"Yes … yes, of course." Alea let herself be led into the sitting room, turned to take a chair by the hearth, and sat gazing into the flames, mind and heart open to the young giant who walked up the stairs, alert for any call for support he might send—but none came. Finally she looked up at Cordelia—and at Quicksilver and Allouette. With a shock, she realized how neatly Magnus's sister had split her off to have her alone with the young women, and Alea knew at once what it meant. She braced herself for an interrogation, and for judgement.

Cordelia, however, only smiled gently and said, "Gregory has told us what Magnus has said of you, and of the rush of feeling that went with it. That seems so little, though, now that we actually see you."

"Rush of feeling?" Alea was instantly intent. "What feelings did he speak of?"

All three women exchanged a quick glance of surprise.

"Admiration," Cordelia said, "for your skill in battle, the sharpness of your tongue, and keenness of your wit—but also admiration for your face and form."

Alea gave a sharp, bitter laugh. "Face and form? A horsehead atop a beanpole? What could he admire in that?"

The women exchanged another surprised look, this one veiled; then Quicksilver turned back to Alea. "You know very little of yourself, damsel, if that is how you see your reflection."

"How shall I see my reflection," Alea asked bitterly, "when there is no mirror tall enough?"

"Almost as tall as Magnus, you mean?" Cordelia smiled. "Why would he want a minikin my size, when there is so much of him?"

Alea stared at her while she tried to quench a wild unreasoning hope, and had to lower her gaze to contain it. "No man wants a woman who's as tall as a tree …"

"Except a man who is a mountain," Quicksilver said, amused. "Besides, there is movement to mention."

"How?" Alea frowned. "What matters motion?"

Allouette made a small sound of exasperation.

"No, damsel, I do not know the workings of men's minds as you do!" Alea snapped. "I know only the result of your deeds—hurt that has burned so deeply that the wound can never heal and a heart locked away where none else can touch it!"

Allouette seemed to shrink where she sat, and Cordelia clasped her hand, saying to Alea, "That was unjust. It was not the woman you see before you who hurt my brother, but the she-wolf she was before my mother healed her."

"Indeed," Quicksilver seconded, "and we say that whom she assaulted, we from whom she tried to steal our beloveds."

"But failed!" Alea said hotly. "She did not fail in what she did to Magnus! I do not know what it is, I know only what I have guessed from the scraps of comments he has dropped now and again, but I know enough to gauge how deeply she has hurt him!"

"And how badly that has walled him from you?" Cordelia asked, her voice low.

Alea started to answer, but her voice caught in her throat and she had to shake her head angrily to clear the words. "I do not want that from him! Indeed, his loathing of sex, of any hint of it, was no doubt my protection in those first few months of our journeying together, when I was sure every man wanted to use me as his toy no matter how repellant I was, for I was at least female! To use but never to keep—and it took me long indeed to believe that your brother wanted my companionship and my welfare and finally my protection, but never my body! Aye, I suppose I should thank you for that." But her tone was bitter.

Allouette's eyes were wide and tragic, though, and she said softly, "One cripple healing another, then."

"Healing?" Alea snapped. "How can he be healing? Oh, I have tried, I suppose, much good it has done me—aye, much good indeed, when he has not healed a bit!" Then she stopped, staring in amazement at the words that had come from her lips.

"Do you wish him to be more to you, then, than a shield-mate in battle?" Cordelia asked gently, then answered her own question. "Of course you do, if you would see him fully healed."

"Aye, I wish it!" Alea cried. "But how can that be? I am not the sort of woman to be able to heal a man!"

"You are exactly the sort of woman to heal that man," Allouette said with certainty.

"To protect him, at least!" Alea turned on her. "Let none dare to strike at him again, for she shall meet two swords instead of one!"

"There is none here who will seek his hurt," Allouette assured her, voice low, but face composed with a serenity that discarded any possibility of fear.

By her very confidence, she struck doubt into Alea's heart, so that she spoke with more vehemence than she might have otherwise. "How can anyone be healed from wounds such as that!"

"By truth and kindness and forgiveness," Cordelia said, "even as our mother healed Allouette."

Alea turned to stare in surprise.

"She was most horrendously twisted from infancy on," Cordelia explained, "kidnapped from her real mother and reared by those who sought to fashion her as a tool for their own purposes—by people who knew exactly what they did and what pain they inflicted and cared not a whit, as long as it accomplished their ends. They twisted her and warped her into believing the world was far worse than it is, and no goodness possible."

"Twisted for their pleasures, too," Quicksilver said, her voice low.

Alea understood instantly what she meant, understood five possibilities on the instant, and winced at the thought.

"Do not feel sorry for me," Allouette said. "Do not pity me, for I deserve it not. What I did, I chose to do, and it does not matter that those choices were based on lies and on hatreds that were based on still more lies. It was nonetheless my decision, my choice, and I deserved every torture wreaked upon me."

"When the deeds came after the tortures?" Quicksilver snapped. "Be not so ingenuous, sister! You had not the ghost of a notion that you had any choice at all." She turned back to Alea. "Pity her indeed, for she was debased and humiliated so badly that I wonder she had any will to live. Forgive her, too, for when she learned the truth, remorse overwhelmed her, and threatens even now to drown her in spite of all the love and praise Gregory lavishes upon her."

Alea stared at Allouette, and the minutes stretched as Quicksilver and Cordelia held their breaths. Then, "I shall forgive you," Alea said, her voice cold, "when Magnus is healed."

"Do you see to it, then," Allouette said, "for only you can."

Cordelia and Quicksilver were still a moment more, then nodded, and Alea stared at the three of them, appalled and feeling completely helpless and inadequate.

A SINGLE CANDLE lit the room, showing the woman who lay propped up by pillows in the wide bed with the grieving, gray-haired man beside her, her hand in both of his, gaze never leaving her face. For a moment Magnus wondered who she was, then realized the shrunken, wrinkled face on the pillow was that of his mother. He froze in shock.

"Speak to her," Gregory said softly at his shoulder. "She will waken for you."

Magnus still stood unable to move as he heard the door close quietly behind him. At the sound, the old man looked up.