13 - WARDWICK

Action is the best cure for despair.

"I thought you swore you'd never fight another war, Orvidin," said someone just beyond my view.

Holding a pair of horses, I paused inside the stable to hear what Orvidin would reply. With most of the Council leaving at the same time, my stable master had seen me standing around and handed the horses to me with orders to find their owners who were wandering around in the bailey.

"A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter," Orvidin said. "Winters are a good time to make war. The fields are barren, so the crops can't be burnt out. And there's nothing else to do for fun."

Laughing inwardly, because I knew he was serious, I led my charges out, nodded to Orvidin and his man, and finally ran down the men the horses belonged to.

For a while longer the noise and confusion pervaded my home, and then they were all gone. I shivered in the cold air and glanced at the new green timbers that were being fitted to bar the curtain gate. In his smithy, I knew our blacksmith was working on yet another set of brackets.

The bailey hardly felt empty, with the extra people from Iftahar filling the keep and its surroundings to capacity, but with the Shavig lords gone, it was certainly quieter.

"I didn't get a chance to thank you," Tisala said, breaking my reverie. Her breath rose in the cold morning air, and I caught a faint whiff of flowers from her hair.

"For what?" I asked, inhaling deeply, as if I could breathe the scent of her into my soul - then hoped she hadn't noticed me doing that. It wasn't polite to sniff people, even people who smelled good.

"For not rushing to my rescue last night."

My brows went up in honest surprise. "You were doing fine by yourself," I said. "Although I think Orvidin was brighter than either of us for grabbing a pike. For the most part it was after Garranon, so I guarded him and let you take the offensive."

"But he's a man," she said.

I stared at her and she grinned at my puzzlement. "You're right, we adopted the most logical plan of attack. I had a sword and was behind that poor thing. Garranon was far too stunned to defend himself and was weaponless besides. But I'm a woman and most men would have thought me even more defenseless than Garranon."

I pictured what she would have done if I had abandoned Garranon to protect her and laughed. "So, did you reduce the last man who tried to protect you to a pile of humility with your tongue? Or did you just run him through with your sword?"

She raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

I shook my head. "Poor misguided fool."

"Ward, did you hear Kellen this morning at breakfast? He's really upset with Rosem for holding him back."

" 'A girl and an old man fought it off, and you think it was too dangerous for me, I believe is what he said, though fortunately he and Rosem ate rather later than most of the Council," I replied.

"I've never seen Kellen this angry," she said.

"Rosem was right," I said. "We can't afford to lose Kellen. He's not ready to go fight monsters. He doesn't have the stamina yet."

"I was hoping you could do something about him." She stepped closer to me as she talked, and I took another deep breath before I caught myself; lilac, that's what she smelled like. "It's not just the physical danger he put himself in - but the time in the Asylum has left him suspicious and wary. If he quits trusting Rosem, who can he trust? A king who trusts no man is weak."

I asked, "Why come to me? He's more likely to listen to my uncle - and Beckram was close to him once, too. Or Garranon."

"I haven't seen Garranon this morning - but I don't think talking will do. Someone is going to have to show him that he is not ready for a serious fight."

"You want me to attack my future king?" I asked incredulously. "In the hopes that proving Rosem was right will make Kellen trust Rosem's judgment?"

She flushed the same color she'd turned when I'd taken off my shirt last week when she'd joined us in Stala's daily training. It had been cold fighting without a shirt - but seeing Tisala's blush had been worth it. This time it wasn't discomposure but anger that heated her face.

"Beckram could beat him - I could beat him," she snapped, bringing my attention back to the matter at hand. "But that would only humiliate him. Being beaten by a man of your reputation and size humiliates no one - but it might humble him enough to listen to what you have to say."

Put like that it made more sense.

"I'll do what I can," I said.

What I could do was hunt down my aunt. Stala would know when and where Kellen practiced. If I found him, then it would be away from the people who might try and stop me - like my uncle.

I found Stala in her rooms in the newly constructed housing for the Blue Guard. The hide-covered windows made her rooms cooler in the early winter morning, but the fire in the stone fireplace was warm.

"What do you think you can do about him?" my aunt asked me without looking up from her needlework.

"Teach him the same kind of lesson you'd teach me," I said. "I'd let you do it, but his ego is flattened enough. Being beaten by someone a head taller and several stones heavier won't hurt him much - being beaten by a woman half his size who's old enough to be his mother might."

