Licking dry lips, Byren watched as she wrapped a blanket around her hands and accepted the stone. With great care, she knelt next to her sleeping master and slid the stone under the Utlander's bare hands. He slept on his side, so that he was now curled around it.
Byren knew the sorbt stone would absorb the Power-worker's latent Affinity while he slept. At best it might kill, at worst it would weaken him severely.
The girl looked to Byren, who nodded and smiled to show that she had done well, then held out his arms. He was a head taller than most men and easily big enough to lift her out of the shelter.
Without a word, the girl crawled back to the calandrius and gathered it in her arms. She passed the bird to Byren, who sat it on the snow. It seemed very docile, fed, warm and weak from injury. Even so, Byren suspected the girl had been using her Affinity to soothe it.
Then he turned back to lift the girl out. But she held up the chain and glanced resentfully at the Power- worker. Byren realised the end was fixed to the man in some way while he slept.
'I can prise open the links,' he whispered in Merofynian, drawing his knife.
The girl looked doubtful but crept over, offering her thin neck with the collar and attached chain.
Byren studied the chain. It was well made and so was the metal collar. The weakest point was where the chain had been soldered to the back of the collar. Slipping a finger inside it, he put the tip of his knife in the solder and exerted pressure at an angle. Careful not to slip and cut the girl or push too hard and cut his own finger, he increased the pressure until the solder gave way. The chain fell away but he caught it before it could make any noise. The girl placed it carefully on the blanket, so as not to wake the Utlander. Though she hated him fiercely, she obviously had a great deal of respect for his power.
Byren could do nothing about the metal collar. If he had time he could work on the joint, but, for now, he slipped his hands under the girl's arms and hoisted her out. She weighed less than he'd expected.
He set her on her feet and, with a signal for silence, led her away from the camp and the seep, towards the lake. He only had one set of skates and he was carrying out his father the king's orders. The best he could do was give her some food and send her on her way. The calandrius was almost too large for her to carry so she wouldn't be able to travel fast. But the Power-worker's escort would not be concerned with her. They'd return to report to their overlord. If the Utlander died, Byren would have dealt Palatyne a serious, though not devastating, blow. He knew the overlord was accompanied by at least two more Power-workers, rivals for their leader's trust.
'Here.' Byren paused at the lake's edge to strap on his skates, then stood up and dug into his pack, pulling out the last of his food, cold meat and two-day-old bread. The girl put the food away for later. He checked the wandering stars… midnight. He still had a long way to go.
Pointing across the lake to the mountain, which was a dark triangle against the foaming stars, he spoke in Merofynian.
'That's Mount Halcyon. Aim for it. Go around the base. On the far side is a fishing village. Tell them Byren Kingson said that they're to take you across to Sylion Abbey. The nuns will look after you, protect you.'
A shiver ran through the girl's thin frame.
Byren undid the clasp of his cloak and swung the heavy fur over her shoulders. She raised wondering eyes to him.
'We do things differently here in Rolencia,' he told her. 'For one thing we don't chain up children.'
'You're a kingson and yet you speak Merofynian?'
'My mother taught me.'
'Queen Myrella? They say her father was a good king. No one likes the new King Merofyn,' she confided, then cast a quick look at Byren to gauge his reaction. 'They also say the nuns of Sylion steal children who have Affinity and turn them into slaves.'
'It's not true. My brother has Affinity and he's been with the monks in Halcyon Abbey for ten years now. He comes to visit us every feast day. They feed him and teach him a trade. And his Affinity will be used to make Rolencia a better place for everyone.'
The girl blinked. The bird stirred.
Byren glanced at it. 'They'll care for the bird, too. I must leave. Remember, go that way.'
'Can't I stay with you?'
'I'm off to war.'
'I've been to war.'
Byren didn't doubt it. 'In Rolencia we don't send children to war. You'll be safe at the abbey.'
'I — '
'You'd slow me up. I'm on the king's business.'
The girl clutched his arm but said nothing. A light snow began to fall.
He squeezed her hand. 'The snow will cover your tracks. I've got to go now.'
She nodded, but her eyes never left his face.
There was no more he could do for her. 'What's your name?'
'Dinni.'
He realised she would be very pretty once she was fed and cleaned up, even with the lopsided eye.
'Halcyon's luck be with you, Dinni.'
'And with you, kingson.' She let him go at last.
He was wide awake now, so he set off at a good pace. If he skated all night, he should reach the abbey by mid-morning.
Chapter Three
Piro lifted the key ring at her waist and unlocked the back stair to the royal wing. Before the troubles, she had done nothing but fight with her mother, but now she was grateful for Queen Myrella's quick thinking. With the queen's keys of office, Piro had access to every door. Every door, but the one that was kept locked in the top of the mourning tower, where the queen was being held prisoner.
Cobalt had convinced her once-proud father that his beloved Myrella was a spy under the influence of a Merofynian Power-worker.
Well, that was partly Piro's fault.
In front of everyone her mother had been about to slip into a seer's trance and reveal her hidden Affinity. If she had, her marriage to King Rolen would have been annulled and their four children declared illegitimate. This would have left the way open to Lord Cobalt. As the legitimate son of King Rolen's illegitimate older brother, Illien of Cobalt's claim to the throne would have been as strong as Lence's. Again Piro was grateful to her mother, this time for insisting she study Rolencian law. At best the ambiguity would have been enough for Cobalt to claim the succession and force a civil war.
To hide her mother's Affinity, Piro had darted forwards and disrupted the trance, claiming Queen Myrella had been taken over by a Merofynian Power-worker.
Everyone believed her, everyone but Cobalt. He'd seen through her because he was a master of the art of deception. He'd caught Piro on the back stairs and asked his servant to see if she had Affinity. Only an abbey warder could discern Affinity, a warder or a renegade Power-worker.
Piro had remembered Fyn's self-defence tricks and escaped. She'd run straight to her father to warn him about Cobalt, only to discover he believed his nephew over her. That was a bitter blow.
Now she crept down the hall, one hand over the keys so they would not clink. Hopefully the healers would both be asleep, but there was still one of the king's honour guard at the door to her father's chamber.
A soft snore greeted her and she bit back a relieved giggle.
It was old Sawtree, asleep on duty. She didn't know how he managed. The seats were built at an angle sloping down so that a man might rest his weight a little, but if he relied on the seat to take all his weight, he'd slide off. This wing of the castle had been built by her namesake, Queen Pirola the Fierce, in the last years of her reign and the seat's wooden surface had been polished by a hundred and thirty years of guards' bottoms to a glossy, slippery finish. Yet somehow this man, one of her father's original honour guard — which made him at least fifty — had wedged his sturdy legs at just the right angle so that his shoulders took enough of his weight against
