mine seems strangely heavier. You never were lucky at dice.'
'At least I'm lucky at love, Adaric,' another man replied jovially. 'That's a game your dice won't help you win.'
Panic seized Wort. He recognized the second voice. It was the golden-haired knight! Quickly he searched for some means of escape. The stable door rattled as someone undid the latch. With growing dread, Wort realized there was no other way out. In desperation, he dived into a pile of hay and hastily tossed handfuls of dusty grass over himself.
Light flooded the stable. Trading more good- natured slurs, the two knights entered. Wort cringed inside the pile of hay, not daring to breathe. The knights seemed to move with maddening slowness. Finally they led their steeds outside. Wort heard the clattering of hooves fade away. He crawled out of the haystack, but his relief was quickly replaced by new apprehension. He still had to traverse the village and the steep road up to the keep-without the mantle of darkness-before he reached the safety of his bell tower.
'You are a fool, Wort,' he grumbled to himself.
There was nothing else he could do. Swathing himself tightly in his voluminous cloak, he left the stable, hoping that this time the villagers would not see him for what he really was. He kept mostly to dank alleys. Though the crimson orb of the sun had risen above the horizon, the shadowed paths he tread seldom saw its rays. Wort picked his way through fetid heaps of garbage and gurgling rivulets of filthy water. Rats scurried back and forth across the way, chittering hungrily. Once, protruding from a pile of refuse, he saw a human'hand. Swallowing hard, he hurried on.
The alley dead-ended.
Wort muttered a curse under his breath. Then a thought struck him. Looking up, he saw that the buildings here were roofed with tiles, not thatch. Using his powerful arms, he pulled himself up a rough stone wall to one of the rooftops. Used to high places, he moved more easily along the roof, stooping to stay low. He saw villagers trudging through the streets below, but their cheerless gazes were all bent toward the ground. None saw the hunchback creeping along the rooftops above. Ahead, Wort thought — he caught a glimpse of another alley leading toward the village's edge. He kept moving.
That was when he saw her. Transfixed, Wort halted, peering down at a woman who walked below. Despite her dark dress and the severe knot into which she had bound her pale hair, she was beautiful. Though delicate, her face was curiously strong, like the visage of an exquisite porcelain doll. Most wonderful were her eyes. Even from above Wort noted that they were the rare, deep violet of a winter night. Impossibly, she somehow maintained an air of dignity and grace as she picked her way through the squelching muck of the street, carrying a black leather satchel.
'It's her,' he murmured in wonder. 'The angel.'
A vision descended before his mind's eye, of the time-darkened tapestry he had discovered in the ancient storeroom, and the radiant angel floating in the midnight garden, her violet eyes swollen with love. The angel of the tapestry was there before him-or at least a living woman so kindred that there could be little difference between the two. She had the same calm beauty, the same shining hair, the same deep violet eyes. Wort moved along the rooftops above, following her like a shadow in the sky. 'My angel,' he whispered. 'I've found my angel.'*****
Mika struggled down the lane, valiantly trying to hold the hem of her dress out of the muck, all the while curling her toes in her shoes to keep the leather from being sucked off her feet as she made slow progress.
'Apparently they don't have stones enough in the provinces to cobble these streets,' she murmured wryly to herself. 'Though with all the rocks the coach ran over on the journey here, I would have thought they could have found a few.'
She was on her way to visit a village woman who was due to give birth shortly, to make certain all was well. Since her arrival in the village of Nartok several days before, Mika had found herself almost constantly occupied with the stream of villagers that poured through the door of the Black Boar complaining of all manner of maladies. It was exactly what she had hoped for. At last she had come upon people who were grateful for her skills, not dismissive of them because she was a woman.
Mika rounded a corner. She stopped short to avoid running headlong into a villager, a man wearing a grubby brown farmer's tunic.
'Excuse me,' she said breathlessly.
The man only regarded her with a flat stare. He did not move out of the way. Mika thought this curious, but she supposed she could just as easily go around him. She turned to do so.
This time a red-faced woman blocked her way. Mika's heart skipped a beat. 'I'm sorry,' she blurted out. Hastily she turned to her left, only to find a toothless man with rheumy eyes standing before her. Spinning around, she saw lhat a dozen villagers ringed her in all directions.
She swallowed hard. 'Do you… do you need healing?' She held her chin high, trying to keep the trembling from her voice. 'If so, please come to the Black Boar this afternoon. I'll be happy to attend to you there.'
Steeling her will, she tried to set off down the street. She quickly came up against a wall of villagers who wouldn't budge.
'No, thank you, milady,' a rough voice said behind her. 'No one of us wants healing… leastwise, not from a witch.'
Gasping, Mika turned around. A burly man with close-set eyes had pushed his way to the front of the small throng. He grinned, but not in any expression of humor.
'Please, let me be on my way,' Mika said hoarsely.
The burly peasant shook his head regretfully. 'But how can we let you go, milady, knowing that you'll just place more folk under your spells?'
'Spells?' she echoed in confusion.
'That's right, milady.'
'Tell her about the ones we know she's enchanted, Rillam,' the red-faced woman said accusingly. 'Tell her about Clampsy Atwell and Darci Grayheather.'
'Oh, I'm sure she knows about them well enough,' the man called Rillam replied, looming over Mika. 'I'm sure she knows that the night after she gave old Clampsy a potion to fix his palsy, his wife found him outside on all fours, baying at the moon like a hound. And I'm certain she knows that since she cured Darci's fever, three times shepherds have caught Darci stealing into their flocks, cutting sheep with a knife and sucking out blood. 'Tis abominable, it is.'
'Indeed?' Mika said sharply, suddenly angry. 'And do you know what I find abominable? That a grown man has nothing better to do then frighten folk by telling children's stories.' She turned to the others. 'This is nonsense. You've seen what I do at the inn. I heal people. That is my business and that's all I do.'
Rillam nodded grimly. 'Aye, you do. But the price for healing folk is their souls, isn't it, witch?'
'No!' Mika said emphatically.
'Don't lie to us, witch!' Rillam snarled. 'We know you're in league with the Powers of Darkness. Look at your eyes. They give it-away!'
Mika's outrage began to turn to fear. 'My… my eyes?'
'Aye,' Rillam accused. 'I've never seen anyone with purple eyes before. No one has. But a witch always has a mark that makes her different from other people. It's the curse of magic.'
The knot of villagers tightened about her. Mika saw that some held lengths of rope, and others smoking torches. Murder glinted in their eyes.
'Please,' she said weakly. 'Please, you must believe me…'
Rillam's dark gaze bore into her. The mirthless smile he wore broadened.
'Burn her,' was all he said.
Mika screamed as the crowd closed in on her.
'Burn the witch,' they chanted gleefully. 'Burn her. Burn the witch.I'
Suddenly the sun was blotted out as a hulking shadow leapt down from above to land in the midst of the crowd. The villagers cried out, scattering in fear.
'A daemon!' someone shouted. 'The witch has summoned a daemon to protect her!'
'No,' the figure swathed in black snarled, standing before the paralyzed doctor. 'She did not summon me here.' The daemon pointed an accusing finger at the crowd. 'You did!'
The villagers screamed in terror.
