He hugged the child against him, and then as she stirred, set her off, himself got down from the saddle, his knees buckling under his own mailed weight. She sought his hand with both of hers, and in her timid trust he grew braver. He walked up the steps leading her and slammed his fist against the ironbound oak, angered by their sleeping carelessness inside, that owed a lost child shelter and owed her rescuer—something, some reward. The blows thundered. He expected a stir, a flare of lights, a hailing from inside, even the rush of men to arms. But the door gave back suddenly, swinging inward, unbarred or never barred. He thrust the child loose from his hand in sudden dread, drew his sword, seeing the gleam of light in the crack as he pushed the door with his shoulder, sending the massive weight farther ajar. A night fire burned in the hearth of a great fireplace, the only light, flaring in the sudden draft. He felt behind him for the child, half fearing to find her gone, felt a naked shoulder. The horse snorted, a soft, weary explosion in the dark at his back, ordinary and unalarmed. He walked in. The child followed and slipped free, pushed the door to with a straining of her slight body. "I'll find Mother," she said.

"She'll be sleeping."

"No longer." He struck with his naked sword at a kettle hanging from a chain against the wall; it clattered down and rolled across the flags with a horrid racket. "Wake! Where are the parents of this child?"

"Child," the echoes answered. "Child, child, child."

"Mother?" the girl cried. He reached too late to stop her. She darted for the stairs which wound up and out of sight, built crazily toward the closed end of the high ceiling. "Girl," he called after her, and those echoes mingled with those of "Mother?" and likewise died, leaving him alone. He retreated toward the door, shifted his grip on the swordhilt to pull the door open again and look outside, wary of ambushes, of a mind now to be away from this place. His horse still stood, cropping the grass in the moonlight.

Footsteps creaked on the stairs. The child came running down again as he whirled about, the naked body clothed now in a white shift. She came to him, caught his hand with hers. "Mother says you must stay," she said, wide dark eyes looking up into his. "She was afraid. We're all alone here, mother and I. She was afraid to let it seem anyone lived here. The bandits might come. Please stay; please be careful of my mother, please."

"Child?" he asked, but the hands broke from his and she ran, a flitting of white limbs and white shift in the dim firelight, vanishing up the stairs. He pushed the door gently, felt it close and looked back toward the fire—drew in his breath, bewildered. His exhausted senses had played him tricks again. About him the hall stretched farther than he had realized. The shadows and the fire's glare had masked a farther hall, which could not have appeared from the road. A table stood there, set with silver. Arms hung on the walls of that chamber, fighting weapons, not show. A light flickered in the corner of his eye; he looked and saw a glow moving down the wall of the stairs . . . a woman came into his view, carrying a taper in her hand, and his heart lurched, for the child's beauty was nothing to hers. The woman's hair was a midnight cloud about her in her white shift and robe, her face in the candle's glow as translucent and pure as the wax gleaming in the heat, her body parting the strands of her hair with the full curves of breast and hip. Barefoot she walked down the wooden steps, her eyes wide with apprehension.

"You brought Willow home."

He nodded agreement and faint courtesy, the sword still naked in his hand. The woman came off the last step and walked to him, a vision in the candlelight, which shone reflected in her eyes with a great sadness.

"Willow's mad," she said in a voice to match her eyes. "Did you realize, sir? She runs out into the woods . . . I can't hold her at such times. Thank you for bringing her safe home again." Lashes swept a soft glance up at him. "Please, I'll help you with your horse, sir, and give you a place to sleep in the hall."

"Forgive me," he said, remembering his drawn sword. He reached for the sheath and ran it in, looked again at the lady. Food, shelter, the warmth of the hall. . . . We're all alone, the child had said. He looked at wide dark eyes and woman's body and delicate hands which clasped anxiously together about the candle—like Willow's hands, fine-boned and frail. He was staring. Heat rose to his face, a warmth all over. "I'll tend my horse," he said. "But I'd be glad of a meal and shelter, lady."

"There's a pen in back," she said. "We have a cow for milk. There's hay."

"Lady," he said, his brain still singing with warmth as if bees had lodged there and buzzed along his veins. He bowed, went out, into the dark, to take the reins of his horse and lead the poor animal around the curve of the tower—it wasextended on the far side: he could see that now, from this new vantage. A byre was built against the wall, several pens, a sleepy cow who lurched to her feet in the moonlight and stood staring with dark bovine eyes. He led the horse in, gently unsaddled it, rubbed its galled and sweaty back with hands full of clean straw while the cow watched. He did his best for the horse, though his bones ached with the weight of armor and the ride. He hugged its gaunt neck when he was done, patted it, remembering a glossier feel to its coat, a day when bones had not lain so close to the skin. It bowed its head and nosed his ribs as it had done in gentler days before wars, before the hooves were shod with iron. It lipped his hand. The wide-eyed cow lowed in the dark, the moonlight on her crescent horns, and he pitchforked hay for them both, farmer's work, armored as he was, and made sure that there was water, then walked out the gate and latched it, walked around the curving stone wall, up the steps, opened the yielding door.

The fire inside was bright and red, the board in the recessed hall spread with bread and cold roast on silver plates and set with jugs of wine. He rubbed at his face, stopped, numb in the loss of time. He had dallied in the yard and the lady—the lady stood behind the table, spread her white-sleeved arms to welcome him to all that she had done.

He came and sat down in the tall chair, too hungry even to unburden himself of the armor, seized up a cup of dry red wine and drank, filled his mouth with fresh bread and honey and with the other hand worked at the straps at his side. Strength flooded back into him with a few mouthfuls. He looked up from his piggishness and saw her at the other end of the table with her dark eyes laughing at him, not unkindly.

Such manners he had gained in the wars. He had aspired to better, once. He stood up and rid himself of belt and sword, hung the weapon over the chair's tall finial, and she rose and moved to help him shed the heavy mail. That weight and heat passed from him and he breathed a great free breath, shed the sweat-soaked haqueton, down to shirt and breeches, fell into the chair again and ate his fill, off silver plates, drank of a jeweled cup—and paused, heart thumping as he turned it within his hand: the shape the same, the very same. . . .

But silver, not gold. He drained it, gazed into dark and lovely eyes beyond the candleglow. "Is there," he asked thickly, "no lord in this hall . . . no servant, no one—but you and the child?"

"The war," she said with that same sadness in her eyes. "I had a servant, but he stole most all the coin and ran away. The villagers beyond the hills . . . they'll not come here. Willow frightens them; and I'm frightened of them—for Willow's sake, you see."