She grinned at me and set aside the skirt (Ciarra's) that she'd been mending. My aunt taught all of her men to sew - me included - saying you never knew when you'd need the skill on harness or skin. "He usually practices twice a day, morning and night, but not with the Guard. He's been using the training ring by the stables and fighting only with Rosem. He doesn't want an audience."

I didn't ask how she knew. "But he didn't fight this morning."

She shook her head.

"Thank you," I said, and impulsively took her hand in mine and kissed it as if we were at court.

She stood up, pulled my head down, and kissed my cheek. "For that I'll give you a word of advice you won't like. You have to beat him quickly and mercilessly. Make him understand that it would have been his death to fight that thing you faced last night. Then you pick apart his fighting style ... " She told me some things to look for.

"That's not much."

"Tell him that, too. His problem is that he sat in a box for a year and didn't move. Kellen's fault - he was in good shape until then, from what Rosem told me."

"Rosem talked to you?" That surprised me; from what little I'd seen of him, I'd heard even less.

"Rosem started in the Blue Guard," she said. "He fought in Oranstone under your father - one of the reasons he doesn't like you much. Kellen is well-schooled, he knows both Shavig and Oranstone style in sword and hand-to-hand. Try fighting him with Axiel's dwarven moves."

"They're really better for someone a little shorter than I am," I said.

She snorted. "Maybe so - but you still managed to set me on my butt with them a time or two. Now go find him. I think he's still sulking in the east wall tower."

The east wall tower was the only place in Hurog you could see the sea. Other people spent time there, staring at the waves where the White River met the ocean, but Kellen was alone when I found him. From the look he turned on me, I thought he preferred it that way.

"Come practice with me," I said.

"No." He returned his gaze to the open window. "Thank you all the same."

Since we'd left Estian, his face had tanned. Hair dark as rich earth had been tamed and trimmed. Only the thinness of the body beneath the rich tunic and over-robe gave any hint of what he'd been a short month ago.

But inside ... I knew how deceptive the outer coverings could be. If he weren't strong and we weren't careful, we'd have nothing to put upon the throne. Tisala was right, Rosem was the crutch that would let him survive. Kellen needed someone who cared for him because he was Kellen and not their only hope to defeat Jakoven.

"It wasn't a suggestion," I said mildly. "You need to hit something and so do I. There's no one in the training ring by the stables." We only used the ring for a few months in the spring with the young horses. "And you can't afford to let your sword arm weaken any further."

His eyes flashed hotly. "You overstep yourself, Wardwick of Hurog."

I raised my eyebrow. "Do I?"

Anger swept over me that I had not been able to avoid putting the fate of Hurog in the hands of this man. He was so badly damaged he might take the rest of us down with him. He had to be strong.

I bent down and set my face close to his, so he backed up involuntarily.

"I think you are weak," I said. "A weak man cannot save Hurog for me. I won't have my people destroyed because I was worried about stepping on royal toes. Now get yourself down those stairs and take your attitude into the ring." I almost didn't recognize the voice I used as mine; I sounded so like my father in one of his killing rages.

His eyelids fell until his lashes veiled his eyes, but it was anger, not fear, that made his shoulders tremble as he preceded me down the stairs. I shadowed him through the bailey, out of the inner gates, and past the stables to the training ring.

The fence was solid so a young horse wouldn't have anything to distract him, and taller than I so a frightened animal wouldn't be tempted to try and jump over it. It made an excellent place to fight if you didn't want to be observed.

The ring had been scraped after the heavy snow, but there was a new skiff on the ground, and I could see the evidence of Kellen's previous practices in the frozen earth.

Kellen pulled off his heavy over robe and tossed it over the top of the fence. Slowly he pulled his gloves off and drew his sword. He walked to the center of the ring before he turned to face me with the relaxed air of a man who had been in many similar battles.

I had no over-robe to cast aside, no gloves to pull off casually to intimidate my opponent, so I just drew my sword and stalked the man I wanted to serve as my high king.

Take him down fast, Stala had advised me, and hard. So I did.

The dwarves were short, but their strength, like mine, was tremendous. I've heard men say that dwarves are slow - but that's what comes from listening to too many minstrels' songs. No man who'd ever faced a dwarf with an ax or sword ever said they were slow - and no more was I. I had adapted some of their moves - beheading a man a foot taller than I was, for instance, was singularly useless to me, but with a few changes it was effective against a mounted opponent.

Axiel said he thought I was better with a battle-ax than a sword, but I preferred the sword because it made me feel less barbaric. When I fought, part of me loved it, loved flesh parting under my weapon, loved the sounds of metal on metal and bellowing men. And what hitting people with an ax or morningstar made me feel was more than I could comfortably live with afterward. The sword is a cleaner weapon.

