"I… I suppose that's what a village is," Diru stammered.

"A good thought." Ria nodded with approval.

Approval! of Diru!

"But if we're a sheaf, then we ought to press against each other, shouldn't we?"

Dim couldn't stop staring. She couldn't really be flirting with him! Not with him! But he told himself that it would be rude not to answer and said, "I suppose that's what we all want."

"All?" Ria's eyelids flickered. "Folk say you're happier alone, Dim. Are you sure you want other stalks to press you?"

"Oh, very sure!" Dim said fervently, then realized he was being too forthright. He tried to pull away a little. "I mean, I wouldn't want to be a hermit living alone in the woods."

"How about a hermit with someone else living with you?"

Dim couldn't believe his ears. She couldn't be hinting that she found him attractive. No woman could—could she? "I—I suppose that if you have someone living with you, you're not a hermit."

"Still, it sounds lovely, being just two people alone out in the woods." Ria scooped up an armful of sheaves and went to carry them to the shock.

Diru scooped up his own sheaves and hurried to keep up with her. "It would be good enough if we could all pull together the rest of the year, as we do at harvest."

"But there should be some times when people can be alone together." Ria set her sheaves against the shock; as she turned away and Diru stepped up, her breast brushed against the back of his hand.

Diru stood frozen an instant. No woman had ever touched him, let alone a touch like that! Then he hurried to set his sheaves and turned to catch up with Ria. "I've felt sorry whenever I've heard of a hermit," Diru said. "People aren't meant to live alone."

"And they're not always meant to be serious." Ria turned to him with a smile, eyelashes flickering. "We're meant to do things together—aren't we, Diru?"

Diru's heart leaped. "Why … of course," he stammered, "things like the Festival tomorrow night." He screwed up his courage and burst out, "Will you dance with me there, Ria?"

"Dance with you?" He saw the delight in her eyes, and for a moment, his hopes soared.

They came crashing down as she threw back her head and laughed. The other young folk looked up at the sound, already grinning.

"Why, Diru!" she said very loudly. "Are you flirting with me?"

Diru tried to answer, his mouth moved, but no words came.

"Diru's flirting with me!" she called to the other young folk. "He's asked me to dance with him tomorrow night!"

Hoots of derision came from every side, howls of laughter, and Diru's face burned.

"Getting ideas a little above your station, aren't you, Diru?" Lenar came forward, eyes alight with merriment.

"Yes, Diru!" one of her friends said, giggling. "You should be asking someone with your own kind of looks. An elk, perhaps?"

"Oh, an elk's far too pretty!" another girl cried. "Diru should flirt with a bear!"

"Yes, Diru!" Hirol stepped up behind Lenar. "Maybe a she-bear would let you cuddle up to hibernate with her!"

"Yes, somebody must want you to cuddle!" Arker stepped up beside Ria and slipped his arm around her shoulders. "Nobody human, of course, but somebody." Ria laughed with him, clinging to his arm and pressing against him, eyes mocking as she looked at Diru.

Diru's face burned, but he burned hotter within, standing there in the middle of a ring of mocking laughter and realizing how they had laid their trap, and how eagerly he had fallen into it. It had all been a joke, a great big joke, to see Diru make a fool of himself—the beginning of the Harvest Festival merriment. He could see it all—it had been Lenar or Hirol who had thought of it, but Ria had been quick to agree, since she wanted so badly to be part of Lenar's circle—all the girls did, and this had been her chance. Then they had told all the other young people about their wonderful jest, one destined to be famous in the village for a lifetime—how pretty Ria made a fool out of ugly Diru!

Wordless, he turned and blundered his way out of the circle, the laughter of mockery filling his ears. He stalked away, but they kept pace with him for a hundred yards as the anger within him swelled and swelled—but he knew what would happen if he lashed out, for the boys had given him beatings enough before. In misery, he waded through that torrent of laughter until the trees enfolded him with their blessed coolness and the sounds of merriment began to fade behind him. There was little point in following him into the woods, of course. One last taunt came behind him: "Oh, leave him alone! He's gone to propose to that bear we told him about."

And one last burst of laughter.

Diru ploughed ahead toward the depth of the woods, not really knowing where he was going or why, filled with misery and rage. Some day he would have his revenge, on Ria and Lenar and Hirol and Acker—on all of them, the adults who had always sneered at him, the youths who had mocked him since childhood. How, he had no idea, but he would have revenge!

Then the idea struck, and he froze, staring off into the trees, realizing just how he could have that revenge—and not a year or more from now, but tomorrow! He set off through the woods again, but with a sense of purpose now, going as quickly as he could toward the river.

THEY RODE INTO the town square, a rough circle perhaps a hundred feet across, surrounded by half-timbered three-story houses, each with a shop of some sort on the ground floor—but all were shut, and the townsfolk glum as they gathered around the scaffold set in the center of the square, its raw wood rough and uneven. At its left end rose a set of bleachers, separated from the scaffold by ten feet of space and fifty men-at-arms, their spears bristling—but their liveries were not those of Loguire. They matched the rich colors of the robes of the men who sat on the board seats, fine clothing of satins and velvets that displayed their wealth and power, and the swords at their sides proclaimed not only their military training, but also their readiness to use them to start a war if they didn't like the verdict.

Rod drew breath, chilled as he realized a rebellion could break out right here—or a civil war; he saw a dozen knights sitting on their horses at the far end of the scaffold with a score of men-at-arms behind them and many more sprinkled throughout the crowd. The judge had taken military precautions, but his own armed force wasn't going to prevent a battle. Only clear thought and keen judgement could do that.

Between the judge's high chair at the one end of the scaffold and Anselm and his allies at the other, stood the gallows. The late afternoon sunlight glistened on the golden chain hanging from it.

Rod stared. "I hadn't known we had come to witness Geordie's execution!"

"Nor had I." Rowena slipped off her horse's back; several of her guards leaped down to help her, but she was already climbing the rough stairs. "I must plead for him!" She almost ran to the young man who sat in the seat of judgement and threw herself to her knees, head bowed— but Rod took one look at that young man and knew how slim her chances were. Diarmid Loguire was supremely logical, and prided himself on his ability to banish emotion in his consideration of a problem.

Rod felt a chill wind blow that did not stir the leaves of the surrounding trees and had nothing to do with the weather. If clear thinking and sound judgement were all that could prevent a war from beginning here, they could all be in deep trouble. Rod had faith in Diarmid's ability to think clearly, but he wasn't so sure about his sense of judgement. Diarmid was not a people person.

Quickly, Rod scanned the others who stood on the platform. Nearest him stood three older men, all looking grim. In their center was a lean, clean-shaven, gray-headed man with a bitter face. Rod recognized him—the King's elder brother Anselm, attainted for treason, demoted to the rank of squire, and doomed to live out his life in obscurity. Rod had heard that Anselm had wed and would have loved to have met his wife, to see the amazing woman who had married a man doomed to a life of shame. She must have really loved him.