"You're a beautiful woman," he croaked, forcing the compliment. Then he ameliorated his boldness with, "You shouldn't risk yourself like this. If we're taken..."

There was red in her face when she looked his way. Had he angered her?

"Marshal," she said, "I'm a woman. Noble by birth, Queen in marriage to a man long dead, and leader by circumstance. But a woman."

He thought he understood. And that was more frightening than anything that might be waiting beyond the hill.

They crested that hill. "You're sure the messages went out?" He had asked her to send commands to every Nordmen to post public pledges of fealty or face banishment or death. News of today's events would pursue the messengers, would convince or condemn.

"Yes. Slight exasperation.

He studied the encampment. Vodicka had restructured it along Imperial lines, throwing up ramparts and cutting trenches. Towers for archers were under construction. It had taken two attacks for Vodicka to learn that he wasn't on bivouac.

"Banners," Ragnarson growled over his shoulder. They had been noticed.

The Krief family ensign broke beside a white parlay flag. Ragnarson advanced till they were just beyond the range of a good Itaskian bow. This would be the point for one of Greyfells' rogues to materialize.

They waited. And waited. The nearest gate finally opened. Horsemen came forth.

"Here," Ragnarson told the Queen, "is where, if I were Haroun, you'd learn the difference in our thinking. He'd make some innocuous signal and our bowmen could cut them down. Haroun goes for the throat."

Vodicka wasn't with the party.

"They look like they've spent a year besieged already," the Queen remarked. She was old enough to remember the bitter sieges in her homeland.

Ragnarson signaled an interpreter. The common speech of Volstokin was akin to Marena Dimura. The upper classes used a different dialect.

The party was a mixed bag including several senior officers of Volstokin's army, a few of El Murid's advisors, Kaveliner turncoats, and a man with a bow who looked Itaskian.

A Kaveliner recognized the Queen, babbled excitedly to his companions.

"Tell them our business is with Vodicka," Ragnarson told his interpreter. The lingua franca of the upper classes was the speech of Hellin Daimiel.

An officer replied, "I speak for King Vodicka. No need for the interpreter." He spoke flawless upper-class Itaskian. "I'm Commander of the Household, Seneschal Sir Farace Scarna of Liolios."

"Guild Colonel Bragi Ragnarson, Marshal of Kavelin, with and speaking for Her Supreme Highness Fiana Melicar Sardyga ip Krief, Queen of Kavelin, daughter and ally of His Highness Dusan Lorimier Sardygo, Lord Protector of Sacuescu, the Bedelian League, and the

Auszura Littoral, and Prince Viceregal to Their Majesties the Kings of Dunno Scuttari and Octylya." Which didn't mean much, Sacuescu being powerless, Dunno Scuttari still recovering from the wars, and Octylya an Itaskian Protectorate as subject to pressure from the Queen's enemies as friends.

"What do you want?"

Ragnarson was pleased by Sir Farace's businesslike manner. A fighting man all his life, Bragi judged.

"I challenge Vodicka to individual combat. And demand the surrender of himself and his forces. The former as Champion, the latter as Marshal."

"Champion?"

"Your King has had that much success, Sir Farace," the Queen interjected.

Sir Farace said something in his own tongue. Reluctantly, all but he withdrew a hundred yards.

"Pull back the same distance, Dehner," Bragi ordered.

"The lady too, and it please you."

Ragnarson turned. She was putting her stubborn face on. "My Lady."

"Must I?"

"I think so."

Once they were alone, scant swordswings apart, Sir Farace asked, "Man to man? Not as Seneschal and Marshal?"

"All right."

"Can you beat us?"

"Easily. But I'll starve you out instead. I've talked to deserters. I know what's going on inside."

"Damned foreigners... Intrigues and magic. And greed. Destroyed an army and a King." He paused, spat. "I'd surrender. Save what I could. But I'm not His Majesty. The weaker he gets, the more he grows sure we can finish Kavelin if we'll just hold on till we get another sorcerer from Al Remish." He spat again. "He won't surrender. He might fight."

"You could sally, come over the hill, and surrender."

"No."

"I didn't think so. How bad is he?"

"Very. Healthy, he'd give you a battle. He fought

Tarlson to a draw once. Years ago. He wears the scar proudly."

"What happens if I kill him? In Volstokin?"

"You wouldn't notice the change. His brother, whom you defeated at Lake Berberich, succeeds. The war goes on."

"How, with Volstokin in ruins and threatened by famine?"

"The rumors are true?"

"I know bin Yousif."

"Why this confrontation?"

"This army's a nuisance. I've got more dangerous enemies to worry about. Suppose I grabbed Vodicka and threw him in a cell somewhere? Kept him in style, but didn't ransom him?"

"A regency. Probably the Queen Mother. His Majes­ty's brother, Jostrand, isn't that popular."

"And this infamous alliance with El Murid?"

"Dead. Dead as the Emperors in their graves."

"Then imprisonment might best serve both Volstokin and Kavelin."

"Perhaps."

"A gift to show my feeling that there should be peace between us. Anstokin moves with spring. They intend to take the provinces above Lake Berberich, all the way to the Galmiches."

Sir Farace grew pale. He started to say something, nodded. Then, "Of course. We should've anticipated it."

"Our sources are unimpeachable."

"I believe you. I'll talk to His Majesty, but I guarantee nothing. Good fortune."

"The same." He said it to Sir Farace's dwindling back.

v) Personal combat

"Well, what'd he say?" the Queen demanded. "We might work something out." "You won't attack?"

"Not if I can help it."

"But..."

"I didn't get this old fighting for fun. Let's get back to the woods. This wind's killing me."

While the others piled brush into a windbreak and got a fire going, and saw to the horses and weapons, Bragi and the Queen sat on a log and stared at Vodicka's encampment. Bragi was looking for weaknesses, she the gods knew what.

"Beckring," Ragnarson said presently. "Find Sir Andvbur. Tell him I need a crossbow, a pony or his runtiest horse, and a Cerny." The Cerny, a breed developed near that small city in Vorhangs, was a gigantic horse meant to bear the most heavily armored knights.

"Now what?" the Queen asked.

"Hedging my bets. That's another way you stay alive in this business."

"I don't understand."

"I just remembered. Haroun isn't the only guy who thinks his way. His whole race... Can you kill a man? If he's trying to kill you?"

"I don't know."

"Better think about it. Better be ready when the time comes." He began fiddling with his boots.

Beckring brought the animals and weapons just as a party left Vodicka's camp. Ragnarson explained as he hurried his people to the meeting point. He rode the Cerny, she the pony. The men crowded close so they could hear.

When the Volstokiners arrived, without Vodicka or Sir Farace, Ragnarson had the Cerny sideways to them with the Queen masked behind him. He presented his shield side.

Sir Farace had been replaced by an idiot, a terrified, drooling victim of some disease that had crippled both brain and body.

Ragnarson had anticipated the action. Vodicka had done the same in other wars. He ignored the man, concentrated on the "advisers."

They were too studiedly disinterested. He locked gazes with a hawk-nosed veteran who wore a mouth-corner scar that drew his lips into a permanent smirk.

Smirk-mouth's eyes flicked, for the scantest instant, to the man who was to provide his diversion...