The first time my sword hit Kellen's, it struck sparks. If he hadn't turned his blade and dodged, I'd have broken his sword then. As Stala had warned, he was well-trained. I could see it in the line he maintained with his body and sword, could see it in the way he managed to save his blade against my longer, heavier sword.

But the weakness of his imprisonment kept him from the edge of speed that he might have otherwise held over me. My use of dwarven techniques kept him from settling firmly into his style. I controlled the fight from the first blow and he was swordsman enough to know it. I allowed eight clashes of blade before I knocked his sword across the ring. Too few for him to adjust to the strangeness of my style. One solid hit from my shoulder and he was on the cold ground with my sword at his throat.

I left him there while I took my aunt's observations and lectured Kellen on what he needed to work on in a dry tone I also stole from her. And as she did to her new recruits who resented serving under a woman, I left him without a shred of pride. He lay in the dust beaten and raw.

When I stepped away, Kellen rolled to his feet and stalked to his sword, which he sheathed with trembling anger.

"My father's man was the half-human son of the dwarven king," I said mildly. "He taught me dwarven style, which works very well for me. That's why you felt like you couldn't quite get your balance."

"What was this for?" he asked around his rage. He stayed half the ring away from me. Probably so he wouldn't act upon his impulse to separate my head from my body - I sometimes have that effect upon people. "Why the lesson?"

"There's not much wrong with your style or technique," I said. "The list I gave you is very short for my aunt - who provided it to me when I asked. What you do not have is strength or endurance. The only way to gain either is time and hard work. Rosem was correct in holding you back last night. We didn't know what it was or what it could do."

"So I was to let an old man and a woman take it out?"

I raised an eyebrow and let my voice grow cold. "That old man is the toughest raider Shavig ever produced. He's a veteran of the Oranstone Rebellion and has fought in a hundred lesser battles - would you have thought of grabbing a pike? A peasant's weapon, when there were swords about? I didn't think of it, either. And as far as Tisala goes, I've fought with her and she's better than half the Blue Guard. Did you see her slice the man's skull in half? That takes skill and strength."

"So I'm supposed to stay in the background while you all fight my battles?" The rage was leaving him, I could see the emptiness of defeat in his eyes.

I shook my head and allowed my tone to sharpen. "No. You are supposed to be smart. Use that. Use the people around you. Rosem is not stupidly overprotective." Not if Stala trained him. "He'll not get in your way when you are ready to stand on your own. But when he tells you to stay back, listen to him. We, none of us, knew what that thing was capable of. If Tisala had died, it would have broken my heart, but not the kingdom's soul. If I had died, my uncle would have served you as Hurogmeten as well as ever I could. Keep your goals in mind. There will be battles enough in front of us."

"So you think I should forgive Rosem for holding me back?" There was no temper in his face or voice, but the tones were acidly polite.

I narrowed my eyes. "No. I don't."

He stared at me a moment and then the mask of royalty dropped from his face and he grinned sheepishly at me. "You think I need to apologize."

I nodded slowly. "I think you owe him."

"I think you're right." His smile fell away and left him looking tired. "Thank you."

"We are demanding a lot of you," I told him. "If you aren't strong, we are all ruined. We need you to be a hero who can face Jakoven and triumph over his power and his games in a way that we have not been able to. But Rosem loves you more than he loves us. He will keep us from destroying you with our demands. Keep him by your side."

He stared at me, an odd look on his face. "You sound humble," he said. "You're big and you talk slowly - it leads people to underestimate you. But somehow we always do what you want us to do."

I grinned. "I'll be glad to knock sense into you whenever you feel you need it."

Oreg was waiting for me in the library.

"King Lorekoth will meet with you tonight," he said, looking up from the book he was reading to hand me a note.

I'd sent Oreg to the dwarven king.

Jakoven had proven that he could attack Hurog despite the winter as long as he controlled Farsonsbane. He'd sent this creature after Garranon for spite, but the Bane was capable of far more harm. So Kellen had to leave Hurog, and the fastest way to do that was through the dwarven waterways beneath the earth. For that, I needed the dwarven king's permission.

The hidden stair that led to the dwarven ways was still half buried in rubble. There weren't very many entrances to it from above ground; I knew of only one other in Shavig and three in Oranstone, though I could make an educated guess at four or five more - the keeps that had traditionally been famous for their dwarven trade.

