„What did they talk about, Josiah?" No one else called him Josiah.

„Practically nothing."

„They had to talk about something, didn't they?"

„They did. It wasn't worth me skulking around through a lot of dusty passageways, my Lady. A lot of ‘Hello, how are you, long time no see.' Some ‘How come Prataxis scored so easy this year.' A little ‘What the hell is going on in Shinsan these days.' Then His Majesty sent them on their ways. He says they'll get together again when Prataxis gets back. He's got me wondering if maybe he isn't some suspicious."

„He's always suspicious, Josiah. He's got good reason."

„I mean more than your everyday suspicion. It was something he said."

„Which was?"

„He had Trebilcock wait till the others was gone. Told him to come play Captures with him. That's when he said it."

„Said what?" A wrinkle of frustration danced across the Queen's brow. She peeped round the curtain. Her flock had not yet missed her.

„That even the walls have ears."

Inger's smile vanished. „Uhm. That bears thought. Thank you, Josiah."

„I'm your slave, Lady."

She left the alcove wearing a curious little frown. Her charges would find her a less gracious hostess than before.

Gales nibbled his lower lip. Had he spoken too boldly? Had he betrayed too much?

Josiah Gales was a victim of love. It was a hopeless love. There was no chance it would be consummated in any manner more intimate than what had just taken place.

He had resigned his head to the limits long ago, before Ragnarson ever entered his lady's life. It was his heart that would not admit there were insuperable barriers between a lady of quality and a middle-aged foot soldier.

He let imagination run with the moment just fled. Fanta­ sy chided him for not having been sufficiently daring.

3

Year 1016 AFE; Captures

Kavelin's king interrupted his ride at Vorgreberg's ceme­ tery. He had left the city early so he would have time before the game.

He first visited the mausoleum of the family Krief. They had ruled Ravelin before him. He leaned over the glass-faced sarcophagus of his predecessor and former lover. Queen Fiana's clay had been cunningly preserved by Varthlokkur's art.

„Sleeping beauty," he whispered to the cool, still form. „When will you waken?" Imagination insisted that her chest was rising and falling slowly. His heart wanted to believe it. His mind could not conquer the lie.

He had loved her. She had born him a daughter he had hardly known. Little Carolan lay interred nearby. This jealous kingdom had pulled them down... .

There had been fire in their loving. It had been that once in a lifetime perfect physical match, where all the needs and likes had meshed to perfection. The remembered heat of it made him doubt his commitment to Inger now. He was a little afraid to let himself go, to owe this latest woman completely. Fate had a way of striking down everyone for whom he cared.

He kissed the glass over Fiana's lips. For an instant imagination supplied a ghost of a smile.

„Be patient with me, Fiana. I'm doing the best I can." After a minute, „Trying times are coming. They don't think I suspect. They think my head is in the clouds. They underestimate me. Like they underestimated you. And I'll go on letting them think I'm just a dumb soldier till they fall into the pit I'll dig for them."

She seemed to nod her understanding.

They worried about him in Vorgreberg. He did not come here often, but they thought it strange that he visited the dead at all. They thought it stranger still that he spoke to the dead.

He let them think what they would. This was one of his away places, his thinking places, his refuges for those moments when he had to be alone.

He went outside and sat on the moist grass near a freshly filled grave. The rain had stopped. For a time he did nothing but sit and chuck the occasional soggy clod at a nearby headstone. It had begun to add up. To what he did not yet know, but a whisper here, a rumor there, and news of something strange from beyond the mountains. ... It all meant something.

As a boy he had made one passage reeving with his father. They had sailed from Tonderhofn with the ice floes, and had been one of the first dragonships through the Tongues of Fire. A few days into the ocean they had become becalmed. The sea had taken on the look of polished green jade. The crew had been in no mood to man the oars. Mad Ragnar had taken the opportunity to teach his sons a bit of his philosophy.

„Look around, boys," said the man called both Mad Ragnar and The Wolf of Draukenbring. „What do you see? The ocean's beauty? Its peace? Its serenity?"

Not knowing what was expected, the young Bragi nod­ ded. His brother Haaken refused to go that far.

„Think of the sea as life." Ragnar seized a maggoty chunk of the pig they had sacrificed before hazarding the treacher­ ous currents of the Tongues. He drove a spear through it, leaned over the gunwale, swished it through the water. Then he leaned against the ship's side, meat poised inches above the glassy sea. He waited.

Soon Bragi saw something moving through the green glass. Another something passed beneath the dragonship. A fin cut the surface fifty yards away.

Something exploded out of the deep. It took meat, spear, and very nearly Ragnar as the sudden jerk yanked him against the rail. The water boiled, then became still. Bragi never saw what took the rotted flesh.

„There," Ragnar said. „You see? There's always some­ thing down there. When it's calmest is when you've got to watch out. That's when the big ones hunt." He pointed.

A vast dark shape drifted past the dragonship, too far down to be discerned as anything but a shadow in the green. „That's when the big ones hunt," Ragnar said again. He began kicking and cursing his men. They decided rowing was less unpleasant than their captain's tireless sound and fury.

Bragi flipped a clod at a weed stalk left from last year. Luck made a contact. The stalk went down.

He rose. „When the big ones hunt," he murmured, and began walking across the hill.

He went to a rank of graves. They contained his first wife and the children he had lost in Kavelin.

Elana had been a special woman. A saint, to have fol­ lowed him through his mercenary years, to have born him a child a year, to have endured his wandering eye and affection without protest. She had been the daughter of an Itaskian whore, but she had been a lady. She remained stamped upon his soul. He missed her most when he was troubled.

There was some barrier in him that prevented his sharing with Inger that way.

Fiana had been both passion and a symbol of commit­ ment to a greater ideal. Elana had been solid, simple, family, perhaps representing that tightest, most intense and basic of human allegiances.

Strange, he thought, staring at the line of headstones. He had not given either woman his all. He was giving Inger nothing he had given them. How vast were the resources within one man?

He was not sure what he was giving his wife-queen. Something, to be sure. She seemed satisfied most of the time.

He stood there a long time, remembering his years with Elana, and the friends who had given their days that special touch.

All that was gone. He had come to the grey days, the soft, colorless days, to which his acquaintances contributed little.

Maybe he was aging. Maybe, as you grew older, the highs and lows and color faded away, and it all got so oatmealy you just decided it was time to lay down and die.

He glanced at the sun. Time had stolen away while he stretched himself on the rack of his yesterdays. Best quit fooling around, he thought. Wouldn't do for the King to be late for his game of Captures.