Theophanna sat in the chair she had been provided beside the stricken cleric. Albrecht’s battered body twisted in the linen sheets. The rustle of prayer wraps, long lengths of parchment inscribed with prayers to Il and wound around the body of a sick man, was a constant soft accompaniment to his ragged breathing and occasional groans. Theophanna contained her fear, the old mental exercises of the Convent coming to her aid. She imagined a great pool of water silent and still as glass, then imagined herself falling into it from a height, striking and passing through the surface without creating so much as a ripple. The warm water surrounded her body, the pressure building as she sank until buoyancy asserted itself and lifted her back into a calmer, more controlled, reality.



“You don’t seem very upset,” Cleson said, his tone as bland and polite as ever.

“Il-who-smote-the-Earth has heard my prayers, I have asked for solace for his servant,” she replied, her voice calm and almost serene. NAME regarded her for a long moment, his gaze curious and penetrating, then a call came from outside the tent.

“My Lord, you are needed at the lists,” a livered guard called. Cleson hesitated, clearly reluctant to depart, but with nothing obvious to hold his attention he scooped up his sword belt, offered Theophanna a formal bow, and stepped out of the tent. Suddenly, Theophanna found herself alone with the stricken cleric a man who, if he regained consciousness, might be able to testify that she had Spoken the words of creation. Such a revelation might send her to the stake, or start a war which would consume the Five Sisters. Theophanna was not a killer and while it would be a sin to kill Albrecht to save her own life, what about those of the soldiers and peasants who would surely die when a greedy king used her sin as an excuse to invade her husband’s lands? Surely she would be serving the greater good and not merely saving herself in such a case. Unless of course this was all a test, and Cleson was watching for her to do exactly that? She relaxed deeper into her meditation and reached out with her senses as she had been taught. There were no watchers. She could do it, all she had to do was… Theophanna’s hand reached out, seemingly of its own volition. All she had to do was cover Albrecht’s mouth and nose for a minute or two and… The cleric started upright in bed, several prayer papers tearing. Sweat started out of his pores like hail stones and his eyes were wide and sightless. He grabbed her outstretched hand like a drowning man seizing a branch, though his grip was weak and hot with fever.

“Attend! Before the Dragon rises in the east the Glass Prince will return to his Palace. Woe unto all who dwell under the shade of the Rose. A great shadow from the east shall blot out the sun. Seek not the hound but the wolf, else the south fall, and the north fall, and the west fall after them!” Albrecht shrieked the words in a eerie falsetto as though they were being driven though his vocal cords like a great wind. As soon as the last word escaped his lips he blanched almost grey and collapsed to the bed, twitching feebly. Theophanna snatched her hand back as though it had been burned, a moment before two panicked looking nuns bustled into the tent, one still hastily securing her wimple.

“My Lady, what goes on here?” the first one asked, her eyes flicking between Theophanna and Albrecht.

“I… I don’t know he just started screaming and then…” she made a gesture to Albrecht lying on the disheveled bedding, “just swooned I suppose.”

“What did he say?” one of the nuns demanded, dipping a cloth in a bowl of tepid water and gently wiping the monk’s brow.

“Nothing…just raving,” Theophanna told her but in her heart she wasn’t so sure. There were stories of sick and dying men being granted a glimpse into the mind of Il as they approached the jaws of death beyond which Il-who-rent-the-veil dwelled. Had Albrecht spoken a prophecy, and if so what did it mean? The Glass Prince, The Wolf, A Dragon? What could any of it mean.

Theophanna stepped out of the tent and hurried back to her own pavilion. She wished she had travelled with her library, or that she had time to speak with Aristophanna about what she had heard but she needed to get changed. The days combat would begin in earnest after lunch was served, and she had no doubt her husband would want her by his side and looking as decorative as possible.

