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CHAPTER 11

      THROUGH THE sleety night, they moved past town after town. At dawn, just as the rain stopped, Zex called a halt. "Time to rest."

      Ware looked around. The evergreen forest had given way to ancient bare-armed trees, spaced well apart. "Shouldn't we go on? We passed the last village only an hour ago."

      Zex shook his head. "There are towns ahead of us, too. But we do need to begin standing guard. You can take the first watch." He lay down, took off his boots, and closed his eyes.

      Hasty yawned hugely, curled himself in his damp quilt and was asleep at once. Steel and Ember followed suit. Hearth looked at Ware. "You're willing to watch?"

      He nodded. "I'm fine."

      "All right then." And she, too lay down and slept.

      Everything grew still. A benevolent orange sun rose. Ware unrolled his damp quilt and laid it open to the air. He pulled off his cap and then his boots and rubbed his bare feet in the grass until they were warm and tingling.

      A squirrel came down one of the trees to investigate his activity. It looked at Ware and then went away again.

      Ah, this lovely silence. He shut his eyes and saw the sun's blood-red shadow on his eyelids.

      Careful. Mustn't sleep.

      Zex turned over with a sound that was something between a cough and a snore. In sleep, his face was handsome, with a broad, high brow, a fine nose, a rounded chin. No trace of the bear was visible now.

      Ember lay on his back, arms out, his freckled cheeks and nose soaking up the light. Of Hasty, nothing was visible but a shock of hair at the top of the quilt.

      Ware's gaze went to Hearth and lingered a moment, full of affection for her goodness. Then his eyes turned to Steel. All the time he'd been looking at the others, he'd been thinking of looking at her. Her dark, shining hair was spread around her, and she looked so sweet, he thought she must be having sweet dreams.

      Looking at Steel, as the day grew more and more quiet, Ware himself became so still that his mind began to reflect the silence, just as motionless water reflects the sun's light.

      And then he had sunk so deep into silence that he began to hear Steel's sleeping thoughts. it was as if her voice had became his voice, and her dreams had become the memories of his own lifetime.

      . . . There were always things I couldn't understand. There were secrets — and in some way I was a part of them — but no one ever told me anything, and when I look back I can only piece together things that happened when I was there to see.

      One thing I always knew: He was my Enemy. Even now I can see him coming up into the tower with his light step, and his handsome face, and his smiles. He always wore splendid clothes and jewels, and his curled hair and his skin were beautifully fine. He always went directly to my mother's apartments, never pausing or speaking to the servants, never letting them announce him to her.

      After he passed and the doors were shut behind him, I would escape from Granny Pinch and crawl under the table that faced my mother's doorway. There I would sit, hidden by the long table-covering and peering through its fringe toward the base of the closed doors. (Nothing but floor was visible from my hiding place.) Feeling safe, I was free to spread my curses across his path.

      Oh yes, I cursed him. Little children look so pure, but they can store up poison, if they have cause. (And I had cause.) I strewed a thousand silent, venomous, acid-searing infant curses before his feet. I could almost see them clinging to the red heels of his boots as he skipped down the stairs after leaving my mother's rooms. But they seemed to have no weight, those maledictions of mine; they caused no sticky dragging at his heels.

      Even so, he may have felt my hate — or felt something. Because one day he stopped at the table where I lurked, and with a hard, quick hand he reached down and pulled me out.

      He held me up, dangling and glaring. "I'd almost forgotten this ugly thing," he said.

      I can see him now, the curve of his well-formed lips, his shining eyes. He had long lashes like a woman, and they were blackened with some sooty stuff to make his eyes look bigger. "Or else, somehow, I'd thought it died years ago."

      He took me out on the parapet and stood me on one of the round stones that served as finials at each corner of the balustrade. "Stand there," he said in his silky voice, "While I decide whether to kill you now."

      Although it was almost winter, my feet were bare and I had on only a little tunic, for the queen's apartments were always kept warm. I curled my toes around the sphere on which I stood. The wind came in gusts, very cold, and I had to lean into it to keep my balance.

      Granny Pinch appeared at the door, and her old face turned very white, seeing him — seeing where I stood on the rounded stone at the edge of the precipice. Behind her, I remember, was a little woman called Fern, who had been my wet-nurse and had stayed on to help with the washing. Behind Fern was another woman whose name was Greygrass.

      Granny Pinch came out to take me down, but he made a cutting gesture with his hand, and she and the other women all became as still as furniture.

      "I seem to remember that someone told me this ugly child was dead," said my Enemy, looking at Granny Pinch.

      The old woman answered without moving, "She was ill at the time you asked, Majesty. We thought she could not live."

      "Yet before that, when this creature was born — did not someone say that it had not survived?"

      I was behind him, but I didn't need to see his face to know what he was thinking.

      Granny Pinch answered humbly, "She was so little and sickly, Majesty. We were mistaken, but we did not deceive you."

