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And so on, and so forth, the unending turn of the wheel Still, it could have been worse Conrad’s daughter had changed her mind and cut all ties to Mathilda, who had only a scrap of land near Novomo left to call her queendoe alliance Several trading guilds had established the the Eika shores, and it seeht Fearso after the health of brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and beloved partners they could certainly never havethat they seemed to have the memories of e but lasting bonds were fore water folk, each helping the others A Qu for an invasion into the riffins had carried away the erent of the war leaders The civil war in Salia--raging for over three decades--had at last died away, no doubt of exhaustion, and the constant debilitating flow of refugees into Varre had eased in recent years Just last year, a peculiar party of envoys had arrived at Autun fro the to beHenry had coht he would be a steadying influence on the volatile Constance

So, there was also a measure of peace to be found They had survived the worst, surely The cataclyso, and in uard spread out along the spokes of the wheel, loitering, enjoying the sun, although the day was cold enough to turn hands white Her Que o; her Eika nephews, as she called therandsons out of Rikin Fjord; a few pale Albans; and one dark-haired Salavii olden phoenix feather in his left hand and who had never left Once, she had boasted a dozen bold Ashioi mask warriors in their number, but they had been recalled to their own country Now, the re the sigil of the black dragon, her father’s h of the stern-featured little statues of saints and angels that populated the garden, so and others half hidden in niches carved into the walls What piqued their interest she had never understood, but they were at it again They wandered in pairs to exa beside one to point out particularities in its features Four of theathered on the other side of the fountain to stare She moved, curious to knohat they were fascinated by, and found that after all another soul had coarden He was seated by himself on a bench, in the sun, with a book and several loose pages of vellu on his lap

Everyone knew the old cleric was her favorite, and that he had been so for years Despite his age, he retained his remarkable beauty, but ashis exalted station on the queen’s progress Soreat intelligence and had gained his prominent position sih to understand the nature of his power, yet even these skeptics had to adant hand, none better even in the schola of the skopos, where he had come from He copied charters and diplomas and letters, and in this way had served her for decades until in the end he became one of the last of those who really remembered the year of the cataclysm Many had been children at that time, as she had been, but a child’s memories are malleable and elusive

She walked over and sat beside hi, Brother Baldwin?"

He had been studying a dorhtly vacant expression, but he smiled a over what I wrote yesterday, Your Majesty" He indicated the unbound vellum

After a moment, she said, patiently, "And as that?"

"What I promised to the Holy Mother--may she rest in peace To continue the History of the Deeds of the Great Princes, and pass on e when it comes my tiht I fell behind because of the deal of business we got into this last summer"

"Read to me"

He picked up one of the sheets, studied its lovely curling script, frowned, and replaced it with another page "I’ll start here," he said