Could she escape that way? But no, Feich was no fool, he'd left men there. She might use her aidan against them, but the thought of using it to do violence was alien.

They were downstairs again, searching the house, her mother saying, "I can't imagine where she's gone. We had a bit of a-a disagreement . . . You might check the Sanctuary."

They did that, and Isha moved swiftly to the window and tried to throw the catches. Her hands shook terribly and the catches were stubborn with rust and swollen wood. Dared she use her aidan, or would he sense her as she sensed him? He was in the Sanctuary now, discovering that she was not. She pushed harder at the window clasps. They rattled, but did not budge. She heard the heavy tread of boot soles on the verandah-m.u.f.fled voices moving toward the study window.

They'd heard-and now he was coming back through the house. Desperate, Isha tugged at the shutters with her aidan, an inyx on her lips, her full will behind it.

In answer, the catches gave, and outside the door of her father's study a hungry voice said, "Here! What's in this locked room?"

"My husband's study," said Ardis. "I've kept it closed since-"

"Open it."

Iseabal pulled back the inner shutters and looked out. She could see the graveyard, moonlit and silent, and the vague figure of a man standing not five feet from the window.

"But no one's been in there-"

"Open it, mistress!"

In her mind's eye, Isha imagined a shadowy figure darting through the gravestones. Look, you! Look! Someone escapes!

Outside the window, a male voice uttered a muted exclamation and the guard pulled his sword and leapt to follow the phantom.

"I'll get the key . . ."

Isha fumbled with the window latch.

"d.a.m.n you!" Feich roared.

Something struck the door, buckling it inward.

Gasping for breath, Isha gave the window a shove and- The door splintered behind her while her mother's voice cried, "Please, sir! Please!"

Iseabal whirled from the window cas.e.m.e.nt, heart beating wildly, breath catching in her lungs. A desperate thought struck her and she grasped her aidan tightly and drew it about her like a cloak.

Daimhin Feich stood in the room, the wreckage of the door about him on the flagged floor. He panted like a weary dog, but his pale eyes, gleaming in the moonlight from the open shutters, were bright and searching.

"Light!" he snarled. "Bring light!"

"I'll get a lamp," said someone behind him, but Feich was impatient. He pulled something from a belt pouch and held it before him. The red crystal was aglow before it even cleared the opening of the little bag. It sent bright, ruddy rays into every corner of the room as Daimhin Feich advanced.

"Empty." A younger man entered the room behind him, a lamp out-thrust in his hand. "She's escaped."

"No," breathed Feich. "Not escaped. I can feel her. Search! Search the room!"

Three men did as he ordered, even peeking behind the open shutters. The young one held his lamp close to the cas.e.m.e.nt.

"See here, Daimhin, she's opened the window and gone out. Probably well away from here by now."

Daimhin Feich strode across the room to the other man's side, making Iseabal, hiding behind her own fierce will, tremble at his nearness, at the nearness of that crystal. Dear G.o.d, could he possibly miss how the thing flared up when he pa.s.sed by her? If she dared move . . .

Only her mother stood in the doorway now, but if she twitched a muscle, the aislinn shroud might fall away. So she stayed, cloaked in tentative invisibility, while Daimhin Feich pondered her escape.

"Idiot! No one's escaped through this window. Look at the dust on the sill. Hasn't been disturbed for months. She's here."

He whirled again, nearly touching Iseabal, nearly causing her to reveal herself. In his hand, the red crystal blazed with hideous brilliance.

"You! Mistress-a-Nairnecirke. Where is your daughter?"

Ardis jumped. "I don't know, sir! I-I'd gone to my room. She was upstairs. I thought she'd gone to her own room. We'd been fighting, you see-"

Feich advanced on her. "You're lying. You're hiding her from me. Bring her out, woman! Bring her out now!"

"No, sir! I'd not lie to you! I-I want Isha to help you. She must have gone out by the Sanctuary while we were upstairs."

Daimhin Feich grasped the Cirke-mistress by the arm and shook her. "You lie! I feel her here. She's somewhere in this house. Bring her out or, so help me G.o.d, I'll make you the sorriest woman in this village."

