see the Prince. 'End it, my lord. I beg you. Even at the cost of the Fool's life, even at the cost of your betrothal. End it now. Cut your losses, which are already far too high. Death is all you can buy for the Narcheska's family. Walk away from all of it. Leave here, sail home, marry a sensible woman and have healthy children. Leave this woeful cup to the Outislanders who brewed it. Please, my prince, blood of my dearest friend. Leave this. Let us go home.'

His words shocked all of us, not least the Prince. I could see Dutiful's mind racing as he stared at Burrich. Had it ever occurred to the youngster that he could take such a step? He looked at each of us in turn, then stood up. Something changed in his face. 1 had never seen it happen, never suspected that perhaps a single moment could carry a boy to manhood. I saw it then. He stepped to the door of the tent. 'Longwick!'

Longwick thrust his head inside. 'My prince?'

'Fetch me Lord Blackwater and the Narcheska. I wish them to come here, immediately.'

'What do you do?' Chade asked in a low voice when Longwick had withdrawn.

Prince Dutiful did not reply directly. 'How much of this magic powder do you have? Can it do what Fitz has said it can?'

A light kindled in the old man's eyes, the same light that had used to terrify me when I was his apprentice. I knew that he didn't know completely what his powder could do, but that he was willing to gamble that it would work. 'Two kegs, my prince. And yes, I think it will be sufficient.'

I heard the crunch of footsteps on the ice outside the tent. We all fell silent. Longwick lifted the flap. 'My prince, Lord Blackwater and the Narcheska Elliania.'

'Admit them,' Dutiful said. He remained standing. He crossed his arms on his chest. It looked forbidding but I suspect he did it to keep his hands from trembling. His face looked as if it had been chiselled from stone. When they entered, he did not greet them nor invite them to sit, but merely said, 'I know what the Pale Woman holds over you.'

Elliania gasped, but Peottre only inclined his head once. 'When your man returned, I feared that you might. She has sent me word,

saying that she did not intend to divulge that secret, but that now it is known, I may beg you freely to help us.' He took a deep breath and I thought I knew what it cost that proud man to sink slowly down on his knees. 'Which I do.' He bowed his head and waited. I wondered if he had ever before knelt to any man. Elliania's face flared from white to sudden crimson. She stepped forward and put a hand on her uncle's shoulder. Slowly she sank to her knees beside him. Her proud young head drooped until her black hair curtained her face.

I stared at them, wanting to hate them for their intrigues and betrayal. I could not. I knew too well what Chade and I would be capable of, were Kettricken taken as hostage. 1 thought the Prince would bid her rise, but he only stared at them. Chade spoke. 'She has sent you word? How?'

'She has her ways,' Peottre said tightly. He remained on his knees as he spoke. 'And those I am still forbidden to speak about. I am sorry.'

'You are sorry? Why could you not have been honest with us from the beginning? Why could you not have told us that you acted under duress, with no interest in an alliance or a marriage? What makes you guard her secrets still? Forbidden to speak! What worse thing could she have done to you than what she has already done?' The hurt and outrage in the Prince's voice went beyond anything mere words could convey. He knew now, as we all did, that he had been only a tool for the Narcheska, never anyone she could care about. It humiliated him as much as hurt him. I knew then that he had let himself fall in love with her, despite their differences.

Peottre clenched his teeth. His voice grated when he replied. 'Exactly the question that keeps me awake at night. You know only of the most recent and vicious attack she has made against Narwhal Clan. For a long time, we stood firm before the blows she dealt us, thinking, "she has done her worst and we have withstood it. We will not bend to her." And each time she proved us wrong. What worse can she do to us? We do not know. And that ignorance of where her next blow will land is her most fearsome weapon over us.'

'Did you never think that you could have told me that there

were hostages involved? Did you think it would not have moved me to help you?' Dutiful demanded.

Peottre shook his head heavily. 'You could never have accepted the bargain she made us. You had too much honour.'

The Prince ignored the strange compliment.

'What was the pact?' Chade asked sternly.

Peottre answered in a flat voice. 'If we made the Prince kill the dragon, she would kill Oerttre and Kossi. Their torment and shame would end.' He lifted his head and looked at me with difficulty, but then spoke honestly. 'And if we delivered you and the tawny man to her, alive, she promised to give us their bodies. To return to our motherland.'

I groped for my anger and felt only sickness. No wonder they had been so glad to see the Fool awaiting us on AslevjaL We had been sold like cattle.

'May I speak?' Elliania lifted her head. Perhaps she had always carried that grave sorrow in her, but I had never seen the shame she bore plainly now. She looked younger than I recalled, and yet she had the eyes of a dying woman. She looked at Dutiful and then lowered her eyes before the hurt he did not hide. '1 think there is much I could make clear for you. It is long since I had any heart for this vicious sham. But my duty to my family means that first I must speak of this to you. My mother and my sister ... it is imperative that . . . that we -' She choked for a time. Then she flung up her head and spoke stiffly. 'I do not think I can make you understand how important it is. That they must die, and that their bodies must be returned to my mothershouse. For an Outislander, for a daughter of Narwhal Clan, no other choice was ever possible.' She clasped her shaking hands in front of her. 'There was never an honourable choice,' she managed to say before her voice died.

Dutiful spoke quietly. 'Sit down, if you can find the space. I think we have all come to the same place now.' He did not mean the tent.

We all shifted, trying to make room in the small shelter. Burrich grunted as he tried to move his stiff leg out of the way. As Peottre and Elliania found places to sit, Burrich shook out my shirt and then draped it around me. It almost made me smile. No matter

what else might be going on, he still would not let me offend a lady by sitting bare-chested in her presence. The grandson of a slave, he had always been far more aware of the social niceties than i had.

Elliania's voice was shamed and weary. She held her shoulders tightly hunched. 'You ask what else she could do to us? Much. We do not know, with certainty, who belongs to her. She has preyed on our men and boys for years. Our warriors go forth and do not return. Young boys vanished while shepherding our flocks, on our own clan lands! Child by child, she has reduced our family. Some she killed. Others went out to play and returned home as soulless monsters.' She glanced sideways at Peottre, who stared at nothing. 'With our own hands, we have killed the children of our clan,' she whispered. The Prince made a small sound at her words. She stopped speaking, then took a ragged breath and went on. 'Henja had been in our household for years before she betrayed us. We still do not know how my mother and little sister were snatched so effortlessly from our midst. Just as those two were taken, so others are vulnerable. Our Great Mother is elderly, and her mind flickers like a dying candle, as you have seen. All her knowledge should have been passed on to my mother by now. Yet my mother is not there to receive it. So, she lingers, trying her best to mother our house despite the burden of her years. Perhaps you think her pathetic. Nonetheless, if she were taken from us, the centre of our mothershouse would be completely destroyed. My family would cease to be. As it is, we have suffered greatly from my mother's absence and the discord it has created. What is a mothershouse, with no mother in it?'