That, said Fulk, probably didn't even matter to the High Elder, whose war this was. The real point of what was happening now had little to do with land for the dispossessed of the north. Galbert wanted only to destroy Arbonne and its goddess, and the Treaty of Iersen Bridge had been the first devious step towards that. Fulk de Savaric didn't much care either way about Arbonne's goddess; she had never bothered him, he said by that frozen river. What did bother him, what enraged him, he said, were the uprooted people of the northlands. Their king had sold them to Valensa for silver and gold, to raise an army for burning women in Arbonne.

There were others, he told his silent company, who felt the same way as he. Blaise de Garsenc, the younger son of the High Elder was probably known to many of them. He wasn't even a northlander, but he had left Gorhaut entirely rather than live with the terms of the Treaty of Iersen Bridge. He was very likely coming home now, perhaps even tonight, leading a rising against these very wrongs Fulk was speaking of. The duke proposed to join him, for the honour of the northland and in memory of his father and King Duergar who had truly loved and served Gorhaut. He invited those of his army who thought the same thing and who trusted his judgment to come with him. Those who felt otherwise were free to leave, with his honest gratitude for their service in the past.

That was all he said. Wind blew down the valley, sliding snow into mounds on the banks of the frozen river, shaking it down from the branches of bare trees.

Eighteen men left, from a company of almost a thousand.

The men of the northland had their own hard creed, always, and the lords of Savaric had seldom played them false, whatever the kings in Cortil might have done. Duke Cadar de Savaric had died defending their lands and his own at Iersen Bridge. His son had shepherded the interests of the north with a cautious diligence in the upheavals that followed King Ademar's accession and the treaty he had signed. If the time for caution now had ended, the time for loyalty had not, and loyalty to the north was the first law of the north.

Not a man prone to the sweep of powerful emotions, Fulk de Savaric had nonetheless been moved by what had followed his words on that wintry afternoon. He was speaking treason, after all.

There was no shouting when he ended, no cries of approval or swift cheers raised in his name. That was not their way. There was only the grim, stern silence that had always defined the north, as six horsemen and twelve men on foot detached themselves from the company, to proceed east from that icy stream towards Cortil and King Ademar, who was still, when all else was said and done, the anointed of the god.

The rest had followed him here to Garsenc Castle and would follow him now, he said soberly to Blaise and Bertran and the others gathered in the great hall, wherever he asked them to go.

"That last," said Blaise, "is the real question, I fear." He seemed to have gradually recovered his composure after the encounters with his father and brother. "We had planned to take this castle, use it as a winter base, a rallying point, for any men who might join our cause, and then see what the spring brought us, in numbers and possibilities. I didn't propose to fight a war in winter."

"We did once, in the time leading up to Iersen Bridge," said Fulk de Savaric.

"I know that. I was there. That was against an invader, with no choice offered us. There's another thing: I don't want to begin attacking across the countryside myself, ruining castles or towns. If I possibly can I want this to end up as one battle against Ademar and only one. My army—if I have one—against his on a field somewhere. If I am to come home as the saviour of Gorhaut—the man who takes us back to the god and our true destiny—I can't begin by killing my own people and destroying their homes and fields. I won't do that, Fulk, for the same reason I won't invade with an army from Arbonne."

"Did they offer you one?" Fulk de Savaric asked.

Blaise turned to Bertran de Talair. The duke's expression was oddly inward, Thaune saw, as if he hadn't been closely following the last part of the conversation. And a moment later, Thaune realized that this, in fact, was so.

"Do you remember," Bertran asked Blaise softly, not answering the question, "what your brother said just before he left? His last words to me?" There was something strange in his voice, something that made the room feel cold again, despite the fires now burning on all the hearths. Thaune, by the doorway to the corridor, tried to remember what it was that Ranald de Garsenc had said.

"He said he wasn't going back to Cortil." Blaise had been standing by the largest of the fires. Now he took two steps towards the duke of Talair and stopped.

"Would he have been telling you something?" asked Rudel Correze sharply. He rose from his seat. "Because if he was…»

"If he was," Duke Bertran finished flatly, "then we know why Fulk was ordered to bring all the men he could. And why your brother wasn't going to Cortil. Ademar isn't at Cortil."

"How did you come through the mountains?" Fulk de Savaric asked abruptly. He, too, had now risen from his chair.

"Lesser Gaillard Pass to the west," said Blaise. "There were only fifty of us, no wagons or goods. We didn't want to be seen. We might have been spotted had we gone through the High Road Pass."

"Of course," said Fulk. "But if En Bertran is right about this then Ademar and his army were moving south from Cortil towards the High Road Pass even while we were coming north." Bertran de Talair had put down his wine glass. His face, Thaune saw, was very white, an old scar showing in sharp relief. "That is what has happened, I am certain of it. It fits what we know. They decided not to wait for spring, after all. This is a winter war, my friends. In Arbonne. They might even be there already."

"And what do we do here with a thousand men? Capture Cortil? Raise the country in revolt?" Rudel Correze's eyes were bright in the firelight. Blaise said nothing; his eyes were on the duke of Talair.

"There is no country to raise," said Fulk de Savaric slowly. "All of the men who can fight will be with the king. I think I see what he is thinking: he doesn't care what you do here. If he takes Arbonne quickly enough—and it will probably

408 A SONG FOR ARBONNE

be wide open to him now in winter, however many men he loses to the mountains—he can come home with an army in triumph from the sack of that land and deal with us in spring, wherever Blaise is."

"That isn't Ademar thinking, you do realize," said Blaise finally. You could hear the bitterness. "This is my father's cunning, and his dream. He has always wanted Arbonne destroyed. Always. He told me stories as a boy of how the temples of Rian had to be brought down to save the whole world from their corruption. And he knows me. He knew I would not bring an army here, that Ademar would be safe to leave Gorhaut almost undefended, and then come back, as Fulk says, to deal with whatever happens while he's gone." He turned to Bertran. "You know what he's going to do, don't you?"

The other man's expression was bleak as the winter night. Slowly he nodded his head. "He won't bother with the castles or the cities. He won't try sieges in winter. He's going to force our corans out by making war on the villages and the temples. As he did at Aubry."

"As he did at Aubry," echoed Blaise.

"Shall we ride, then?" asked Fulk de Savaric. "You wanted one battle, Blaise. It looks as if you might get it, but it will be in Arbonne."

"Of course it will," said the duke of Talair with savage irony. "It is warmer there, isn't it? The sun shines, even in winter. If you go far enough south there's no snow at all. You can even catch the scent of the sea."