Ista straightened, stretching her aching back. "When we return to Lord Illvin's chamber, study his attendant, Goram. I believe he once held a demon, as you now do."

"The groom was a sorcerer? Ha. Well, why not? If a demon can lodge in a bear, why not in a simpleton?"

"I do not think he was always a simpleton. I suspect he may have once been a cavalry officer of Roya Orico's army, before he was taken prisoner and enslaved unransomed. Study Goram closely, Foix. He may be your mirror."

"Oh," said Foix, and shrank a little. Liss's frown deepened.

At length the carved door opened, and Goram gestured them all back inside. The sheets had been changed, the bloodied linen robe whisked away, and Illvin dressed for company in his tunic and trousers, his hair tied back. Ista was obscurely grateful that he was made so presentable before her companions. Goram fetched the chair for her, and with little bobbing bows seated her by Illvin's bedside.

Dy Cabon reported to Ista in an awed whisper, "I watched the wounds close up, just now. Extraordinary."

Lord Illvin gingerly rubbed his right shoulder and smiled across at Ista. "I seem to have missed a busy morning, Royina, except not quite. Learned dy Cabon has been telling me of his alarming ride. I am glad your lost company is returned to you. I hope your heart is eased."

"Much eased."

Dy Cabon took the stool at the foot of the bed, a precarious perch for his bulk. Ista introduced Foix, and gave a short, blunt precis of his encounter with the bear, by way of preamble to describing his performance on the road. Goram hovered anxiously on the bed's other side, putting bites to Illvin's mouth while he listened.

Illvin, frowning, fended off a piece of bread, and said, "That such a raiding party should come so close to Porifors indicates either a young Jokonan hothead swaggering for show, or something moving behind. What say our scouts?"

"Dispatched, not yet returned," said Ista. "Lord Arhys prepares, he tells us, and has sent out warnings to the countryside."

"Good." Illvin eased back against his pillows. "Five gods help me, the days flit past me like hours. I would be out there riding now!"

She added, "I told your brother to wear his mail."

"Ah," he said. "Yes." His mouth set, his left hand going again to probe his elusively wounded shoulder. He stared down at his feet, absorbed in who-knew-what reflections. Ista wondered if his mind circled as dizzily as her own.

She drew a long breath. "Goram."

He paused in his spooning. "Lady?"

"Were you ever in Rauma?"

He blinked in bewilderment. "Don't know the place."

"It's a town in Ibra."

He shook his head. "We were at war with Ibra, before. Weren't we? I know I was in Hamavik," he offered as if in compensation. "Lord Illvin found me there."

"Your soul shows demon scars, dreadful ones. And yet... if you had been a sorcerer during your captivity, commanding the resources of a demon, you ought to have been able to escape, or otherwise improve your lot."

Goram looked daunted, as though being chastised for some lapse.

Ista opened a palm to soothe him, and continued, "There are ... too many demons about. As if some great outbreak had occurred, the divine told me, is that not so, Learned?"

Dy Cabon rubbed his chins. "It's surely beginning to appear so."

"Has the Temple mapped the sightings? Are they coming from one place, or from every place at once?"

A thoughtful look came over his suety face. "I have not heard from every place, but of the reports I have heard, there do seem to have been more toward the north, yes."

"Hm." Ista stretched her tight shoulders again. "Lord Illvin, dy Cabon has also told me that the divine of the Bastard in Rauma was a saint of his order, gifted with the ability to draw demons from their mounts and return them, somehow, miraculously, to the god. The Jokonan raiders slew her."

Illvin breathed out through pursed lips. "That's an unfortunate loss just now."

"Yes. Else he would have hauled Foix straight to her, and not come here instead. But now I'm wondering if it may have been more than a mischance. When I was captive, riding in the Jokonan column's baggage train, I saw a strange sight. A high-ranking officer, perhaps the commander himself, rode along tied to his saddle like a prisoner, or a fainting wounded man. His face was slack ... he could not control his drooling, and he mumbled, without words, or sometimes cried out as if in fear, or wept. I thought perhaps a head blow had destroyed his reason, but he bore no bandages or bloodstains whatsoever. I now wonder, if I'd had my second sight then—what great gouges I might have seen within his soul."

Illvin blinked at the disturbing word-picture. His wits leapt ahead to the conclusion Ista had not yet stated aloud. "Might he have been another sorcerer in the service of Jokona, do you think? Commanding that column?"

"Perhaps. What if the saint of Rauma did not die without a fight, or wholly in vain? What if it was she who'd ripped his demonic powers out by the roots, even as she fell to common violence? At the start of a campaign, do we not burn the enemy's crops, fill their wells, deny them their resources? I think a saint who could banish demons at will would be a powerful resource, against an enemy who commanded, perhaps, more such sorcerers. Maybe more than those two. Why Rauma, you asked me yesterday. What if the saint's murder, which we took for an incidental evil of the raid, was instead its main purpose?"

"But demons do not readily work together," objected dy Cabon. "One sorcerer, high in the Jokonan court, could do much damage, were he of evil bent. Well, or of loyal bent," he conceded fairly. "To Jokona, that is. But to call up or command a legion of demons—that is the vocation of the Bastard alone. Unimaginable hubris in a man, and doubly so for a Quadrene. Also, such a perilous concentration of demons would generate chaos all around it."

"War gathers on these borders," said Ista. "A greater concentration of chaos I can hardly imagine." She rubbed her forehead. "Lord Illvin, you have studied the court of Jokona, I suspect. Tell me something of it. What are Prince Sordso's principal advisors and commanders like?"

He eyed her with shrewd interest. "It's mostly still the cadre of older men he inherited from his father. His first chancellor was his paternal uncle, though he's lately died. The present general of Jokona has served for years. Sordso's own friends and boon companions are a much younger lot, but he hasn't had a chance to put any into positions of power. Too soon to tell if any of them will prove fitted for war or government, though they seem to run largely to rich men's sons with too little chance, or drive, to learn their own trades. Arhys and I have speculated which will move up when the old men finally start to die off.

"Oh, and his mother, Princess Joen—Dowager Princess Joen. She was Sordso's regent, along with his uncle and the general, until he came of age. I wanted to probe down that way when she took the reins a few years ago, but Arhys was seized with a fit of deference for her sex and sad widowhood. And anyway, in the midst of what proved to be Roya Orico's final illness and death, we feared Cardegoss might not be able to rescue us from our mistakes. Or worse, might fail to support a victory."

"Tell me more of Joen," said Ista slowly. "Did you ever meet her? If Umerue had held to her initial plan, she would have become your mother-in-law."

"Daunting thought. It is a measure of Umerue's powers that such a drawback never troubled my mind. I've never met Joen face-to-face. She is some ten or fifteen years older than I am, and had more or less disappeared into the women's quarters by the time I was old enough to notice the politics of the princedom. I will say, she was the most continually pregnant princess in recent Jokonan history—certainly did her duty by her husband. Though she was not entirely fortunate in her children, for all her efforts. Out of a dozen or so, only three sons, and two of those died young. Some miscarriages and stillbirths, too, I think. Seven girls lived to marry—Sordso has family alliances all over the Five Princedoms. Oh, and she takes her descent from the Golden General most seriously. Makes up for the disappointments of her husband and son, I suppose—or maybe it creates them, I don't know."