The hillside groves of orange trees were all that remained of the legendary glory of Enlibar. Humbled descendants of the rulers of an empire dwarfing Ilsig or Ranke eked out their livings among the gnarled, ancient trees. They wrapped each unripe fruit in leaves for the long caravan journey and wrapped each harvest in a fresh retelling of their legends. By shrewd storytelling these once proud families survived, second only to the S'danzo in their ability to create mystery, but like the S'danzo crones they flavoured their legends with truth and kept the sceptics at bay.

The oranges of Enlibar made their way to Sanctuary once a year. When the fist sized fruits were nearly ripe Haakon, the sweetmeat vendor of the bazaar, would fill his cart and hawk oranges in the town as well as in the stalls of the bazaar. During i those few days he would make enough money to buy expensive | trinkets for his wife and children, another year's lodgings for his mistress, and have enough gold left to take to Gonfred, the only honest goldsmith in town.

The value of each orange was such that Haakon would ignore the unwritten code of the bazaar and reserve the best of his limited supply for his patrons at the Governor's Palace. It had happened, however, that two of the precious fruits had been bruised. Haakon decided not to sell that pair at all but to share them with his friends the bazaar-smith, Dubro, and his youngwife, the half-S'danzo Illyra.

He scored the peel deftly with an inlaid silver tool meant especially for this one purpose. When his fingers moved away the pebbly rind fell back from the deep-coloured pulp and Illyra gasped with delight. She took one of the pulp sections and drizzled the juice onto the back of her hand, then lapped it up with the tip of her tongue: the mannerly way to savour the delicate flavour of the blood-red juice.

'These are the best; better than last year's,' she exclaimed with a smile. 'You say that every year, Illyra. Time dulls your memory; the taste brings it back.' Haakon sucked the juice off his hand with less delicacy: his lips showed the Stain of Enlibar. 'And, speaking of time dulling your memory - Dubro, do you recall, about fifteen years back, a death-pale boy with straw hair and wild eyes running about the town?'

Haakon watched as Dubro closed his eyes and sank back in thought. The smith would have been a raw youth then himself, but he had always been slow, deliberate, and utterly reliable in his judgements. Illyra would have been a skirt-clinging toddler that long ago so Haakon did not think to ask her, nor to glance her way while he awaited Dubro's reply. Had he done so he would have seen her tremble and a blood-red drop of juice disappear into the fine dust beneath her chair.

'Yes,' Dubro said without opening his eyes, 'I remember one as that: quiet, pale ... nasty. Lived a few years with the garrison, then disappeared.'

'Would you know him again after all this time?'

'Nay. He was that sort of lad who looks childish until he becomes a man, then one never sees the child in his face again.'

'Would you reckon "Walegrin" to be his name? Ignored, beside them, Illyra bit down on her tongue and stifled sudden panic before it became apparent.

'It might be ... nay, I could not be sure. I doubt as I ever spoke to the lad by name.' Haakon shrugged as if the questions had been idle conversation. Illyra ate her remaining share of the oranges, then went into the ramshackle stall where she lit three cones of incense before returning to the men with a ewer of water.

'Illyra, I've just asked your husband if he'd come with me to the Palace. I've got two sacks of oranges to deliver for the Prince and another set of arms would make the work easier. But he says he won't leave you here alone.'

Illyra hesitated. The memories Haakon had aroused were still fresh in her mind, but all that had been fifteen years ago, as he had said. She stared at the clouded-over sky.

'No, there'll be no problem. It may rain today arid, anyway, you've taken everyone's money this week with your oranges,' she said with forced brightness.

'Well then, you see, Dubro - there's no problem. Bank the fires and we'll be off. I'll have you back sweating again before the first raindrops fall.'

Illyra watched them leave. Fear filled the forge, fear left over from a dimly remembered childhood. Visions she had shared with no one, not even Dubro. Visions not even the S'danzo gifts could resolve into truth or illusion. She caught up her curly black hair with a set of combs and went back inside.

When the bed was concealed under layers of gaudy, bright cloth and her youth under layers of kohl, Illyra was ready to greet the townsfolk. She had not exaggerated her complaints about the oranges. It was just as well that Haakon's supply was diminishing. For two days now she had had no querents until late in the day. Lonely and bored she watched the incense smoke curl into the darkness of the room, losing herself in its endless variations.

'Illyra?'

A man drew back the heavy cloth curtain. Illyra did not recognize his voice. His silhouette revealed only that he was as tall as Dubro, though not as broad.

'Illyra?-1 was told I'd find Illyra, the crone, here.'

She froze. Any querent might have cause to resent a S'danzo prophecy, regardless of its truth, and plot revenge against the seeress. Only recently she had been threatened by a man in the red-and-gold livery of the Palace. Her hand slid under the folds of the tablecloth and eased a tiny dagger loose from a sheath nailed to the table leg. -

'What do you want?' She held her voice steady; greeting a paying querent rather than a thug.

'To talk with you. May I come in?' He paused, waiting for a reply and when there was none continued, 'You seem unduly suspicious, S'danzo. Do you have many enemies here. Little Sister?'

He stepped into the room and let the cloth fall behind him. Illyra's dagger slid silently from her hand into the folds of her skirts.

'Walegrin.'

'You remember so quickly? Then you did inherit her gift?'

'Yes, I inherited it, but this morning I learned that you had

returned to Sanctuary.'

'Three weeks past. It has not changed at all except, perhaps, for the worse. I had hoped to complete my business without disturbing you but I have encountered complications, and I doubt any of the other S'danzo would help me.'

'The S'danzo will never forget.'

Walegrin eased his bulk into one of Dubro's chairs. Light from the candelabra fell on his face. He endured the exposure, though as Dubro had guessed, there was no trace of youth left in his features. He was tall and pale, lean in the way of powerful men whose gentler tissues have boiled away. His hair was sun bleached to brittle straw, confined by four thick braids and a bronze circlet. Even for Sanctuary he cut an exotic, barbarian figure.

'Are you satisfied?' he asked when her gaze returned to the velvet in front of her.

'You have become very much like him,' she answered slowly. 'I think not, 'Lyra. My tastes, anyway, do not run as our father's did - so put aside your fears on that account. I've come for your help. True S'danzo help, as your mother could have given me. I could pay you in gold, but I have other items which might tempt you more.' He reached under his bronze-studded leather kilt to produce a suede pouch of some weight which he set, unopened, on the table. She began to open it when he leaned forwards and grasped her wrist tightly.

'It wasn't me, 'Lyra. I wasn't there that night. I ran away, just like you did.'