The morning after the storm dawned cool and still windy, as if the onset of summer had been driven back by the violence of the night. Bertran and Valery insisted on joining with the men of Castle Baude in riding up into the hills in the thankless, wet, necessary task of helping the shepherds locate and retrieve any of the baron's sheep scattered by the storm. The sheep and their wool were the economic foundation of whatever aspirations Mallin de Baude had, and his corans were never allowed to nurture the illusion that they were above performing any labours associated with that.

It was two hours' steep ride up to the high pastures, and the better part of a day's hard, sometimes dangerous work at the task. Late in the afternoon, Blaise, swearing for what seemed to him entirely sufficient reasons, clambered awkwardly up out of a slippery defile with a wet, shivering lamb in his arms to see Bertran de Talair lounging on the grass in front of him, leaning comfortably back against the trunk of an olive tree. There was no one else in sight.

"You'd best put that little one down before she pisses all over you," the duke said cheerfully. "I've a flask of Arimondan brandy if it suits you."

"She already has," Blaise said sourly, setting the bleating lamb free on the level ground. "And thank you, but no, I work better with a clear head."

"Work's done. According to your red-headed coran—Hirnan, is it? — there's three or four sheep who somehow got up to the top of this range and then down towards the valley south of us, but the shepherds can manage them alone." He held out the flask.

With a sigh, Blaise sank down on his haunches beside the tree and accepted the drink. It was more than merely Arimondan brandy, one sip was enough to tell him as much. He licked his lips and then arched his eyebrows questioningly. "You carry seguignac in a flask to chase sheep on a hill?"

Bertran de Talair's clever, oddly youthful face relaxed in a smile. "I see that you know good brandy," he murmured with deceptive tranquillity. "The next questions are how, and why? You are trying extremely hard to seem like just another young mercenary, a competent sword and bow for hire like half the men of Gotzland. I watched you during the hunt, though. You didn't bring down anything till the very end, despite half a dozen clear opportunities for a man who can hit a target every time at eighty paces. You were too conscious of not showing up either Mallin de Baude or myself. Do you know what that says to me, Northerner?"

"I can't imagine," Blaise said.

"Yes, you can. It says that you've experience of a court. Are you going to tell me who you are, Northerner?"

Schooling his face carefully, Blaise handed back the handsome flask and settled himself more comfortably on the grass, stalling for time. Beside them the lamb was cropping contentedly, seeming to have forgotten its bleating terror of moments before. Despite insistent alarm bells of caution in his head, Blaise was intrigued and even a little amused by the directness of the duke's approach.

"I don't think so," he said frankly, "but I've been to more than one court in the past, in Gotzland and Portezza both. I am curious as to why it matters to you who I am."

"Easy enough," said de Talair. "I want to hire you, and I prefer to know the backgrounds of the men who work for me."

This was too fast in too many ways for Blaise to run with. "I've been hired already," he said. "Remember? Mallin de Baude, youngish fellow, a baron in Arbonne. Pretty wife."

Bertran laughed aloud. The lamb lilted its head and looked at them a moment, then resumed his own affairs. "Really," said the duke, "you belie your country's reputation with jests like that: everyone knows the Gorhautians have no sense of humour."

Blaise allowed himself a thin smile. "We say the same thing back home about the Gotzlanders. And Valensans smell of fish and beer, Portezzans always lie, and the men of Arimonda mostly sleep with each other."

"And what do you say back home," Bertran de Talair asked quietly, "about Arbonne?"

Blaise shook his head. "I haven't spent much time back home in a long while," he said, dodging the question.

"About four months," de Talair said. "That much I checked. Not so long. What do they say?" His hands were loosely clasped about the flask. Late-afternoon sunlight glinted in his short brown hair. He wasn't smiling any longer.

Neither was Blaise. He met the clear blue gaze as directly as he could. After a long moment he said, in the silence of that high meadow, "They say that a woman rules you. That women have always ruled you. And that Tavernel at the mouth of the Arbonne River has the finest natural harbour for shipping and trade in the world."

"And Ademar of Gorhaut, alas, has no sheltered harbour on the sea at all, hemmed in by Valensa on the north and womanish Arbonne to the south. What a sad king. Why are you here, Blaise of Gorhaut?"

"Seeking my fortune. There's less of a mystery than you might want to make out."

"Not much of a fortune to be found chasing sheep for a minor baron in these hills."

Blaise smiled. "It was a start," he said. "The first contract I was offered. A chance to learn your language better, to see what else might emerge. There are reasons why it was a good idea for me to leave the Portezzan cities for a time."

"Your own reasons? Or those of Ademar of Gorhaut? Would there by any chance be a spy behind that beard, my green-eyed young man from the north?"

It had always been possible that this might be said. Blaise was surprised at how calm he felt, now that the accusation was out in the open. He gestured, and de Talair handed him the brandy flask again. Blaise took another short pull and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; the seguignac was really extraordinarily good.

"Indeed. Very important information to be gathered up here," he said, finding himself for some inexplicable reason in a good humour. "I'm sure Ademar will pay handsomely for a precise numbering of the sheep in these hills."

Bertran de Talair smiled again and shifted position, resting on one elbow now, his booted feet stretched out in front of him. "This could be just a start, as you say. An entry to our councils."

"And so I cleverly lured you into offering me a position by failing to shoot well on a hunt? You do me too much credit, my lord."

"Perhaps," said de Talair. "What does Mallin pay you?" Blaise named the figure. The duke shrugged indifferently. "I'll double that. When can you start?"

"I'm paid through to a fortnight from now."

"Good. I'll expect you at Talair three days after that."

Blaise held up a hand. "One thing clear from the start. The same thing I told En Mallin de Baude. I'm a mercenary, not a liegeman. No oaths."

Bertran's lazy, mocking smiled returned. "But of course. I wouldn't dream of asking you to swear to anything. I wonder, though, what will you do if Ademar comes south? Kill me in my sleep? Could you be an assassin as well as a spy?"

Which, as it happened, was nearer to the bone than was at all comfortable. Blaise thought suddenly of the High Priestess of Rian on her island in the sea. He looked down at his hands, remembering Rudel, a moonless night in Portezzan Faenna, the garden of a palace in that dangerous city, fireflies, the scent of oranges, a dagger in his hand.

He shook his head slowly, bringing his mind back to Arbonne, to this high plateau and the disturbingly perceptive man looking steadily at him now with those vivid blue eyes. "I'm no more a sworn man of Ademar's than I will be of yours," Blaise said carefully to Bertran de Talair. He hesitated. "Do you really think he might come south?"

"Might?" In Rian's holy name, why else did he make that peace with Valensa I'm trying so hard to undermine with my songs? You said it yourself: woman-ruled Arbonne. Our count dead, an ageing woman in Barbentain, no obvious heir in sight, wine fields and grainlands and a glorious port. Men who do nothing but write songs all day and yearn like callow boys for a woman's cool hand on their brow at night… of course Ademar's going to come down on us."