Indeed, it plunged him into a sleep but one step shy of death. She settled him on a pallet, arranging his body as if it were a corpse. As she did so, she muttered scathingly, "Such bruises on his neck arid back. How could they beat a mere boy like that?"

I was too shamed to admit I had given him those marks. I held my silence and she covered him well, shaking her head over him. Then she turned and brusquely motioned me to her side for her services. "The wolf, too. I've time for you, now that the boy's hurts are tended. His hurt was far more grievous than anything that bleeds."

With warm water she washed our wounds and salved them with a greasy unguent. Nighteyes was passive to her touch. He held himself so tightly against the pain I could scarcely feel him there. As she worked on the scratches on my chest and belly, she muttered sternly to me. I gave Jinna's charm the credit that she deigned to speak to a renegade like me at all.

But the healer's only comment on it was that my necklace had probably saved my life. "The cat meant to kill you, and no mistake about that," she observed. "But it was no will or fault of her own, I'm sure. And not the boy's fault, either. Look at him. He is a child still to our ways, far too young to bond," she lectured me severely, as if it were my fault. "He is unschooled in our ways, and look how it has hurt him. I will not tell you lies. He is like to die of this, or take a melancholy madness that will plague him to the end of his days." She tightened the bandage around my belly with a tug. "Someone should teach him Old Blood ways. Proper ways of dealing with his magic." She glared at me, but I did not reply. I only pulled what was left of my shirt back over my head. As she turned away from me, I heard her snort of contempt.

Nighteyes wearily lifted his head and set it on my knee. Salve and clotted blood smeared me. He looked at the sleeping boy. Are you going to teach him?

I doubt he'd wish to learn anything from me. killed his cat.

Who will, then?

I left that question hanging. I stretched out in the darkness beside the wolf. We lay between the Farseer heir and the outside world.

Not far from us, in the central part of the shelter, Deerkin sat in council with Lord Golden. Laurel sat between them. The healer had joined them, and there were two other elders present in the circle closest to the fire. I regarded them through my lashes. In the rest of the cave, the other Old Blood folk appeared casually engaged in the ordinary evening chores of a campsite. Several lounged on their blanket rolls behind Deerkin. They seemed content to let the young man speak for them, but I sensed that perhaps they were the true holders of power in the group. One was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Another, a bearded fellow, was working a careful edge onto his sheath knife. The whetting of the blade was a monotonous undertone to the conversation. For all their casual postures, I sensed how keenly they listened to what went on. Deerkin might speak for them, but I sensed they would listen to be sure his words were what they wished said.

It was not to Tom Badgerlock that these Old Blood riders explained themselves, but to Lord Golden. What was Tom Badgerlock but a renegade to his kind, a lackey of the crown? He was worse by far than Laurel, for all knew that though she had been born to an Old Blood family, the talent was dead in her. It was expected of her that she must make her way in the world however she might, forever half-dead to all the life that blossomed and buzzed and burned about her. No shame to her that she was a Huntswoman to the Queen. I even sensed an odd pride in the Old Bloods, that one so impaired had risen so far. I had chosen my treason, however, and all the Witted folk walked a wide swath around me. One brought meat on spits and propped it over the fire. The smell was vaguely tantalizing.

Food? I asked Nighteyes.

Too tired to eat, he declined, and I agreed with him. But for me there was the added reluctance of asking food of folk who ostracized us. So we rested, ignored in the outer circle of darkness. I refused to feel hurt that the Fool had spoken so little to me. Lord Golden could not be concerned with a servant's injuries, any more than Tom Badgerlock should fret about his master's bruises. We had our roles to play still. So I feigned sleep, but from beneath lowered lashes I watched them, and listened to their talk.

The talk was general at first, and I gathered my facts in bits and by assumption. Deerkin was telling Laurel some news of an uncle they had in common. It was old news, of sons grown and wed. So. Estranged cousins, separated for years. It made sense. She had admitted she had family in this area, and as much as told me they were Witted. The rest came out in an explanation to Lord Golden. Deerkin and Arno had ridden with Laudwine's Piebalds for only a summer. They had both been sickened and angry over how the Old Blood folk were treated. When Laudwine's sister had died, he had devoted himself to his people's cause and risen as a leader. He had nothing save himself to lose, and change, he had told them, demanded sacrifice. It was time the Old Blood took the peace that was rightfully theirs. He made them feel strong and daring, these Old Blood sons and daughters rising up boldly to take what their parents feared to reach for. They would change the world. Time once more to live as a united folk in Old Blood communities, time to let their children openly acknowledge their magic. Time for change. "He made it sound so logical. And so noble. Yes, we would have to take extreme measures, but the end we sought was no more than what we were right' fully entitled to. Simple peace and acceptance. That was all. Is that so much for any man to ask?"

"It seems a righteous goal," Lord Golden murmured attentively. "Though his means to it seem…" He left it dangling, for them to fill in. Disgusting. Cruel. Immoral. The very lack of a description let the full baseness of it be considered.

A short silence fell. "I didn't know that Peladine was in the cat," Deerkin asserted defensively. A skeptical quiet followed his words. Deerkin looked around at the elders almost angrily. "I know you say I should have been able to sense her, but I did not. Perhaps I have not been taught as well as I should. Or perhaps she was more adept at hiding than you know. But I swear I did not know. Arno and I took the cat to the Bresingas. They knew it was an Old Blood gift, intended for Prince Dutiful, to sway him to our cause. But I swear by my Old Blood, that was all they knew. Or I. Otherwise, I would not have been a party to it."

The old healer shook her head. "So many will say of an evil thing, after the fact," she charged him. "Only this puzzles me. You know a mistcat must be taken young, and that it hunts only for the one who takes it. Did not you wonder?"

Deerkin reddened but, "I did not know Peladine was in the cat," he insisted. "Yes, I knew she had been bonded with the mistcat. But Peladine was dead. I thought the cat alone, and put her odd ways down to her mourning. What else could be done with the cat? She could not make her own way in the hills; she had never lived a wild life. And so I took her to the Bresingas, a gift fit for a prince. I thought it possible," and a hitch in his voice betrayed him, "that she might want to bond again. She had that right, if she so chose. But when the Prince came to us, I thought it was what Laudwine said it was. That he came of his own will, to learn our ways. Do you think I would have helped otherwise, do you think Arno would have sacrificed his life for such an end?"

Some, I think, must have doubted his story as much as I did. But it was not a time for such accusations. All let it pass and he continued his tale.

"Arno and I rode with Laudwine and the Piebalds, as escort for the Prince. We intended to take him to Seffers-wood, where he could live among the Piebalds and learn our ways. So Laudwine told us. When Arno was taken at Hallerby outside the Piebald Prince, we knew we had to ride for our lives. I hated to leave him, but it was what we had sworn as Piebalds: that each of us would sacrifice our life for the others as needed. My heart was full of fury when we first turned and set our ambush for the cowards that chased us. I do not regret a single one of those deaths. Arno was my brother! Then we rode on, and when next we came to a good place, Laudwine once more left me to guard the trail. 'Stop them, he told me. 'If it takes your life to do it, so be it. And I agreed with him."