Torm left the pavillion with a disenchantment to his outlook. Everytime he felt things would get simpler, they became more complicated. He believed saving a princess, being granted the vassalage of a lord, and winning his first arena melee at Yattar would be a dream come true just a week ago. Now? He wondered if he should have simply asked for a monetary reward after saving Theophanna and then riding off to ply his prowess to a fat old lord who would pay much for little work. It was not a thought he took lightly, but even if he regretted it, he had sworn an oath. A knight's word was his bond, and though he was no knight yet, he needed to act as one if he wished to become one. He also knew it would be unjust to ask for a release after two days. He would wait a year, do his due diligence, and then request to the Lord if he could be relieved from his service. Perhaps his "luck" would continue, and after a year, he would be considered a valuable man-at-arms, potentially even a knight. He simply needed to work, without prejudice or emotion.

Usually food took his mind off of things, yet he had eaten but an hour ago. He set off, keeping to the stones on the road to keep the mud and manure off of his boots. He hardly noticed the wooden rails and banners flapping in the wind, or the makeshift living areas the merchants used to ply their lesser wares when they weren't serving themselves. However, he did notice a table under a flagless tarp, where a motley assortment of serfs, stableboys, men-at-arms, and freemen played an intense game of knucklebones.

Despite himself, he lingered in the crowd to watch. Torm had played knucklebones often as a boy, with his friend Leifter, and the older men. It made him feel mature and dangerous, and he had grown to be quite good at the game. He watched as a thin fellow with long blonde hair rolled his bones. He sported a rich but unassuming tunic, likely a merchant, and with a smirk he removed the bones of the harlot on the left. She cursed under her breathe and slid her dice off the column.

"Good move, Louis," a taller man whispered to the winner. Even spoken quietly, the Terriché accent was easy to hear.

A large, burly man-at-arms rolled his own bones, and slid his up the column to add to his score.

"Berta, move your fat arse or roll again." A voice from the crowd said. The woman sniffed and spat on the ground, grabbing what was left of her coinpurse and hustled away. There was a call for a new player, and Torm waited to see someone take the seat. After five heartbeats, there was a general murmur of smug looks, until Torm found his body moving on its own. He saw the closest in the crowd give him a curious look as he pushed through him, before the other five players acknowledged his existence with bemused looks.

"Had a rough mornin' sir?" The man with a smith's apron said, placing an elbow on the table. "Ye're looking like ye've survived the arena."

"My luck's likely run out, then." Torm replied with a blasé attitude, and he kept his grin to a a more composed, smaller smile.

The game was rough, Torm felt the players had the lay of the land well enough, but by the end it was just he and the thin, golden haired man. Before long, he too, had been devoured by Torm's dice. Torm was relieved he had won, and he expected the string of insults in the haughty Terriché accent, but when the fellow demanded Torm return his winnings, the squire refused.

"If you had simply asked, I might have shown mercy, but Il favors the just as well as the brave." Torm replied, finally feeling in control of a situation. This time, he did give a wolfish grin. "Now be off."

In an instant, the thin man drew a dagger. He had the breadth of the table to get to Torm, but he made the leap all the same. Instinct kicked in. Torm could not grab his own dagger, or his other weapons in time, but the long hours of wrestling had given him fine reflexes. He caught the man's wrist with his left while simultaneously grabbing his golden head of hair with a quick jerk, and used it to slam his face into the wooden tabletop. The fellow's nose struck the wood and shattered, blood splattering, while the dagger fell from his nerveless fingers.

Gasps erupted from the crowd. They must be more squeamish than he would have given them credit for. It was not like violence such as this was rare in these situations? The man's companion, taller and broader, watched with a slack jawed bewilderment to what happened. Torm met his eyes, and after a moment he licked his lips.

"This is cousin to the Duke D'Montfort, monsieur."

The statement was so simple, and it took a few moments for Torm to feel the weight, before numbness took him. "Then I would have expected he acted more nobly." Torm replied distantly, and cast his gaze around the table, ice blue eyes daring any to come at him. If he were a wolf, he would have felt his hackles risen and his teeth bared. They did not know his name, only his face, and even then it was no guarantee they would even seek reprisal, at least officially. He let go of the noble's scalp, calmly took his earnings, and backed away as men rushed to help the stunned popinjay. Torm retreated, now going to find some place to lay low for the day, unless commanded otherwise.

