Mandes leaned forward, intrigued. Lord Tolandruth was still in love with Princess Valaran? That was a most interesting revelation.

A discreet knock on the door did not rouse him at first. Only after it was repeated several times did he realize the sound came from his own environs.

“What is it?” he barked, looking up from the pan.

The tall door opened a crack. A servant stood in the wedge of light created by the open door.

“You have a visitor, master.”

“What is my first rule, Valgo? Never disturb me when I am in this room!”

Valgo bowed hastily, but said, “The visitor is high born, master, and most persistent-”

“They’re all high born!” Mandes sighed wearily. His breath disrupted the image in the pan and the liquid turned muddy brown.

Irritated, he rose from his chair, determined to give his impertinent caller a case of boils. When he drew near the partly open door, he realized Valgo sported a rapidly swelling black eye.

“What happened to you?” Mandes demanded.

The servant’s gaze flickered quickly back over his shoulder, a final attempt to warn his master, but it was too late. The door was shoved hard and flew open, just missing Mandes’s nose. A lean, red-haired man dressed in blood-colored leather stood at Valgo’s shoulder.

The sorcerer hastily erased his outraged expression and bowed. “Your Highness! Welcome to my unworthy house.”

“Did you really think you could keep me out?”

“Of course not. You’re always welcome, Highness.”

Prince Nazramin, half-brother of Amaltar, swaggered in, shoving the cowering Valgo aside. Looking over the clutter of manuscripts and magical paraphernalia, the prince sniffed.

“I thought you had a woman in here, and that was why you didn’t want any visitors.”

“So I did, gracious prince.” Mandes gave his best, oiliest smile. “Two women, in fact.”

“Conjuring up company, eh? Saves paying them, I’ll wager.”

Nazramin took Mandes’s own chair. With a single stroke of his quirt, he swept the table before him clear of its clutter. The scrying pan and several scrolls hit the floor. Liquid from the pan splashed the priceless scrolls before they rolled under the furniture.

“Attend me,” said the prince loftily. “We have much to discuss.”

Lips locked in a rictus of forced hospitality, Mandes dispatched Valgo for refreshment. He shut the door and slid the bolt into place.

Nazramin was seven years younger than Amaltar and a far different sort of man. While Amaltar had been groomed from birth to serve the empire, Nazramin had never served anyone but himself. He had made himself the living embodiment of all the cruelty and arrogance of the Ackal dynasty-which to Nazramin meant all the power and glory. Vigorous, ambitious, hated and admired in equal measure, Nazramin stood at the head of a sizable faction of Ergothian warlords dissatisfied with Amaltar’s cold, scholarly ways.

Mandes stood before the prince, hands folded and eyes lowered. Nazramin stared up at him, chewing on his thick auburn mustache.

“So the pig farmer has returned,” Nazramin said at last. Mandes gave a slight nod. “Your vaunted magic did not stop him.”

“My efforts took their toll, Highness. The country priest from Juramona perished in the mountains, and one of Tolandruth’s favorite retainers died before Thoragoth.”

“You killed a pair of cubs and spared the lion.”

The sorcerer’s bland smile hardened. “Lord Tolandruth spared himself, great prince. He is not an easy man to defeat.”

Nazramin lashed out with his quirt. An Ackal family heirloom, the quirt was made from the hide of a bakali chief slain in personal combat by Ackal II Dermount. The braided lizard-leather whip split Mandes’s cheek like a rotted peach; with a cry of pain, he fell to the floor.

“Never call that peasant filth ‘lord’ in my presence!” Nazramin roared. “Do it again and I’ll have you flayed alive!”

Mandes looked up at him through eyes half-blind with tears. Blood ran down his neck. With shaking hands, he pulled a fine linen handkerchief from his sleeve and dabbed at the burning wound. He said nothing. Explanations and apologies would merely make the volatile prince even angrier.

The sight of the cringing man pleased Nazramin, and he mastered his wrath, leaning back in the chair again. “You should know better than to say that to me, sorcerer,” he said evenly. “Get up.”

Mandes clutched the table and pulled himself to his feet. He was still shaking, as much from shock as from the pain. No one had dared to raise his voice to him in years, much less strike him. Rich and influential beyond his fondest dreams, he suddenly realized how ephemeral his status was before a prince of the realm.

Placing one booted foot on the empty table, Nazramin said, “You assured me your spells were infallible. How did the peasant escape?”

“At critical points, the conjurations weakened or failed completely. I cannot explain it.” Mandes spoke haltingly, cradling his bleeding face. He cleared his throat and went on. “I thought the priest Felryn was protecting him with counter-spells, but Felryn died and the protection continued. Tolandruth must have other protection-probably an amulet or talisman. If this artifact could be removed-”

“Talisman, eh? What would it look like?”

The sorcerer explained the protection could take many forms. Commonly amulets were disks of metal inscribed with magical symbols, but they could just as easily be rings, jewels, or even a sword or enchanted dagger.

“My eyes at court tell me the pig farmer is carrying an unusual sword,” Nazramin mused. “It’s made of some sort of special metal, said to be harder than forged iron.”

“If you procure it, Your Highness, I could try my magic against him once more.”

A knock sounded at the door and Valgo begged permission to enter. Mandes unbolted the door, and the servant brought in a tray of amber nectar and sweetmeats. Nazramin took a tall, thin goblet of nectar and ignored the food.

Mandes looked longingly at a glazed walnut but chose a piece of soft, sugared cake. He took small bites and chewed carefully, mindful of his stiffening jaw.

“Our common foe has another weakness, Highness,” he said. “Princess Valaran.”

Nazramin laughed harshly. He used two very vulgar words to describe his brother’s wife. Mandes colored.

“We know that already. After the lies we have fed her, she might kill the peasant for us,” the prince said. He picked up the second goblet, Mandes’s serving, and drank it down as well. “I should love to see that!”

“There might be a better approach, Highness. Tolandruth will certainly seek her out under furtive circumstances. If caught together, both their lives would be forfeit, and only the emperor would bear the blame for their deaths.”

Nazramin blotted droplets of nectar from his mustache. “You’re a devious wretch, aren’t you, sorcerer? How can you insure they meet? I already have the princess watched at all times, but why would Tolandruth risk it after all this time? Surely he has other women.” He leaned forward, becoming caught up in the plot. “You could make a potion, an aphrodisiac. I’ll see it’s put in Valaran’s food-”

“That won’t be necessary, my prince. Just bring them together. Their natural passion will accomplish the rest.”

“After all this time, she detests the peasant bastard!”

Mandes had little experience of love, but he understood human nature far better than his noble patron. Valaran hated Tolandruth because she believed he had betrayed her by having a child with the forester woman Miya. Nazramin had forged that lie in a letter from Tolandruth to her ten years ago, and had reinforced it with more forged letters. Valaran had cut off all communication, and Mandes had taken pains to intercept Tolandruth’s letters to her, which dwindled over the years.

Now, if the couple was brought together and the truth revealed, their passion would rekindle tenfold, fanned by the misunderstanding and their long separation.