"I'll always love you, Curtis. You were my first love, and it changed me more than you can imagine. It showed me what love is, and that I could love. And later it made me strong."

Her cat eyes searched him in the night, so much less dark to her than to him. "I'll always love you, but-I've changed. My dream has changed."

It was Cyncaidh who broke the next silence. "We've heard tales of the amazing General Macurdy. That you ride a wild boar; that you have two rows of teeth-that an Ozian spear maiden loves you, and you've refused her."

Macurdy laughed, a laugh amused but without joy. "I got my front teeth all broken or knocked out back in Oz, and new ones grew in. A whole new set, all nice and straight. They even pushed out the good ones I already had. I never had sprouted wisdom teeth before; I guess that tells you something." He turned to Varia. "I guess it took, when you spelled me to not get old. I guess that's how I grew them. And there is a spear maiden; you're not the only one who knows about loving two at a time." He paused. "You don't suppose you could do for her what you did for me, do you? Give her long youth?"

Varia's teeth gnawed her lower lip thoughtfully. "If she has the necessary ylvin genes. The blood. But that's very unlikely, for someone from Oz. Where is she now?"

"In camp, in the hospital. Someone put a big dent in her helmet, in the battle. She'll be all right though."

"If you can bring her here to me-"

While the two of them discussed the possibilities, Cyncaidh rode quietly, thinking. The commander of the southern army still showed a little of the farmboy Varia had told him about. Had described to him at length, till she'd become comfortable with her memories. He'd come to feel he knew Curtis Macurdy.

Actually he hadn't, and neither had Varia. Or no, that wasn't right: she'd known him as he had been. Then, held to the fire, instead of flaring and dying, or softening, or going brittle, he'd tempered, strengthened, grown into something uncanny, a man who still hadn't learned how powerful he was.

Varia's voice drew him from his reverie. "Raien," she said, "I want to go back with Curtis tomorrow to visit his spear maiden, with a guard platoon to bring me home. I'll only be gone a day."

For just a moment Cyncaidh felt misgiving, but it faded. He-he and A'duaill and Mariil-had come to know her as deeply as you could know anyone, and there was no dishonesty in her. She would come back. And if somehow she changed her mind, what right would he have to complain?

She'd come back though. As she sat in the saddle looking at him, her love assured him of it.

They started back to camp, and Cyncaidh's thoughts reached ahead to Duinarog. Paedhrig would sign, beyond a doubt, and the agreement with the Rude Lands would be law. Then they'd have to weather the resulting storm. The Expansion Party would be enraged at the agreement, but with Quaie dead there'd be a period, no doubt all too brief, of confusion, probably indecision, and perhaps even conflict within its ranks. Then someone would establish leadership and attempt to drum up public outrage at a treaty without vengeance, made when the smoke of funeral pyres had hardly dissipated.

They'd deal with it, though, he and Paedrigh. If it got bad enough, he'd resign as chief counselor, claiming family reasons, and Paedhrig could appoint Gavriel, a smoother politician. It might be just as well. It might be time for a healer in the Chief Counselor's office. Then, after a time, Paedhrig might appoint him Minister of Southern Affairs.

He smiled to himself. He could stand being dismissed. He'd take Varia back to Aaerodh Manor, and they'd spend a year exploring. Do the coast and islands in his sloop, the rivers by canoe and the forests on skis.

That night Macurdy lay awake thinking. Last night he'd told Melody he'd marry her, and had wondered how he could have said it. Now he'd learned that Varia was married to someone else. Yesterday it had seemed he'd been a fool to imagine this invasion producing anything but disaster and death, and tonight he had an agreement, or seemed to.

It wasn't, he thought, as if things had been preordained. More like, if he just kept doing what seemed right, more good than bad would come of it.

And what about all the dead. What of them?

What indeed? Everyone died sooner or later. Even Sarkia would. And people here believed that after a period in something like purgatory, reviewing what they'd done in life and suffering for their misdeeds, they'd be reborn, until finally they were fit for heaven. It sounded more just than what he'd learned in the Oak Creek Presbyterian Church, though Reverend Fleming wouldn't much approve of it.

He went to sleep on that.

PART 6: Melody 39: Korens Manor

" ^ "

The next day, riding south with their escorts, Varia and Curtis talked at length, speaking American for privacy. She learned much about his odyssey, and he gained a much better picture of the empire.

Not that they talked continuously. The day was clear but breezy, and cool for Six-Month-ideal for riding and enjoying the countryside-and there were moments of looking about, soaking up perceptions. Once, far overhead, an eagle screamed, and for a time, seven vultures, black as crows, sailed in silent, effortless circles. While the marsh, when they reached it, drew the eyes. It stretched beyond the edge of vision-expanses of cattails, black pools sheened with limonite, and here and there patches of ten-foot reeds, or islands of brush and trees. Creeks the color of tea passed with imperceptible currents beneath stone bridges, while along their narrow back channels, muskrat lodges humped like miniature beaver dens.

For Varia there were moments of reflection. Curtis had just told her of Arbel and his system of training, which obviously had had powerful effects. Yet he was still Curtis, Curtis transformed, much more powerful and charismatic now. Curtis minus much of the imprinting laid on him by family, church, and community, that had prepared him for life in Washington County. Before she'd slept, the night before, Raien had murmured, in reflections of his own, "We met a true lion today, Varia, the Lion of Farside. And discovered a friend."

The Lion of Farside. The metaphor had its attraction, but Curtis wasn't normally ferocious, certainly not cold-blooded. Deadly perhaps, and powerful, but not cold-blooded.

When they left the marsh behind, Varia was telling him of the irrepressible Hermiss, who lived at Ternass, and the stories she'd told her of life on Farside.

"Hmh! I wonder if she made the connection between your Macurdy and the marshal of the southern army."

"I doubt it. I don't think I mentioned your last name; to me you've always been Curtis, and Will was Will. Sisters and ylver are like most Rude Landers about names: mostly we use just one, however many you have."

The road topped a low hill, and now Varia could see, ahead and to her left, large ovals of ashes. Soldiers raked them, finding and piling bones, while prisoner details dug pits. This, she realized, was the battlefield, where the pyres had burned and the bones would be buried. Raien would be glad to know these things were being done.

They left the road, angling toward the broad tent camp of the southern army, a mile or so ahead. In the fields, whole cohorts played ball, a hundred in each game, or each melee. She wondered how many bones would be broken before the day was over.

Approaching camp, they sent their escorts off to the Kullvordi tentment. Her ylver would be fed there, and have tents assigned them. Then Macurdy led her to his headquarters tentment. As they approached Melody's tent, Varia felt curiosity, and a certain tension. "I hear her talking," Macurdy murmured, still in American, and halted his horse outside. He helped Varia down, though she didn't need help, and led her in as the two women inside looked up.