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This was too s and crouched down to get a good look, biting her lip fretfully "Can I try? Can I?"

"Here, you hold the handle like this--"

Zacharias wiped raindrops fro chess with Wolfhere "I can’t take a turn around the caer’s span," he said, exairl uneasily She had lost her infant roundness Her face had gotten leaner, reen eyes stand out even more than they had before Wisps of black hair curled everywhere around her face where it escaped frolanced at hi"

"Nor did I say it was But you row so quickly It isn’t natural She e a week for every day that passes"

"I thought it ht stop once the dai round to see if the prince was listening, but Sanglant appeared to be deep in conversation with Captain Fulk "But God know it hasn’t Lord bless us She was born on the seventh day of Avril, on the feast day of St Radegundis One year and three rown three-year-old"

"It’s your le," said Zacharias irritably, "I think I particularly dislike that s little smile you wear on your face all the ti us"

"So I do, but in the matter of the child I know as little as you do"

"Spoken contemptuously!"

"Hush, now," said Heribert "No need to quarrel If I’ve made peace of a kind with Wolfhere, so can you"

"I’ry at hiet the better of hih, Wolfhere, that I’d be your pupil in whatever you cared to teach me, if you had a mind to But you’ve made clear it that you won’t teach me or anyone else Except the absent Liath who, I swear to you, I’h I’ve never met her"

"You jealous bastard," said Heribert with a laugh

"It’s still your o" Zacharias ducked back outside, stepping over ropes staked down to hold the awning in place Suht painted the western forest, shrouded by low-lying clouds, in haze Wind h the trees, a counterpoint to the patter of rain Aboth cathedral tower and fortress tower in white Beyond the palisade and ditch lay trarain leveled by a malicious heart that reveled in destruction A few abandoned hovels, homes of fisherfolk or tanners, stuck out as blackened hulks Even the orchards had been hacked down, although intact gardens and orchards flourished within the safety of the walls

The ates, but s the valley in a pattern Zacharias could not read He wasn’t a strategist He’d never trained for war Perhaps Bulkezu was only hiding in his personal tent, waiting to ahts tend in that direction Fear crippled you He had to beat it out of himself That was the only way to defeat Bulkezu

He had other angers he could nurse, to keep his mind off his fear of the Quman

Why was Wolfhere so stubborn? What use were secrets? Knowledge only ht to be allowed to learn rather than be kept in ignorance The thought of that old ht hoard gold, rankled

"Out here," said the e appeared with her nurse Matto, her constant attendants She had a little wooden sword in her left hand and aving it about enthusiastically "Noe fight! Noe fight, Matto" When she saw Zacharias and the vista that lay beyond the loall, she darted over to the wall, juood look over it, and tested toeholds at the base of the wall before returning to Zacharias "Lift me up!"

He hoisted her up in his ar out with her eyes wide as she struggled to actually stand up on his arht to see "What’s that?"

"That is Margrave Hel Can you see that banner on the tower? That means his heir is in residence All the people in the town have been besieged by the Quman army"