Elena shivered a little. 'It is chancy, leaving this sort of thing to them,' she said soberly. 'The Great Fae don't always think like us....' She included the House-Elf in that; Brownies were as close to mortal in their ways of thinking as any Fae could get.

'True enough,' Lily agreed. 'Whatever trial they give him is going to be dangerous. But letting him wander about in the forest like a donkey would have been dangerous. Sending him off on any redemption trial would have been dangerous. Questing is dangerous — and with all that reading he's been doing, he will recognize just about any trial that you could put him to. That the Great Fae don't think like mortals will just mean that he's not likely to recognize a trial for what it is until after he's passed it.'

Or it's too late, Elena thought, but kept that thought to herself.

So they worked on, side by side, with a tacit agreement to say no more about it. If Alexander passed his trial, and if he was the something that the King had been looking for, and if he was so unusual that Randolf was right, and he was suited to remain here, only the King and Queen could make that judgment and mark him in a way that even Rose would respect. Elena knew now, as she had not known when she first came as an Apprentice, that the first Godmother, the Emerald Fairy, was the sister of Huon, the King of the Sylvan Elves of this part of the Fae Lands. He had a particular association with the Godmothers of this place; though his Queen made most of the decisions concerning the mortals who lived here, he had the right of direct intervention whenever he cared to exercise it. But she still worried. Had she been within her rights to call on the Elven King and Queen for this? Had she been within her rights to subject Alexander to that sort of danger? The Fae operated by laws and rules that few mortals really understood. But how else was she to test him? And if Randolf was right about him — how else was she to get the authority to allow him to stay?

Well, it was out of her hands now. And whatever happened, she would have to live with the result — or the blame.

Now this is the way to hunt, Alexander thought, with great satisfaction, as he stood on the edge of a sun-drenched meadow, waist-deep in waving grass, a light breeze stirring his hair.

Hob had outfitted him with moleskin breeches, stout boots, a doeskin jerkin, and a most remarkable game bag. 'Made it myself, back in the day,' he'd said with great pride — and besides being of fine workmanship, there was another reason for the pride. It was magical; it would hold virtually as much as you cared to put into it, without ever getting an ounce heavier.

Alexander had already stuffed two pheasants and a half dozen quail into it. It was much better than trying to carry around a conventional game bag, or tying the game to your belt. It was better even than having to trail around with a crew of servants to carry what you shot, since a pack of servants always managed to scare off so much game that it hardly seemed worth having them along.

He missed having beaters or a dog, though; having to go it alone, flushing his own game, was chancy. When confronted with a single man, quail and pheasants were as likely to run away under the cover of the grass as they were to flush into the air.

On the other hand, given those circumstances, he wasn't doing badly, and it was wonderful being out here, without anyone looking over his shoulder. It was a perfect day, too; sun bright in a blue sky, air crisp, not enough breeze to give him any serious windage problems.

In fact, he could almost believe that he was a free man, free to do whatever he —

A shriek cut across the peace of the meadow, startling a covey of quail into the air practically at his feet.

They whirred away, tiny wings a blur, presenting him with five clear shots. But he had no time for game now, not when a second scream rent the air, and he knew it for the cry of a woman in terror.

The quail were barely in the air, and he was already half across the meadow, running in the direction from which the scream had come.

A third scream put more speed into his heels, and he burst through a coppice of birch trees to find himself at what was clearly a woodcutter's cottage, with an axe still in the stump and a pile of wood chopped that was as tall as the cottage, and a second and third beside it. A chestnut palfrey in fancy tack was tied to a sapling nearby. He took little more note than that of his surroundings, though — not with the bleeding body of what must have been the woodcutter himself lying facedown on the ground, and a young woman struggling in the grasp of a richly dressed man not thirty feet away.

Without even thinking about it, he had an arrow nocked and flying, and a second one drawn. The first flew right past the man's ear, close enough to brush him with the fletching, and thunked into the tree behind him — just as Alexander had intended.

The man froze, the struggling girl still in his grasp.

She could not have been much older than fourteen or fifteen, and only just woman-ripe. And once, maybe Alexander would have laughed to see this, and gone on his way, for the girl and the man on the ground were only peasants, after all. And had he not come down the path that Madame Elena had laid for his feet, some future, harder Alexander might even have demanded his share of the girl —

But that past Alexander was gone, and the future one erased. And this bastard, be he never so noble, was not of a like kind with the Alexander who stood there with his second arrow aimed for the eye.

The stranger slowly met Alexander's gaze. He was clad in blue velvet and silk, and around his neck was a thick chain of golden links. Otherwise he was nondescript, with short hair cut to fit beneath a helm, and an ordinary enough, moustached face. 'Well met, fellow,' the man said, coolly. 'Come to take a share of the spoils? I saw her first, but you're welcome to her when — '

'Let her go,' said Alexander, feeling an icy fury rising up in him at the sight of the poor child's terror.

'I don't think you quite understand the situation here,' the man replied, without turning a hair. 'These are my lands. I own these peasants. They are mine to — '

'Let her go!' Alexander interrupted with a roar. 'Lands you may well own, but people, never! Now unless you want my arrow in your eye — '

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