebellion was full blown.

"Lady Nerilka, if you leave now-"

"I am leaving," she said in a firm low voice as they entered the kitchen's back corridor.

"-and in this fashion, Lord Tolocamp-"

She halted and faced Capiam at the archway into the busy, noisy kitchen. "-will miss neither me nor my dower." She lifted the demijohn. She sighed with exasperation, glancing at the door through which the drudges had exited. "I can be of real use in the internment camp for I know about mixing medicines and decocting and infusing herbs. I shall be doing something constructive that is needed rather than sitting comfortably in a comer somewhere. I know your craftsmen are overworked. Every hand is needed.

"Besides,"-she gave him a sideways glance that was almost coquettish– "I can slip back in whenever it's necessary." She patted the keys in her pouch. "Don't look surprised. The drudges do it all the time. Why shouldn't I?"