displeased to see us using them in this wise.' This last was directed to Goldie, who had quite forgotten teasing him earlier in the day, and paid him no mind.
The valley turned due east. As they came around the bend, they saw what appeared to be a golden beacon shining from the top of a hill perhaps half a mile ahead. A moment, and they saw it was the lofty keep of a castle or manor house, catching the light of the setting sun.
'It's beautiful!' Father Pelletyr exclaimed.
'It is my home,' Zaranda Star said.
They turned off on a track that led between fields of rich grass. White and red-brown cows grazed with calves nuzzling their flanks. A skinny youth dressed in a simple homespun smock stood up and waved, a gesture that roused Zaranda to smile and wave in return.
The boy clutched a staff-sling with his other hand.
'It grieves me to see one so young go armed,' the priest said.
'Maybe you'd rather he try to reason with the wargs,' Goldie said.
'Perchance a risky tendency to encourage in one's vassals,' Farlorn said. 'Especially in a land as given to anarchy as Tethyr.'
'No vassals in my valley,' Zaranda said. 'There are only freeholders, and employees on my estate proper, Which we've entered. When I bought the county, after the Tuigan incursion, I made pact with the peasants that they should buy the land they worked, paying in installments.' As I myself am paying for the county, she thought with something of a twinge.
Being finally shut of the burden of payments for her holding was a major goad that had driven her into this risky enterprise. The system had actually worked to her benefit, since she was still making hefty payments on Morninggold herself. She had had a very successful campaign against the nomads, but the booty she'd gained had gone only so far.
The priest sniffed. 'That seems rather a radical notion, and subversive of the social order.'
Zaranda wants her people to be allies rather than adversaries, signed Stillhawk, who had ridden with her to fee Tuigan War.
As they approached, the manor of Morninggold took on more detail. It was more fortified house than castle, lacking a surrounding wall or moat: a large, rambling structure of two stories here, three there. The walls were stoutly built of dressed granite from the Snowflakes, the roofs pitched and covered in half-cylindrical red tiles. It showed signs of having been built for defensibility, remodeled for leisure, and then subtly returned to its original purpose. Arched outlines of different-colored stone showed where broad windows on the ground floor had been filled in and replaced by long horizontal windows set above the level of a tall man's head and too narrow to admit even a halfling thief. These were interspersed with arrow loops. The rosebushes budding out beneath the remaining windows were meticulously tended-and their thorns served to further deter intruders. A few outbuildings, likewise stout stone, clustered around the main structure, and a vegetable garden nestled by its flank.
From the back of Castle Morninggold rose the keep that they had seen from a distance. It was tall and round and built of some tawny fieldstone that the waning sunlight turned to pure gold. Networks of ivy clung to its lower reaches. The smooth rounded stones gave off an indefinable air of antiquity, leaving no doubt that the keep had been here long before the rest of the house-and likely would remain long after.
Stablehands emerged with welcoming shouts as the party rode into the yard. Zaranda greeted them by name, inquiring after health and families. Golden Dawn, Stillhawk's bay, Farlorn's gray, and the little donkey were led off to the stables. Goldie issued a stream of instructions as to her care, which the stable-boy who held her halter ignored with an air of practice. The dozen armed escorts dismounted and began to tend their own mounts while the muleteers unloaded the packs from their beasts, preparatory to turning them out to pasture for the night. Zaranda led her three companions up the flagged path to the arched front door.
Before they reached it the door swung open.
'Holy Father Ilmater!' Father Pelletyr cried, clutching his holy symbol.
Farlorn's rapier hissed free of its scabbard.
The doorway was filled by the bulk of a bugbear. It opened its mouth in a terrible fanged smile and stretched forth black-nailed hands.
As was customary, Zaranda Star came next-to-last to supper. The good father arrived first in the great hall, with fire laid but not lit in a hearth three heroes could stand abreast and upright in. As a servant of Ilmater, it behooved Pelletyr to be punctual-and it was, well, supper. Next came Vander Stillhawk. The dark, silent man had a ranger's distaste for clocks and timetables and schedules, but he likewise had a knack of being at the proper place at the proper time.
At the very stroke of the eighth hour after noon came Zaranda, who despised tardiness. Having indulged a favorite vice by soaking her long limbs in a hot tub for an hour, she had arrayed herself in a gown of soft velvet a shade or two lighter than indigo. It clung to her slender form like moss to a forest oak. Around her hips she wore a girdle of three golden chains, caught together in clasps front and back and at the hips. Her hair hung free to her shoulders in back. The light of candles in the chandelier above the great dining table evoked witch-fire in her gray eyes.
Father Pelletyr smiled and nodded. As a priest of the Cormyrean Synod, he was celibate, an obligation he took as seriously as his vows of poverty and abjuration of the shedding of blood. But he was a goodly man by nature, and polite.
'It is good to see you allowing the feminine part of you to come to the fore, Zaranda Star,' he said.
Stillhawk, who stood brooding by the dark fireplace, greeted his employer and comrade-in-arms with a nod, which she returned.
She smiled at the priest. 'Thank you, Father. It's an indulgence I enjoy as well, although I have little opportunity for it on the road.'
She walked to the chair at the table's head. The priest's face fell as he noticed the dagger-with jeweled hilt but eminently businesslike blade-that she wore in a gilded sheath at her girdle.
'Ah, but can't you lay aside the implements of war, even for a moment, even in the shelter of your home?' he asked sadly.
'Such implements won me this house, Father,' she replied, 'and guard it still-as well as my guests
'When you have traveled a bit farther with Zaranda Star, Father,' a voice said from the doorway, 'you'll realize she seldom strays far from her lethal toys.' They turned. Farlorn had arrived, fashionably late, dressed in silken hose and velvet doublet with puffed-and-slashed sleeves, all in shades of dark green, as was his wont. He was a figure of striking elegance, with his hair hanging in ringlets to his shoulders and his уarting slung over his back. He walked to the foot of the table, unslung his yarting and rested it against the table, then flung himself into a chair.
The battle-axes, crossed beneath the ancient shield on the wall, the boar-spear over the fireplace… I've not guested in our hostess's hold before, yet I can assure you, none of these is purely for show, Father.'
Pelletyr shook his bald head sadly. Zaranda smiled a slight smile and gestured. Flames roared suddenly to life in the fireplace. The father jumped, then looked sheepish.
'The beasts are tended, the men fed,' Zaranda said. 'Shall we be seated, gentlemen?'
They sat. The door to the kitchens opened. The bugbear bustled in, wearing a leathern apron and carrying a tray laden with silver bowls and a great tureen of steaming soup. Father Pelletyr's eyes bugged slightly, and Farlorn stiffened, one fine hand straying to the ball pommel of the dirk he wore at his own hip. Stillhawk showed no sign of reaction to the huge creature's apparition.
'I swear, Zaranda, those men of yours eat like a herd of dragons,' the bugbear rumbled as he set the tureen down in the middle of the table and began to distribute bowls. That's the reason soup is late, in spite of all my efforts.'
'I don't believe dragons come in herds, Gisbertus,' she said with a smile as he began to ladle out portions. 'And you're my chamberlain and chief steward. Don't we have under-servants so that you need not serve us with your own hands?'
The bugbear tut-tutted and shook his head, making his bat ears wag. 'Not one of them could be trusted not to spill soup all over that stunning gown, Zaranda, not a solitary one. You cannot conceive how hard it is to come by competent help these days. They're all fearful of bandits-or eager to run off and become brigands themselves. The cook took off a fortnight ago, and the best replacement I've yet turned up scarce knows a garlic clove from a
