her eyes, flashing with mystery and fright, looked
directly into his. “My sister. . .”
She tried to add more words to those two. But
Mark heard hardly any of them. He retreated, one
backward step after another in the direction of the
inn, until directly behind him there was an old
bench, that stood close by the white-ribboned door-
way. He sat down on the bench, in the partial shade
of an old tree, leaning his back against the inn’s
whitewashed wall. Already half a dozen more
townspeople had appeared from somewhere, to
make a little knot around Kristin and the old
woman in the courtyard, and even as Mark watched
another half dozen came running. They were
kneeling to Kristin, seizing her hands and kissing
them, calling her Princess. Someone leaped on the
back of a fresh riding beast in the courtyard and
went pounding away down the street, hooves
echoing for what seemed like a long time on distant
cobblestones.
Mark remained sitting where he was, on the
shaded bench near the worn doorway, while people
rushed in and out ignoring him. Now and again
through the press of bodies his eyes met Kristin’s
for a moment. The Sword of Love in its sheath
weighed heavily at his side.
Among the other things that people were shout-
ing at her were explanations: how Princess Rimac
had ridden out carelessly as was her habit; how
there had been a sudden, unexpected attack by one
of the Dark King’s raiding parties; how now there
was going to be war ….
The crowd grew rapidly, and Mark’s glimpses of
Kristin became less frequent. At one point dozens of
eyes suddenly turned his way, and there was a sud-
den, comparatively minor fuss that centered about
him-she must have said something that identified
him as her rescuer. People thronged about him.
Men with an attitude between timidity and bra-
vado beat him on the back in congratulation, and
tried to press filled beer mugs into his hand.
Women asked him if he were hungry, and would not
hear anything he answered them, and brought him
cake. Girls threw their tender arms about his neck
and kissed him, more girls and young women
kissing him now in a few moments than had even
looked at him for a long time. One girl, pressed
against him by the crowd, took his hand and
crushed it against her breast. By now he had lost
sight of Kristin entirely, and if it were not for the
continuing crowd he would have thought that she
had left the courtyard.
There was the sound of many riding beasts out in
the street. Now the crowd, filling the gateway,
blocking Mark’s view of the street, had a growing
new component. Soldiers, uniformed in green and
blue. Mark supposed that the heliograph had been
busy.
Someone near him said: “General.” Mark recog-
nized Rostov at once, having heard him described
so often, though he had never seen the man before.
Round one thick arm in its blue-green sleeve,
Rostov like the other soldiers was wearing a band of
mourning white. There was one decoration on his
barrel chest-Mark had no idea of what it repre-
sented. The General was as tall as Mark, and gave
Mark the impression of being stronger, though he
was twice Mark’s age. Rostov’s -curly black hair
was heavily seasoned with gray, and his black face
marked on the right cheek by an old sword-slash. A
gray beard that looked like steel fiber raggedly
trimmed sprouted from cheeks and chin. His facial
expression, thought Mark, would have been quite
hard enough even without a steel beard.
Kristin was now coming through the crowd, and
Mark from only two yards away saw how the Gen-
eral greeted her. He did not kneel-that appeared
to be quite optional for anyone-but his eyes lit up
with relief and joy, and he bowed and kissed her
hand fervently.
She clung to his hand with both of hers. “Rostov,
they tell me that Parliament has been divided over
the succession? That they have nearly come to
blows?”
“They have come very nearly to civil war, High-
ness.” The General’s voice was suitably gravelly
and deep. “But, thank the gods, all that is over now.
All factions can agree on you. It was only the
thought that you were missing, too . . . thank all the
gods you’re here.”
“I am here. And well.” And at last her eyes
turned in Mark’s direction.
Now Mark and Rostov were being introduced.
The General glowered at him, Mark thought; that
was the way of generals everywhere, he had
observed, when looking at someone of insignifi-
cance who had got in the way. Still Rostov was
quick to express his own and his army’s formal
thanks.
A hundred people were speaking now, but one
soft voice at Mark’s elbow caught his full attention.
It was a woman’s, and it said: “They told me that
your name was Mark. And so I hurried here to see.”
Mark recognized his mother’s voice, before he
turned to see her face.
CHAPTER 8
The scar on Denis’s arm, the last trace of the
wound that had been healed by the Sword of Mercy,
looked faint and old already. He thought that the
second touch of Woundhealer in the hand of Aphro-
dite had reached his heart, for there were times
when he had the feeling of scar tissue forming there
as well. The vision of the goddess as she had;
appeared to him at night on the river-island was
with him still. He still felt pity for her whenever he
thought of what had happened; and then, each
time, fear at what might happen to a man who
dared feel pity for divinity.
His emotions whipsawn by his encounter with
Aphrodite, Denis sometimes felt as if years had
passed in the few days since his departure from
Tashigang. In the days that followed, he went on
paddling his canoe into the north and east. He
toyed no more with the idea of absconding with the
remaining Sword; he was still in awe and shock
from that demonstration of its powers, and he
wanted nothing but to be honorably and safely rid
of it.
With that objective in mind, he tried his best to
keep his attention concentrated upon practical
affairs. It was necessary now to watch for a second
set of landmarks, these to tell him where to leave
this river and make the small necessary portage.
The markers were specially blazed trees, in the
midst of a considerable forest through which the
little river now ran. Denis paddled upstream
through the forest for a full day, looking for them.
The stream he was now following grew ever
younger and smaller and more lively as he got fur-
ther from the Corgo, and was here overhung from
both banks by great branches.
On the night that Denis left Tashigang, Ben had
told him that if he saw any wild-looking people
after he had come this far, they were probably Sir
Andrew’s. The Kind Knight’s folk would escort a
courier the rest of the way, or at least put him on
the right track, once he had convinced them he was
bona fide .
. . . and the Goddess of Love had told him, Denis,
that she loved him. Even in the midst of trying to
make plans he kept coming back to that, coming
back to it in a glow of secret and guilty pride, guilty
because he knew that it was undeserved. Was ever
mortal man so blessed?
Much good had such a blessing done him. Pride
came only fitfully. In general he felt scarred and
numb.
He did manage to keep his mind on the job, and
spot his required landmarks. The blazed trees were
not very conspicuous, and it was a good thing that
he had been keeping an alert eye open. Once he had
found the proper place, he had to beach his canoe
on the right bank, then drag it through a trackless
thicket-this route was apparently not much
used-and next up a clear slope, over ground fortu-
nately too soft to damage the canoe. This brought
him into a low pass leading through a line of hills
that the stream had now been paralleling for some
time.
After dragging his canoe for half a kilometer,
lifting and carrying it when absolutely necessary,
Denis reached the maximum slight elevation
afforded by the pass. From this vantage point he
could look ahead, over the treetops of another for-
est, and see in the distance the beginnings of the
Great Swamp, different kinds of trees rearing up
out of an ominous flatness. During the last four
years that largely uncharted morass had swallowed
up the larger portions of a couple of small armies,
to the great discomfiture of the Dark King and the
Silver Queen respectively. And neither monarch
was any closer now than four years ago to their goal