She nodded as she stood up.

"Once in a rare while I really do know the future, however. When it happens-which is only rarely, as I said-I generally have a terrible time making people believe me. Will you believe me now, if I swear to you that what I'm about to tell you is the simple truth? The truth about the future?"

"If I can."

"Just so. If you can. You have been growing up with a number of assumptions, Mora, and all of them are wrong. You said a moment ago-please don't cry again, it isn't worth it-that you saw for the first time what it would be like to be pursued by fortune hunters."

"He wanted to know how o-o-old I w-was." Her voice was without any hint of emotion until it shook and broke. "So I said fifteen, to see if he'd-if he'd… "

She bit her lower lip to steady herself. "Because I wanted to see if he'd believe it, and he did. You have to be sixteen to get married in Blanko. Is it like that where you come from?"

"Probably not, " I told her. "I don't know, but I doubt that there is any restriction at all."

"In Blanko it's sixteen, so I said fifteen and waited to see what would happen. He looked at me and looked away, and I could see it working in his mind. He asked me about my mother, and how many brothers and sisters, and everything I said made him worse."

"I understand. I, too, saw something for the first time tonight. I think it's very likely that it was the first time that it's ever been seen at all, by anyone." I paused to collect my thoughts.

"When a boy becomes a man, Mora, there must be a moment, a moment when the boy falls away never to be seen again. But before that moment come moments, which may be many or few, when one can glimpse the man who is to be, the man waiting behind the boy."

"I'm not a man, even if that's what they say at the academy. Or a boy either."

"I know you're not, which is why it came as such a surprise to me. I had known the other, you see; but I had never realized that it would apply equally to girls. Even when it took place before me, I was so busy recognizing her-I recognized the woman you will become as soon as I saw her-that I didn't think through the implications for a moment. You talked just now about finding a man who will love you."

"Maybe I can't." The hawk returned. "But by every god in the whorl, I'm going to try!"

"You will find many, and without much difficulty, " I told her. "But be careful-be extremely careful, I beg you-that you find one you yourself can love as well."

"Man come, " Oreb muttered.

"Your father, " I told Mora. "Why don't you open the door for him?"

"How do you-?"

"I know his step."

He knocked as I spoke.

"And his knock, too. Please come in, Inclito. It's not locked."

He did, and looked surprised to see his daughter.

"Mora will be lonely without Fava, " I explained. "She wanted to talk to me about that, and some other things. She realizes, as I'm sure you do, that she won't be a child much longer. She's concerned about her course in life, as all such young women are. I've tried to help a little, though I haven't much help to give her."

"It would be a lot, " Mora said, "if I could believe you." And then, impulsively, "Good-bye, Incanto! Good-bye, Papa!" She blew us kisses, and was out of the room before I could so much as consider what gesture I might make in return.

Inclito shut the door. "She's not in trouble with some boy, is she?"

I shook my head.

"Her mother had a dozen on her string. Nobody ever figured out why she picked me." Inclito sat down on my bed. "She wasn't a beautiful woman, but… "

"If I were more polite myself, I would say now that you're mistaken, " I told him, "in part at least."

"You're not that polite?"

I shook my head.

"Me neither. Mama tried to make me when I was little, but it saves a lot of time. All right, not a dozen. Six I can name and me. No, eight."

"I wasn't referring to that. A dozen may be the figure for all I know – or twenty. But you lied when you said she wasn't a beautiful woman."

"You could see by my face, huh? I thought I was better than that. You're right, she was, and I was the only one that knew it."

"You are better than that. It was another face that told me you were lying."

"You saw her one time, my Zitta? Before you left the old whorl?"

"Tonight. What was it you wanted to see me about?" I went to the window, which was open already, and opened it more widely.

"The spy. It was Fava?"

I nodded.

"She ought to have been hanged."

"Then hang me. I arranged for her to escape in safety."

He shook his head, a head bigger than most men's, upon a neck far thicker than most. "She was only a sprat. It would have made me sick to watch it. I'm not going to say you did right, but I'm glad you did it."

"So am I."

"The Duko's marched already? That's what you said."

"No, I didn't. I said I thought so, and that if he had not, he would set out within a day. That is as exact as I can make it."

"We got to meet him in the hills." Inclito stood up, absentmindedly wiping hands twice the size of his daughter's on his shirt. "He gets out into the bottomlands where he can spread out his horses, and it's all over. You weren't ever a trooper? It's what you told me once. But you fought enough to get yourself shot." He pointed toward my wound, though it was concealed by my robe and my tunic. "There in the side. In and out. It doesn't bother you?"

I shrugged. To write the truth – Nettle, you must never read this-I was listening to Seawrack's song as it floated across the waves a hundred leagues from where I stood.

"That man in the town down south? The one they called the rajan? It seemed like he ran a pretty good war. The other town had more men. That's what Eco says. He beat them anyhow, with brains and magic."

"Mostly by luck."

"Oh. You heard too? If you say so, but I'd like to have luck like that on our side. They say he's got six hundred on horses, the Duko."

My eyes must have shown the skepticism I felt.

"He had a spy here? I got spies there. Six hundred, they tell me. And Novella Citta. And Olmo. You know what I've got? How many horses? I'm trying to get two hundred. You know my men here? Well, I'm taking them, all three of them, on the carriage horses. After that if I can find just a few more, two hundred."

"Meanwhile, I am sending away two of your horsemen to carry my letters."

"It's right what you're doing. We haven't got so little we can't use any at all. Suppose they both get through. How good a chance they come over to our side?"

"Your estimate would be much more accurate than mine, I feel sure."

"One out of ten one will. One out of twenty for both. Each can bring a hundred and fifty on horses, maybe. Maybe a hundred. So that's eight hundred to get around behind us as soon as they get through the hills."

I said that my chief object in sending the letters had never been to win over Novella Citta and Olmo – welcome though that would be, should it occur-and that it was by no means impossible to be outflanked among hills.

"No, but it's harder, and they'd have to fight us, probably. If they get close, they can go straight at Blanko. You've seen it, the river and the walls. How long could they hold it against eight hundred men? That's boys, old men, and women."

I reflected. "A month, perhaps, if they were well led."

"Pah! A day. Maybe one whole day. Not two. And when our men found out the town had fallen behind them." He made a graphic gesture. "They're shoemakers and shopkeepers, farmers like me. The gods didn't say we win the war?"

"Nor that you will lose it."

"We'll meet them in the hills and crush them. We've got to. In the hills-" He waved toward my chair. "Sit down. You're making me all upset. Sit down."

I did, and he sat again.