Everything gets more complicated.

The two great warhorses thundered past each other, their iron shod hooves throwing up great clods of dirt. A lance exploded against a shield and the knight in cream and gold staggered in the saddle. Both knights kept their seats as they raced to the end of the quintain and wheeled their horses to a stop. Squires ran forward with fresh lances, cups of wine, and damp cloths to sooth their principals.



Theophanna fanned herself elegantly with a printed paper fan from distant Chin. It was a beautiful item given to her by the Convent as part of her dowry and it drew avaricious glances from all the nearby ladies. Basalia did not enjoy a high martial reputation among these westerners, although this likely had more to do with the fact that Basalian army was largely made up of commoners, paid for and trained by an Imperial Exchequer that far outstripped anything the feudal lords could manage, but Basalian wealth was almost axiomatic. Theophanna felt her loyalty was more to the Convent than to the State but had been forced to sit through more than her fair share of swaggering braggarts making comments. Loyalty. The Convent, Basalia, Terriche, Vence, Orbai, her husband: so many loyalties to keep track of. The Convent was sometimes called the School of Mask but at times Theophanna had to wonder if there was any real person left under all the poses and poises. Sigfried’s hand squeezed her knee and she looked up from her musings to she him cheering with excitement as the knight in cream and gold, Sir Pavik of Gnor she recalled, sent his opponent sprawling into the dirt. Theophanna patted her husband’s hand dutifully and he removed to call for his page to enquire after the winnings for a bet he had placed.



They were seated in the ducal box, with four coats of arms hanging downward. All but the Falkenrath coats of arms were of ancestors who owed fealty to Tirrche, a signal that Orbai was, or at least wanted to be seen, as loyal to the crown. At least Theophanna thought it would be a signal, politics could be surprisingly murky or shockingly direct in a way it would never be in the sophisticated courts of the East. Perhaps Sigfried just liked the colors. Thoughts of the King drew her eyes to Jean du Cleson who continued to lounge about with his cronies. A steady stream of Imperial knights had visited him, each coming away looking like they had lost a livre and found a sous. That too might or might not be significant. What was significant was a knight was hassling her husbands page, the altercation only lasted a moment but it was clear he was asking the boy where he was heading. Was Sigfried planning something? Could he be without her knowing? No that wasn’t possible but that didn’t mean others didn’t think so. She let her eyes drift across the field to where Aristophanna set fluttering her own fan, she bid a subtle but steady pattern.

Watching. Priest. Help. Interrogative.



Fan speaking was a court past time in Brasalia but the dialect the Convent used was a closely guarded secret. It used simple words and many nonsense signals to confound attempts to decode it.



Priest. Bad. Knowledge. Theophanna sent back, smiling in spite of herself at the long suffering expression which came across her friends face. Theophanna wished she could talk to her friend but that might be dangerous for both of them, Il knew that two Basalian’s from the convent talking was assumed to be a plot and it ran a real risk of starting trouble even if there was none. What trouble? The situation with Albrecht was making her paranoid. Still she didn’t want anything she wrote to her friend to fall into unfriendly hands, as it almost certainly would if she sent a page. Maybe she could ask Sigfried to visit Aristophanna’s husband… Torm wandered into view looking, to Theophanna’s eyes, a little despondent. An idea occurred to her and she waved her kerchief at the young man at arms. Torm dutifully approached.

Theophanna scribbled a quick coded note on a scrap of parchment, then drew an emerald ring from a pouch. She slid the paper into the ring and dropped it into a pouch which she passed to Torm.

“Good sir, I ask a kindness of you, I am afraid I have lost a wager with my friend Lady Aristophanna Giovanna,” she said, making a gesture to the woman in her box.



“Would you convey her winnings to her, I would send a page but I simply don’t trust them not to run a foul of pickpockets in a place like this,” she asked innocently.