Abruptly he could stand the strain no longer so he shook her angrily with his wounded arm, heedless of the pain, put the knife to her throat, ready to obliterate the scream.

Still she did not stir.

To him it was all dreamlike and he watched himself shake her again and still nothing, then suddenly he remembered that the doctor had given her a drink and he thought, One of those drugs, the new Western drugs Hiraga told us about, and he gasped, trying to assimilate this new knowledge.

To make sure he shook her again but she only muttered and turned deeper into the pillow.

He went back to the window. Men were carrying the soldier's body out of the foliage. Then he saw them drag Shorin into the open by one of his feet like the carcass of an animal. Now the bodies were side by side, both strangely alike in death.

Other men were arriving and he heard people calling from some windows. An officer stood over Shorin's body. One of the soldiers tore off the black head-covering and face mask. Shorin's eyes were still open, features twisted, the knife hilt protruding. More voices and other men arriving.

Movement within the house now and in the corridor.

His tension soared. For the tenth time he made sure the door bar was secure and could not be opened from the outside, then moved into ambush behind the curtains of the four-poster, near enough to reach her whatever happened.

Footsteps and knocking on the door. Splash of light under it from oil or candle lamps. Louder knocking and voices raised. His knife readied.

"Mademoiselle, are you all right?" It was Babcott.

"Mademoiselle!" Marlowe called out.

"Open the door!" More pounding, much louder.

"It's my sleeping draft, Captain. She was very upset, poor lady, and needed sleep. I doubt if she'll wake up."

"If she doesn't I'll break the bloody door down to make sure. Her shutters are open, by God!" More heavy pounding.

Angelique opened her eyes blearily.

"Que se passe-that-il? What is it?" she mumbled, more asleep than awake.

"Are you all right? Tout va bien?"

"Bien? Moi? Bien sur...

Pourquoi? Qu'arrive-that-il?"

"Open the door a moment. Ouvrez la porte, s'il vous plait, c'est moi, Captain Marlowe."

Grumbling and disoriented, she sat up in the bed. To his shock, Ori watched himself allowing her to reel out of bed and totter to the door. It took her a little time to pull back the bar and half open the door, holding on to it for balance.

Babcott, Marlowe and a marine held candle lights. The flames flickered in the draft.

They gaped at her wide-eyed. Her nightdress was very French, very fine, and diaphanous.

"We, er, we just wanted to see you were all right, Mademoiselle. We, er, we caught a man in the shrubbery," Babcott said hurriedly, "nothing to worry about." He could see that she hardly understood what he was saying.

Marlowe pulled his gaze off of her body and looked beyond into the room. "Excusez moi, Mademoiselle, s'il vous plait," he said embarrassed, his accent tolerable, and eased past her to inspect. Nothing under the bed except a chamber pot. Curtains behind the bed this side revealed nothing--Christ, what a woman! Nowhere else to hide, no doors or cupboards. The shutters creaked in the wind. He opened them wide. "Pallidar! Anything more down there?"

"No," Pallidar called back. "No sign of anyone else. It's quite possible he was the only one and the soldier saw him moving about. But check all the rooms this side!"

Marlowe nodded and muttered a curse and, "what the hell do you think I'm doing?" Behind him the four-poster curtains moved in the slight breeze uncovering Ori's feet in his black tabi, Japanese shoe-socks. Marlowe's candle guttered and blew out, and when he slid the shutter bar into place and turned back again he did not notice the tabi in the deep shadows beside the bed, or much of anything else, only Angelique silhouetted in the doorway candlelight hardly awake. He could see every part of her and the sight drew his breath away.

"Everything's fine," he said, even more embarrassed because he had scrutinized her, enjoying her when she was defenseless. Pretending to be brisk, he walked back. "Please bolt the door and, er, sleep well," he said, wanting to stay.

Even more disoriented, she mumbled and closed the door. They waited until they heard the bar grate home in its slots. Babcott said hesitantly, "I doubt if she'll even remember opening the door." The marine wiped the sweat off, saw Marlowe looking at him and could not resist a leering beam.

"What the hell're you so happy about?"

Marlowe said, knowing very well.

"Me, sir? Nuffink sir," the marine said instantly, leer gone, innocence in its wake. Sodding officers is all the same, he thought wearily. Mucker Marlowe's as horny as the rest of us, his eyes popped and he near ate her up, short and curlies, wot's underneath and the best bloody knockers I ever hoped to see! The lads'll never believe about her knockers.

"Yessir, mum's the word, yessir," he said virtuously when Marlowe told him to say nothing about what they had seen, "Yor right sir, again sir, notta word from me lips," he assured him, and trailed along to the next room, thinking of hers.

Angelique was leaning against the door, trying to make sense of what was happening--difficult to put everything in order, a man in the garden, what garden, but Malcolm was in the garden of the Great House, no he's downstairs wounded, no that's a dream and he said something about living in the Great House and marriage... Malcolm, was he the man, the one who touched me? No, he told me he would die. Silly, the doctor said he was fine, everyone said fine, why fine? Why not good or excellent or fair? Why?

She gave up, her craving for sleep overwhelming. The moon was shining through the slats of the shutters and she stumbled through the bars of light to the bed, gratefully collapsed into the soft down mattress. With a great sigh of contentment she pulled the sheet half over her and turned on her side. In seconds she was deeply asleep.

Silently Ori slid out of his hiding place, astonished that he was still alive. Even though he had pressed himself and his swords flat against the wall, any proper search should have disclosed him. He saw that the door bar was in place, the shutters barred, the girl breathing heavily, one arm under the pillow the other on the sheet.

Good. She can wait, he thought. First, how to get out of this trap? The window or the door?

Not being able to see through the slats, he moved the bar back softly and pushed one side open a fraction, then the other. Soldiers were still milling below. Dawn was almost three hours away. Clouds building up, drifted towards the moon.

Shorin's body lay crumpled on the path like a dead animal. For a moment he was surprised they had left his head on, then remembered it was not gai-jin custom to take heads for viewing or for counting.

Difficult to escape that way and not be seen.

If they don't slacken their vigilance I'll have to open the door and try inside. That means leaving the door open. Better to go by the window if I can.

He craned out carefully and saw a small ledge below the window that led under another window, then around the building--this was a corner room. His excitement mounted. Soon clouds will cover the moon. I'll escape then. I will escape!

Sonno-joi! Now her.

Making no noise he rearranged the bar so the shutters were slightly open then came back to the bed.

His long sword was still sheathed and he put it within easy reach on the rumpled white silk counterpane. White, he thought. White sheet, white flesh, white the color of death. Apt.

Perfect to write on. What should it be? His name?

Without haste he pulled the sheet away from her.

The nightdress was beyond his ken, alien, designed to hide everything and nothing. Limbs and breasts, so large compared to the few bedmates he had known, legs long and straight with none of the elegant curve he was used to from the women's many years of kneeling-sitting. Again, her perfume. As his eyes explored her he felt himself stirring.