'Narcheska! Narcheska!' the older girl shrieked, and then she began to sob wildly, more from frustration and humiliation than pain.

Elliania put her hand flat to Lestra's face and pushed up off it as she stood. 'Leave her alone!' she warned two of the girls who stepped forward to aid the loser. 'Let her lie there and be glad that I didn't have my knife. I am a woman now. From now on, my knife will answer anyone who dares to dispute that I am Narcheska. From now on, my knife will answer anyone who dares to touch the man 1 have claimed for myself.'

I glanced at Peottre. His grin was hard, showing every tooth he had. Elliania reached Dutiful in two strides. He stood gawking down at his dishevelled bride. As casually as 1 would seize a horse's mane to mount him, she reached up and gripped his warrior's tail. As she pulled his face down to hers, she commanded him, 'You will kiss me now.'

An instant before their mouths met, he snatched his Skill-awareness away from me. Yet neither I nor any man watching needed the Skill to sense the fervour in that kiss. She locked her mouth to his, and as his arms came awkwardly around her to draw her closer, she leaned into his embrace, deliberately brushing her bared breasts against his chest. Then she broke the kiss, and while Dutiful drew an uneven breath, she met his eyes and reminded him, 'Icefyre's head. On my mothers' hearth. Before you may call me wife.' Then, from within the circle of his embrace, she looked at her old playmates and announced, 'You girls may stay here and play if you wish. I'm taking my husband back inside to the feasting.'

She stepped clear of his arms, and took his hand again. He followed her docilely, grinning vapidly. Lestra was sitting up, alone, staring after them with fury and shame. There were approving whoops from several women and some envious groans from the watching men as she triumphantly led her prize past them. I glanced at Peottre. He looked stunned. Then his eyes came to mine. 'She had to do that,' he told me sternly. 'To make her point with the other girls. That's why she did it- To establish herself in their eyes as a woman, and to make clear her claim to him.'

'I could see that,' I agreed mildly. But I did not believe him. I suspected that something had just happened that was outside his plan for Elliania and Dutiful. It made it all the more essential for me to discover just what his true intent was.

The rest of the evening seemed bland. Eating, drinking and listening to Outislander bards could not compare to the claiming of power that I had just witnessed. I found a meat pie and a mug of ale and took it to a quiet corner. I pretended to be absorbed in it as 1 Skilled to Chade all that I had witnessed.

This is moving more swiftly than I had dared hope, he Skilled in return. And yet I mistrust it. Does she truly want him as husband, or was it only to establish what she claimed, that no one can take him from her? Does she hope lust will spur him to kill the dragon for her?

I felt foolish as I told him, This is the first time I have realized that if she becomes his bride and moves to his house, some will say she has forfeited her place here. Lestra spoke of her becoming a 'lesser woman in his mothershouse'. What did it mean?

Chade's reply came reluctantly- I think the idiom is the same used for a woman captured in a raid, but taken as a wife rather than a slave. Her children have no clan. It is like being a bastard, somewhat.

Then why would she agree to this? Why would Peottre allow it? And if she is not the Narcheska when she comes to Buckkeep and remains there, do we gain any advantage by this wedding? Chade, this does not make sense to me.

There is still too much that is not clear here, Fitz- I sense an unseen current in all this. Stay alert.

And so I did, through the long evening and longer night. The sun lingered as it does in that northern clime, so that night was

just a long twilight. When the time came for the bridal couple to retire, it was Dutiful who announced that he would remain below in the common room lest any say that I have taken what I have not earned'. It added another awkward moment to the day, and I saw a puff'lipped Lestra gloating about it with her cohorts. The couple parted at the foot of the staircase, Elliania ascending and Dutiful going off to take a seat beside Chade. This night, he would sleep within the mothershouse, as befitted a man properly wedded to a woman of the clan, but down here on the bed boards, not above with Elliania. His guards were dismissed for the night, to return to the warriors' housing or warmer welcomes, so long as their partners bedded them outside the mothershouse walls. I longed to move closer to Chade and Dutiful and have some quiet talk with them, but I knew it would look odd. Instead, I decided that it was time for me to return to my own lodgings.

I had not gone far when I heard footsteps crunching on the pathway behind me. Glancing back, I saw Web. Beside him slogged a weary Swift. The tops of his cheeks were very pink and 1 suspected the boy had overindulged in wine. Web nodded to me, and I slackened my pace to allow them to catch up with me. 'Quite an occasion,' I remarked idly to Web when he walked beside me.

'Yes. I think the Outislanders now regard our prince as wed to their Narcheska. I thought this was only to confirm the betrothal before her mothers' hearth.' There was a note of question in his statement.

'I don't think they make any distinction between couples marrying and couples announcing that they will marry. Here, where property and children belong to the woman, marriage is seen in a different light.'

He nodded slowly. 'No woman ever has to wonder if a babe is truly hers,' he observed.

'Does it make that great a difference that the children belong more to the woman than they do the husband?' Swift asked curiously. His words were not slurred, but when he spoke, I could smell the wine on his breath.

'I think it depends on the man,' Web answered gravely. After

that, we walked for a time in silence. Whether I would or no, my thoughts wandered to Nettle and Molly and Burrich and me. To whom did she belong now?

As we drew near the cottage, the town around us was silent. Any folk who were not at the wedding festivities in the mothershouse were long abed. I opened the door quietly. Thick needed all the rest he could get; I did not wish to wake him. The slice of light that we admitted to the cottage showed me Riddle lying on the floor beside Thick's bed. One eye was open and his hand was on his bared blade arranged beside him. When he saw who it was, he closed his eyes and lapsed back into sleep.

I remained standing motionless by the door. There was another intruder in the cottage, one whose presence Riddle had not noticed. Large and round as a fat cat, yet masked like a ferret, he crouched on the table, his bushy striped tail sticking straight up behind him. He looked at us with round eyes over the hunk of our cheese that he clutched in his front paws. The marks of his sharp teeth were clearly visible in it.

'What is it?' I breathed to Web.

'I think they call it a robber-rat, though rat it is clearly not. I've never seen the like of it before,' he replied as softly.

The robber-rat stared past us both, his entire attention fixed on Swift. Like a whisper against my senses, I became aware of the Wit flowing between the two. There was a smile on Swift's face. He stepped forward, pushing between Web and me to do so. I lifted a hand to reach after him, but before I could do so, Web's hand fell on the boy's shoulder. He jerked Swift back, startling the robber-rat with the abruptness of his move. Aloud, he told the creature, 'Take the cheese and go.' Then, in the harshest voice I'd ever heard him use, he demanded of Swift, 'What did you think you were doing? Have you not heard one word of anything I've tried to teach you?'