As we neared the dwarvenway, the sound of the water became deafening, proof that a delegation awaited to escort us to the Dwarvenhame where the king held court. Without dwarven (or Oreg's) magic, the water was still and quiet. Only when a raft was hurtling through the tunnels did the water roil.

The door opened before we had quite reached it and a slender-built man stepped through. His beard and hair were dark, with only a hint of gray threaded through it, though I knew that he had been born before my grandfather.

"Axiel," I said, and picked him up in a bear hug. "It's good to see you."

He laughed and slapped my back. "Put me down, you overgrown runt, before you infect my brother with your poor manners."

I set him down and turned to his companion, who had watched us with wide eyes.

"Ward, this is my brother, Yoleg. Yoleg, Wardwick of Hurog."

The man he introduced me to was a hand shorter than Axiel, but he outweighed him by five or six stone. Axiel could pass for human when he wished, but this one could only be dwarven. He wore no beard, so he wasn't much over a century old, just a lad for the long-lived dwarves. Yoleg, I knew from conversations with Axiel, was the heir to the throne.

I bowed. "Prince Yoleg, good of you to come and offer me escort."

He bowed to me as well. "Hurogmeten. It is our honor to ride the ways with you and bring you to our father."

Royalty or not, the craft we seated ourselves on looked no more seaworthy than any other I'd seen in the ways. Axiel told me that most of them had been made before the illnesses had plagued his people - so at least two hundred years ago.

I sat on a seat not meant to accommodate a man of my size and pulled the leather harness tight around my middle. Riding the ways was rough, and falling off the raft meant you had to swim for a very long time.

I could feel the pulse of ancient magic as it caught our raft and flung it wildly down a narrow tunnel so fast it was hard to catch my breath. Spray hit my face and left small bruises, like the first touch of frostbite. Sometimes the tunnel was lit with a million stars - dwarvenstones spelled to light the way. But the dwarves had been weakening for hundreds of years, and in some places the magic had faded and we were engulfed in absolute darkness. There, the sound of the water hitting the rock became almost painful.

There were chambers in the ways, crossroads where Yoleg decided which tunnel to follow. We had to wait until the water calmed and the magic died down before we could set off again. I'd traveled these ways before, but each time the sight of the chambers rendered me dumb.

One chamber was coated in crystal gems. Backlit by dwarvenstone, emerald columns rose from the ground to cross over our heads. It was difficult to judge distances in caves, but the columns looked colossal, the base of the nearest one longer than our raft.

Another chamber held gray stone carved in countless shapes. Small statues crowded the water's edge and climbed over the tunnel. I could have stayed there a whole day, but we were off again with a rush of water magic.

As we waited in a place that smelled of mint and glittered with gold, something large bumped our boat twice. Yoleg looked concerned, and Axiel held up a hand for silence. We all crouched motionless until whatever it was gave up and swam off in waves of midnight fins.

The raft came to rest gently against one of a series of docks in a cave I hadn't seen before - although I had been to Dwarvenhame several times. Our raft was alone in a port obviously built for a hundred, and the dock we tied to was the only one I'd have trusted with my weight.

"This is the formal dock," said Axiel, answering my unasked question. "Before we took you as a visitor to my family. But you come tonight as Hurogmeten to petition the king, and that requires we tie up here."

Axiel organized us so that Yoleg led, followed a half-step later by me on his right. Axiel and Oreg flanked me on either side.

Yoleg brought us into a large chamber, irregular in shape but flat floored and walled. Gold and gemstones were conspicuously absent because dwarves don't mix pleasure and business. That this hall in the Dwarvenhame was barren except for mounds of stone to serve as seats told me that this was very serious business indeed.

Plain-clothed dwarves packed the room in a way that reminded me forcefully of my own great hall yesterday. But there was a stillness that lay over this room that would never be a part of a gathering of wild Northmen. It felt as if the dwarves had internalized some part of the stone of the room into themselves.

On the far side of the room, Axiel's father, Lorekoth the dwarven king, rose from his seat and looked at me as if he'd never laughed at my table or dug through the broken stones of Hurog to pull books tenderly out of harm's way.

He was young to be king, only four hundred years old, but his father had been one of the first to die of the series of plagues that had nearly destroyed the dwarves. His mane of red hair swept the ground. It was loose because a dwarf only braided his hair to go to war. In his neatly trimmed beard there was a bare hint of gray. King Lorekoth wore plain gray robes trimmed in black. Only the fabrics, silk and linen, reflected his rank.