      "Then let us avoid further mistakes."

      He didn't turn, but I saw his arm swing back and back toward me. The sweep was aimed to strike my cold shins and carry me backward into the air and off the parapet. I would hang for a moment in the sky, I thought, and then fall.

      Seeing the arm come — and in that intent moment, it seemed to move slowly — I gathered my strength, noticing how Granny Pinch made a half-aborted gesture to catch at him, or perhaps to plead for me. Just before his arm touched me, I sprang upward like a fencer overleaping a scything slash of the blade, so that the blow passed harmlessly under my bent knees.

      He staggered, and must have caught himself against the balustrade. I didn't notice how, because I was intent on keeping my footing when I came down, teetering and spreading my arms for balance.

      We each looked up at the same instant, and there we were, our faces scarcely a handspan apart; I was almost breathing his breath. We stopped, eye to eye, hatred to hatred, and there was never such a look as that. Within him was a gulf more dreadful than the one below, and its depths called to me . . . oh, it would have been easy to tumble headlong into those terrible eyes, easier even than to fall from my gusty perch.

      And I was tempted . . . Because there's a joy that comes with any pure feeling when it finds an object worthy of its force, something that can take and take all the emotion that pours over it. Just as an infant can receive and almost bathe in every drop of love that's lavished on it — just so would my enemy have taken all my hate . . . and suckled himself on it, and rubbed himself in the flow of it. It would have nourished him. While I, the hater, pouring myself over him, would have been dissolved into the clear liquor of my own hatred and so lost my Self to him.

      Long moments I looked, trembling, tempted. And all that time he stared into my face, drawing me inward, inviting me to become obsessed with his evil. He wanted me, little child that I was. He was wooing me with his hate.

      At last I drew back, as much from my own troubling feelings as from him. I must have been very strong then, to resist the lure of hating him as he deserved. It was hard, but I did it.

      Seeing that I was free, he caught me roughly by the arm, saying, "I can still fling you down . . ."

      "Never!" I cried furiously. "I'd fly away from you like a bird in the air!" Wonderful. Where did those words come from? He started, shook his hand loose from my arm so quickly that he almost sent me down again.

      But then, after he'd turned away, he came back, eyes shining, and spoke almost in my ear — in a voice so vile and sweet it made my flesh prickle. "There will be another time. I warn you: I'm patient, and someday I'll come and take what's mine . . ."

      I felt his breath on my neck. I smelled the scent of his skin. Something was in his face, his words, or maybe it was something within myself that was answering him. Ah, little as I was, as I smelled his scent and saw the liquid shining of his eyes, I felt the blood run through my body, and it made me giddy. Flushing heat moved along all my skin. Sweat slicked me all over, and — Oh, I loathed him! He almost had me.

      He saw me sway, and it made him laugh. He actually put out a hand and helped me down. And handed me to Granny Pinch, saying kindly (kindly!), "Perhaps I won't kill her today, after all . . ." Then he went down the stone stairs of the tower, humming to himself.

      As soon as he was out of sight, I began to cry, and I was not one to cry. I was sick with shame, for I knew he'd bested me. Thereafter, whenever he came up the stairs to the tower, I ran away to hide. For a long time after that, I did not trouble his feet with my curses.

      . . . Even now, each time we're face to face, I feel the eager tugging of that desire — to offer him a hate so pure it almost mimics love. Feeling that, I know what mortal sickness ailed the queen, my mother.

      What was that. Ware had not been asleep. Yet now he was wrenched awake by — something.

      The sun was the same. The air and trees were unchanged. But there was an unease, as if a sound too high to hear was troubling his senses.

      He got up. Was somebody coming?

      But there was nobody about. It was all silent.

      Steel made a choking sound in her throat. When Ware put a hand on her shoulder, her wrists came up to protect her head, and she began to struggle in her sleep.

      He put his arms around her as if she'd been a child. "Hush, you're safe, safe . . ."

      The yellow eyes flew open, and she clutched at him. "He's here!"

      "No, no," Ware said reassuringly, "Nobody's here."

      "I felt him touch me. He found me as I slept. Couldn't you feel it? Didn't you feel anything!"

      He said slowly, "There was . . . just before you woke. Something about the air felt as if a storm was ready to break. And yet the sun was shining."

      "It was the Usurper's touch," she said hoarsely. "He's been searching for me with his mind ever since I escaped him. Now that he's found me, I won't be safe until I reach King Hawk."

      When Ware would have released her, she held him, saying, "Wait, let me think a bit. We . . . we'll have to go faster, change direction often. Maybe we can get to the river and hire a boat . . ." But even as she spoke, she began to shiver again.

      Ware went for his quilt, which was dry now, and wrapped her in it. Then he sat with his arm around her shoulders until the shivering subsided. At last she sat up, dragged her hands through her hair, and said grimly, "Wake the others and we'll go on. His soldiers will be here soon."

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