If she'd kept on struggling, he would have taken her by force. He enjoyed that, though it appealed to Limosa less than the special thrill of the whip. But she must have decided he was going to do what he wanted whether she came along or not, and that she would have a better time coming along. Instead of trying to fight him off, she began to stroke him in turn and to urge him on.

He needed very little urging. He drove home, again and again, until Limosa gasped and shuddered beneath him. A moment later, he spent himself, too. "Maybe you should talk in your sleep more often," Limosa purred.

"Maybe I should," Ortalis said. He stood up, used the chamber pot, and lay down again. Sleep came quickly, but all his dreams were ordinary.

When he woke up the next morning, he felt vaguely cheated. Not even Limosa's smile, bright as the sunshine outside, could drive that feeling away from him. In his dreams, his special dreams, he was everything he was supposed to be, and everything went the way he wanted it to. And the Voice was there, urging, explaining, supporting. The Voice seemed more real and more full of character than most of the people he knew in the clear light of day.

He called a servant, and told the man to have his breakfast and Limosa's brought to the bedchamber. "Yes, Your Highness," the man said, and hurried away.

"You don't want to eat with the king?" Limosa asked.

"No, not today," Ortalis answered, and let it go at that. She meant Lanius, of course. But Ortalis' father was back in the palace, too, and the prince especially did not want to eat with him.

"I hope His Majesty won't be offended," Limosa said.

"It'll be all right." Ortalis didn't much care whether it would or not. But he thought it would. Lanius was soft. Even when he was slighted, he hardly seemed to notice most of the time.

Ortalis laughed. I know better than that, he thought. He never forgot an insult. One of these days, I'll pay everybody back for everything. Lanius, Anser, his father – everyone. He was starting to get the feeling that that day wasn't so far away, either.

A knock on the door said breakfast had arrived. Ortalis took the tray from the servant and brought it back to the bed. It wasn't anything fancy – barley porridge enlivened with chopped onions and chunks of sausage, with wine to wash it down – but it was good, and it filled the belly.

Limosa put on a tunic and a long skirt. "I'm going to see how the children are," she said.

"All right," Ortalis answered. "Better Marinus' howling while he's teething should keep a nursemaid up half the night than that it should bother us."

"Well, yes," Limosa said, "but plenty of people who don't have the money for nursemaids have children, too. They must get through teething and sick babies by themselves, or there wouldn't be any more people."

"Gods know how they manage it," Ortalis said.

"What will you do today?" Limosa asked.

"Beats me," Ortalis said cheerfully. He lay down on the bed again. "Maybe I'll just go back to sleep." He hoped he could. He wished he could. The kingdom of his special dreams and the seductive soothing of the Voice were ever so much more attractive than the mundane reality of the Kingdom of Avornis.

His wife's sniff told him that wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. "They're your children, too," she said pointedly.

"I'll be along in a while," he said. If that didn't make her happy, too bad.

She knew better than to push an argument very far with him. "All right," she said, and left the bedchamber.

Ortalis did lie down again. But, no matter how he tried, sleep would not come.

From the city of Avornis, the Bantian Mountains were barely visible – a purple smear on the horizon on a clear day, a smear that vanished with the least fog or haze. Here on the frontier between Avornis and Thervingia, the mountains' saw-backed shape defined the boundary between land and sky.

King Grus and his soldiers waited for King Berto to cross over the border. Grus had waited with soldiers for King Dagipert to cross the border, too. Then he'd waited – and waited anxiously – to do battle. Now the soldiers were an honor guard.

One of his guardsmen pointed east. "Here come the Thervings, Your Majesty," the man said.

Grus shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand. "You're right," he said after a moment. "Is that Berto, there in the middle? The one whose beard is going gray?" He wasn't sure just how old Berto was. Older than Lanius and younger than he was himself, but that covered a lot of ground.

"I think so, Your Majesty," the guardsman replied. "Yes – I'm sure it is. He's wearing a coronet."

Even as he spoke, the King of Thervingia's gold circlet flashed in the sun. Grus nodded. "Well, so he is. He doesn't have very many men with him, does he?" The troopers who rode with Berto were far fewer than the men accompanying Grus. If he'd wanted to… But he didn't. If Dagipert had given him a chance like this, he would have been sorely tempted. Dagipert, of course, had been far too canny ever to make such a mistake.

Chuckling, Grus remembered his last meeting with Berto's father. They'd each rebuilt part of a bridge over the Tuola River, a bridge that had long been cast down to help keep the Thervings out of the heartland of Avornis. They'd spoken across a gap too wide to let either reach the other with a weapon. And after the parley, Avornans and Thervings wrecked what they'd built.

These days, the bridge over the Tuola stood again. Grus had crossed it on the way to the border. Therving traders and Avornan merchants went over it every day. Soldiers – soldiers in arms, anyhow – didn't seek to cross it. That was why it stood again.

Berto had almost reached the granite pillar that marked the border. Dagipert had knocked that pillar over not long after the start of his reign, but it too stood once more. Grus waved to the approaching King of Thervingia. "Welcome, Your Majesty!" he called, first in Avornan, then in Thervingian. He didn't speak much of the latter, but he'd made sure to learn that phrase.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Berto answered, first in his own tongue, then in almost accentless Avornan. He kept on using Grus' language as he continued, "I am glad to enter your kingdom as a peaceful pilgrim."

"And we are glad to have you here." Grus rode up to the pillar, but not an inch beyond. He held out his hand. Berto took it. His clasp was stronger than Grus had expected. He might not be a warrior, but he was no weakling.

Berto rode past Grus and into Avornis. "It's been many years since I've seen your capital," he said, and smiled. "This time, my people won't have to besiege it to let me get inside."

Grus smiled back. "You've always been welcome to visit, Your Majesty, as long as you didn't try to bring your whole kingdom along."

"Here I am," Berto said. "I think the men I have with me will be plenty. In fact, I think I could have come alone and been as safe as though I'd stayed at home – maybe safer. Any man who could use the Scepter of Mercy, any man who could bring it back from the south, would not betray his trust with a guest."

And what am I supposed to say to that? Grus wondered. The first thing that came into his mind and out of his mouth was, "You do me too much credit."

"I don't think so," Berto said. "The Scepter of Mercy!" His gray eyes went wide with what Grus slowly recognized as awe. 'Real proof that the gods in the heavens care about us and care for us."

"Well, so it is." Grus didn't mention that it seemed to him to be proof the gods in the heavens didn't care about the material world very much. If they had, would they have let the Scepter stay lost for so many centuries? Would they have let so many generations of thralls live and die one short step above beast-hood? Grus suspected they worried more about the Banished One and his chances of storming into the heavens again than about Avornis or Thervingia or anything else merely human.