"Who comes?" he asked slowly, the only person I'd ever heard with a voice deeper than mine. Axiel said that he could use the deeper tones to conjure fear in anyone listening to him, a useful trick on the battlefield.

I bowed, one ruler to another. "I am Wardwick, Hurogmeten of Hurog Keep, where dragons once more fly."

"Why do you come before me, Hero of Hurog?"

I didn't flinch in embarrassment at the title, but it was a near thing. "I ask repayment of the debt your people owe me. We fight a war above. A great evil has been unearthed to work its magic among mankind. Jakoven, High King of the Five Kingdoms, holds Farsonsbane in his hands."

"Does any person here deny him his debt?" the king asked.

Silence answered him.

"What do you wish of us?"

"I need an army," I said. "What human army could stand against the dark men, the stone men?"

And so the negotiations began. Dwarves, perhaps because they are a long-lived race, do nothing in haste unless dire need forces them. My tired bones told me that the sun had risen again high in the sky before someone mentioned the dwarvenways casually. Another hour passed before I brought them up again.

Stories were told of dwarven bravery, and Oreg and Axiel told tales of my life to match them that were so blown up that several times they bore no resemblance to any memory I had of past deeds. Not that the stories were false ... just exaggerated. I had carried a horse two miles in a blizzard - but it was a newborn foal. Blood and severed body parts played a role in most of the stories, each storyteller becoming more and more graphic as the hours trailed by.

In the end I had an agreement that I could transport no more than ten people at a time through the dwarvenways. The list of people who could use them was not long - no one wanted the ways to be common knowledge - but Kellen and his man, all those of direct Hurog descent whom I deemed trustworthy, Alizon, Haverness, Tisala, Stala, and Garranon were among them. Axiel was to come with me because he knew how to use the ways.

"Most gracious king," I said with a bow that was more jerky than I would have wished, but at least my stiff muscles allowed me to rise. "I have a small gift for you, in thanks for this audience."

A gift, the king's note had said, would make it impossible for his courtiers to complain about human manners. An exotic animal, he'd suggested, as his menagerie was famous among his people. It had taken me about five minutes to come up with the perfect animal.

"I have in my lands," I said, "a basilisk, sometimes called a stone lizard. Oreg, my wizard, has enchanted it truly to stone in order to keep it safe. If you have a sanctuary for it, I will have it brought to you. Oreg can dispel the enchantment when and where you wish it."

Silence fell upon the dwarves. Shock rather than contemplation, I thought. The basilisk was the dwarven royal family's animal, a totem second only to the dragon who belonged to no one family, but to all of dwarven kind. Axiel had told me that during our trip here when I explained what I intended to do - I was not such a fool as to give the king a gift that might be an embarrassment, so I checked it out with his son. The king even had the perfect place to release the basilisk, a huge island without a harbor that was reachable only by the dwarvenways.

A slow smile spread across the king's face. "A generous gift, Lord Wardwick. I am honored to accept."

I bowed once more and left before I did anything to undo what we had accomplished today.

"I didn't think that even my father could get them to agree to allow humans to travel freely in the dwarvenways," commented Axiel as we waited for the waters to calm in one of the crossroad chambers. His younger brother wasn't with us because the raft was to await passengers at Hurog.

"He didn't think he would, either," said Oreg with a pleased smile. "I suggested to your father that if Ward started with a big enough demand - one that really would cancel the debt owed to him - then the rest of the dwarves would be more than ready to give him this small concession."

"The best part," I said, "is that your father will be taking the basilisk off my hands and Oreg will quit asking me where we can release it."

Tychis was waiting for us at the bottom of the first flight of the stairs to the dwarvenways where Oreg's wards to keep out casual visitors held him at bay. Even fleshed out a bit he looked like a half-starved wolf - a cold, half-starved wolf. I don't know how long he'd been there, but he was pale and shivering.

"What'd Ciarra do?" I asked, briskly wrapping him in my cloak. "Tell you to find me and then let you fend for yourself?"

He bridled at my criticism of Ciarra, though he pulled my cloak around him. "She said it was necessary for you to come as quickly as you could."

"Tychis?" My sister's voice preceded her. "Are you down here?" She turned the corner and saw the four of us. Ciarra looked more respectable than she had as a young girl, wearing dresses now instead of torn-up hunting leathers - but I suspected that when she was eighty-five she would still light up a room with her energy. "Ah, there you are, Ward. Nice of you to tell people where you're going. If it hadn't been for Tosten and me, Uncle Duraugh would have been sending out search parties."

