“I never even thought of it!”

Lavastine smiled thinly. “Perhaps you did not. Not yet, at any rate.”

“Then you must make the same promise!” Alain retorted, still waiting at the door.

Steadfast barked, and all at once all the hounds began yipping and barking. “Hush! Stop that noise, you miserable creatures!” snapped the count, but he was not truly angry with them. He could not be. Just as, Alain saw suddenly, he was not angry at what Alain had said. Having been granted the heir he so long desired and despaired of ever having, he could not bring himself to chastise him. Nor, perhaps, did he even want to, though the demand had been impertinent.

“Very well. She will stay with us … untouched. We march to Gent after the Feast of St. Sormas. Once we have retaken the city, we will collect Tallia and return home.”

Collect Tallia. It made her sound like a chest of gold or a jeweled cup, a valuable treasure held by the king to be given out as a prize. Wasn’t that what she was, now that her parents had been disgraced and shorn of their position? But their disgrace did not strip from her the inheritance she received through her mother nor the royal bloodlines that tied her to both the ruling house of Wendar and the princely house that had once ruled Varre.

A servant scratched lightly on the door.

“What if we fail to take Gent?” asked Alain.

Lavastine simply looked at him as if he had uttered words in a language the count did not know. “They are savages, Alain! We are civilized people. The city of Gent fell because it was unprepared and overwhelmed. The same will not happen to us. Come now. We have spent far too long talking about a common Eagle who is no doubt more useful to us when she flies as is her nature than when she is left bound to a post for us to admire her beauty. Let us get on with our day.”

6

HE had not spoken words in a long time except to respond to taunts or to call down the dogs. Indeed, it took him a long time—hours, perhaps days—to find the words that would say what he meant them to.

But he struggled, piecing them together. Never let it be said he did not fight until his last breath. He would not let Bloodheart and the dogs defeat him.

“Bloodheart.”

Was that his voice? Rasping and hoarse, he sounded brutish compared to the light, fluid tones of the Eika, who for all their ugly metal-hard bodies had voices as soft as the flutes Bloodheart played.

Bloodheart stirred on his throne, coming to life. “Is this my prince of dogs who addresses me? I thought you had forgotten how to speak! What boon do you ask?”

“You won’t kill me, Bloodheart. Nor will your dogs.”

Bloodheart didn’t reply, only fingered the ax laid across his thighs and the smooth bone flutes tucked into his girdle of glistening silver-and-gold chain links. Perhaps he looked irritated.

“Teach me your language. Let your priest teach me to read the bones, as he does.”

“Why?” demanded Bloodheart, but he might have been amused. He might have been angry. “Why should I? You are only a dog. Why should you want to?”

“Even dogs bark, and gnaw at bones for sport,” said Sanglant.

At that, Bloodheart laughed uproariously. He did not answer. Indeed, he left soon after to tour the armories and tanneries of Gent, to take his daily excursion down to the river.

But the next day the priest settled down just outside the limit of Sanglant’s chains and began to teach him the language of the Eika, to teach him how to roll and interpret the finely carved bones he carried in his pouch. And every day, lulled by Sanglant’s muted voice and intent interest—for what else did the prince have to be interested in?—the priest edged a little closer.

Even a dog could be patient.

PART FOUR

SEEKER OF HEARTS

XIII

A GLIMPSE BEYOND THE VEIL

1

BECAUSE of the rugged terrain and the lay of the mountains, no roads fit for the king’s progress led between the duchy of Avaria and that of Wayland. An Eagle had ridden straight west from the palace at Echstatt along tracks impassable for the heavy wagons that made up the train of the king’s entourage. So after several weeks at Echstatt, the court itself moved north along the Old Avarian Road toward the city and biscophric at Wertburg. Although not as well traveled a road as the Hellweg—the Clear Way—that ran through the heartland of Saony and Fesse, the road accommodated king and retinue without too much hardship for the royal party, though they moved slowly.

Old fortresses, royal manors, and estates under the rule of convents or monasteries provided lodging and food. Common folk lined the way to watch the king and his entourage ride by. According to Ingo, the king had not ridden this way for some five years, accounting for their enthusiastic welcome. To Hanna, their welcome resembled all the others she had witnessed, just as this land looked much like any other land with hills, vast forest, and the friendly sight of fields and villages, churches and estates. But the hills were steep and high while in Heart’s Rest the wilderness gave way to heath; beech and fir dominated in open fields where she was used to a dense canopy of oak and elm and lime; and the village folk spoke in a dialect that was hard for her to understand.