The hag threw back her head and laughed, and Esme saw two lonely brown teeth clinging like lichens to their place in the elderly jaw. The old seeress’ laughter rang like the clatter of hail in an empty pot.

Of blessings I

Have little need.

Bless me instead

With a noble deed.

Esme started at the old woman’s use of the word noble. She asked suspiciously, “What deed would you have me perform?”

The rabbit caught

Within yon briar,

Tastes the better

When aroast with fire.

The old woman crooked a knobby finger along the stream behind them. Esme followed it with her eyes and saw a hawthorn thicket rustling vigorously as if something were indeed caught within it.

“You would have me cook you a meal? This is the deed you require?” Esme did not like the idea; she was anxious to resume her journey. The country was not safe; the enemy prowled the hills at will. She had had two encounters already and did not welcome a third. She wished she had some item of value she could give the hag and be on her way. “Very well,” she said slowly, and reluctantly went to retrieve the rabbit she knew she would find caught among the thorns.

Orphe’s daughter turned and followed her with sightless sockets. She smiled, and the wrinkled old face contorted in a shrewd, lipless grimace. She mumbled happily to herself and fluttered like a crippled bird to perch herself upon a nearby rock to wait.

Esme had no difficulty catching the rabbit. She could see it struggling in the thicket. Reaching in carefully, she pulled it out by the scruff of the neck. She could feel its tiny heart beating madly as she held it close. It gave a terrified kick and leaped out of her arms. Esme watched as it bounded away, afraid that she had lost it and would now be cursed by the oracle for failing in her deed.

But the rabbit, a plump hare, gave two faltering jumps and then pitched forward-dead. Esme ran to it and picked it up. The racing heart was still. She took her dagger and cut off its head to bleed it. She left it dangling by its hind legs from a branch while she went in search of wood to make a fire.

When at last the fire was crackling and the skinned rabbit gutted and roasting on a spit, Esme went to the seeress and announced, “Your meal will be ready soon, old mother. And I have found you an apple to eat with your meat.” The apple she had thoughtfully peeled and diced into a wooden bowl which she retrieved from Toli’s pack behind the saddle. She then ground the large golden globe to mash with the handle of her dagger.

The hag said nothing but hopped nearer the fire and seated herself. Esme went to the stream and filled a second bowl with water.

“Perhaps Orphe’s daughter would care to wash her hands before eating,” Esme said gently, holding the bowl before her.

The old woman nodded regally and dipped her hands daintily into the bowl and rubbed them together. The water turned murky with dirt. The old woman then wiped her wet hands on her filthy clothes and smiled.

Esme fetched her another bowl of water, took the cooked meat from the spit and cut it into strips which she shredded and chopped. “Your meal, my lady,” said Esme, for the oracle had assumed a queenly air as she was presented with the bowl of apple and rabbit, thoroughly minced.

Esme withdrew to watch the old woman dine with obvious pleasure, licking her fingers and smacking her lips. When she had finished, she held out the bowl for more. Esme filled it again and sat down beside her to wait. The sun reached its zenith, dwindling the shadows in the glade to nothing, and still the old woman hunkered over her bowl. Esme clasped her hand around her knees and forced herself to wait as patiently as possible.

At last the old woman had eaten her fill. She placed the bowls on the ground beside her and rose up with much creaking and snapping of joints. She shook herself forward to stand before Esme and leaned once more on her staff. This she did with such surety of motion and without hesitation that Esme realized for the first time that the hag saw as much with her inner eye as others did with perfect vision. She shuddered to think that as a child the woman had probably had her eyes put out to further enhance her strange gift

The deed was done

And with thoughtful art.

As best befits

A most noble heart.

By this I know

As by a gold ring,

Princess ye an

And your father King.

Esme gasped and jumped to her feet. The hag had spoken rightly, but it frightened her to have her secret so easily known.

“You see much that cannot be seen with eyes alone, priestess. Since I have served you as you asked, allow me to leave with your blessing.”

A blessing ye ask

And this ye receive,

Your secret safe

If none you deceive.

Full rare is she

Whose safety would spend

In risking death

For love of a friend.

But this ye do

And this will be found:

Your errand done

When two are unbound.

The old woman turned and scuttled away. Esme felt a nudge at her elbow and realized that Riv had come to her and was anxious to be off and away from the queer old woman.

Esme climbed into the saddle and watched the shapeless bundle of rags hop from stone to stone back across the stream. “Thank you for the blessing, daughter of Orphe. May your prophecy be true.”

At that the hag stopped and turned once more toward Esme. She raised her crooked staff overhead with both hands and turned around three times very fast. Esme wondered that she did not fall off her precarious perch in the middle of the stream.

The old woman’s rasping voice rose to fill all the hollow.

I speak what is

And not what may be.

But since you ask,

Hear my prophecy

The oracle raised her face toward the sky and muttered a long incantation while the staff waved back and forth over her head. Then she brought the knobby head of the rod down with a crack upon the stone where she stood. Her hand shot into the air, fingers spread like a claw. Her words echoed in the dell.

Seek ye the sword

And do not yield it!

If foe be flayed,

A King must wield it.

With a skip and a jump the hag disappeared as quickly and as mysteriously as she had come. But long after she was gone her words rang in Esme’s ears like the clear peal of a bell.

SIXTEEN

QUENTIN HUNG limply from the wagon wheel, his mind benumbed with the pain drumming through every extremity of his broken body. He whimpered softly, unaware that he was making any sound at all-unaware of anything but the throbbing, insistent agony.

All day long the wheel had spun-over rock and root, through dust and deep water. And Quentin, lashed to the wheel, had been slowly tortured into insensibility. He did not notice when the wheel finally stopped, nor when the sun set, nor when night brought an end to his torture.

He hung on the wheel and whimpered softly and pitifully as darkness deepened around him.

Amidst the ordered confusion of Nin’s army making camp for the night, the moon rose fair and full, and with it the Wolf Star. Quentin gazed unblinking at the moon with unseeing eyes. Some small part of his mind watched it curiously, a frightened animal peering out from the cave where, it had retreated to escape the hunters.

After a long time it seemed to Quentin that the moon was coming toward him, leaving its course in the black dome of heaven to swim closer and closer. He could see it weaving over him, shining with a gentle light. It had two dark eyes that watched strangely. He wanted to reach out and place his hand against its smooth luminous surface, but his hands would not obey. Then the moon disappeared.