I scowled at her a bit. It had been a long time since I had to tell anyone where I was going. Seeing my expression, Tychis shuffled over until he was between Ciarra and me.

Ciarra bounced down the stairs and hugged him. "Don't worry about that one," she said to Tychis as she pointed at me rudely. "He hasn't raised a hand to me since I lost his favorite hunting knife when I was about your age."

I huffed with indignation. "What she doesn't tell you was that she lost my knife climbing up a tree to see if the eagle in the nest had any hatchlings. Stupid bird almost knocked me out of the tree when I went up to get her - I still have scars from the talons on my back. If she'd bothered to ask, I'd have told her that eagles don't have hatchlings in the winter."

I'd done the right thing by giving her Tychis. He had a place here - and someone to take care of.

"Tychis, go tell Beckram that we found Ward and he'll be up shortly." Ciarra pulled off the wrap she was wearing and tugged my cloak off of him. "Here, take this. It's not as warm, but it won't make you fall down the stairs, either. After you've found Beckram, go sit by a fire until you're toasty."

Tychis bowed correctly and then barreled up the stairs, clutching Ciarra's wrap so it didn't fall on the floor.

"I have to watch him," she said when he was gone. "He's so anxious to please, he won't tell me when he's had enough."

I kissed her forehead. "Thank you. I knew you'd handle him if anyone could."

She smiled and shook her head. "I'll be happy when I convince him that we have every intention of keeping him fed, and all that the hoard of food he's hidden does is attract rats. Oh, that poor boy, Ward. He doesn't talk much, but you can see the life he led 'til now."

Ciarra turned to Axiel and stretched out her hands and caught his. "How lovely to see you again, Axiel."

After the greetings were done, Ciarra turned to me. "Alizon arrived last night on a boat from Cranstone with a small cadre of Oranstonians." She laughed when I groaned. "Serves you right, you old hermit."

Oreg took himself off to sleep. Axiel accompanied Ciarra to check in on the new baby, while I trudged up the stairs toward one of the newly finished rooms next to the library where Alizon was holding court. When I got there, the door was shut and my cousin Beckram was leaning casually against the wall facing Tychis.

I stopped and stood quietly where I was, recognizing the relaxed pose Beckram used to defuse tense situations. One glance at Tychis's defensive stance told me who the tension was coming from.

Beckram saw me, but gave no outward sign; instead he explained obliquely what the trouble was. "So you think I should have let that Oranstonian lord in there yell at you for doing as you were told?"

"I'm a bastard," Tychis said.

"You aren't the only bastard here," replied my cousin. "That's no reason to let a man cut down a boy."

"There are other bastard Hurogs here," Tychis agreed. "I seen 'em. They work in the stables, or fight in the Guard. They don't live in the keep - except maybe for Oreg, and he's a wizard. So what do you want from me?"

"You and I have fourteen brothers and sisters who were not children of my mother," I said.

Tychis didn't start, just moved until he could keep an eye on Beckram and me. I half expected to see tears, but he was just pale. I suppose children who survived the streets learned not to cry.

"I was unable to do much for my family until my father died," I continued. "By then most of them were adults." One by one, I named them off to him and told him what Hurog was doing to help them. Most I'd given money to, several I'd given land. I'd paid for schooling and dowries, for a fishing boat, for arms and a good horse.

"Of them all," I said, "you are the only one I know of who was not born on Hurog. You were abandoned to fight for yourself on the streets for the king to pick up on a whim. My father owed you more than that. Later we'll talk of what you want out of life. But know this, Tychis. As long as I hold Hurog, no blood of my blood will ever stand alone. When you are a man, I expect you to stand up for your family as Beckram has. Now, Ciarra is in her room with Axiel, who is a half-dwarven prince. As a matter of fact, I think he might be a bastard, too. If you are quiet, Ciarra'll get him telling stories for you."

When I waved my hand at him, he dodged past me and escaped down the stairs - Ciarra and Beckram were sharing a room in the lower levels of Hurog that was half full of this season's grain. If I were married, I would have a good reason to find some nook or closet away from everyone, too - instead of being crammed in with a host of other men.

"He doesn't believe you," said Beckram, watching Tychis run down the stairs. "He waited until we were out of the room before he informed me that I shouldn't have defended him in there when old Farrawell snapped at him for interrupting the meeting. He didn't want me to get into trouble."

"He will understand," I said. "Give Ciarra a little time and he'll be strutting around here arrogant as an Avinhellish lord."

The polite social expression Beckram wore gave way to a grin. "She does have that effect on men, doesn't she?"