He let go of her momentarily and pulled a small dagger from his belt. In the light of that wicked crystal, its blade gleamed a foul red as if bloodied already. Ardis-a-Nairnecirke shrieked and twisted away, catching her skirts in the ruins of the study door. He had her against the door jamb in an instant, the dagger at her throat.

Iseabal dropped her aislinn cloak. A flash of radiance washed from her, drawing all eyes.

"Please let my mother go, Regent Feich," she begged. "Punish me if you like, but don't harm her. She's guilty of nothing you'd condemn her for."

A slow smile spread across the Regent's narrow, handsome face. "Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke, is it? How good of you to join us. I have no intention of punishing you, dear cailin, but rather of putting you to good use."

Chapter 14.

The soul who refuses to let the doubts and caprices of others deflect them from the Way of G.o.d, the soul who is calm in the face of the unrest caused by the wielders of worldly authority-whether they call themselves divines or Cynes or men of truth, that soul will be respected by G.o.d as one of His own. Blessed is such a soul.

-Book of Pilgrimages

Osraed Lin-a-Ruminea

It was an odd imprisonment Iseabal suffered. She had been terrified when Daimhin Feich's men s.n.a.t.c.hed her from her home. Her mother's cries still rang in her ears, even here in the quiet, woodland darkness of this small tent. Bound and tethered to a tent pole, she was alone but for the two guards who kept vigil outside. Feich had made no attempt to question or harm her.

Her terror calmed eventually and she began to think, began to reach out tentatively to her mother, to her father, to Taminy.

Her mother was still frantic, her father distraught and angry, and Taminy . . . Taminy extended over her a silken web of calm. She, in turn, tried to extend that same calm to her parents and received, in a flash of aislinn certainty, a strange benediction; Saxan and Ardis-a-Nairnecirke were side by side again, united in their concern for their only child.

After a while, she slept, secure in the knowledge that she was not truly alone.

The girl's father visited the camp on the heels of her capture to beg her release. Since her mother was yet a prisoner in her own home, Ruadh could only suppose news of her plight had reached him through some other means . . . perhaps, supernatural ones. The thought made his skin crawl and his back creep. Almost, he could feel spirits brushing by him, hear their whispered conversations.

He'd suspected Daimhin had taken the girl hostage to enlist the cooperation of her father, and was astonished when Daimhin met and dismissed the man without questioning him. Instead of coercing, he threatened; the girl was a disciple of the Nairnian Wicke-she would be returned to Creiddylad for interrogation and, perhaps, trial and punishment.

The Osraed begged to be taken in his daughter's stead, even admitting his own connection with the Wicke, but Daimhin Feich only accused him of a father's love and loyalty and rejected his plea. Osraed Saxan went away empty-handed, while Ruadh wondered what his cousin could be thinking.

"Do you really intend to try this girl as a Wicke?" he asked when Saxan had left them.

Daimhin shrugged. "If it suits me."

The Osraed Ladhar who, with his toady cleirach, had been witness to the brief encounter between father and captor, was shaking so hard his jowls quivered like a pudding.

"It had better suit you, sir. By the Spirit, you should try the father as well! He admitted his Taminist loyalties."

"That's of no importance, Abbod. In the long run, his loyalties will matter not at all."

"No importance?" Ladhar was livid. "How can you-?"

Daimhin raised his hand to forestall the impending outburst. "What is our most dire problem just now, Abbod?"

"Our most-? Our religious inst.i.tutions are in tatters, our people are being a.s.sailed by spiritual storm-"

"Abbod, Abbod, look closer to earth, if you would, please! The government of Caraid-land has ceased to function-or nearly so. The Hall is a roil and the Throne is empty." Daimhin smiled and leaned forward in his low camp chair. "Would you put me on the Throne, dear Abbod? Declare me Cyneric in Airleas Malcuim's absence?"

"Airleas is absent, as you say, not dead. Nor has he officially abdicated. Were I to declare you Cyneric, the Houses would see to it Caraid-land was torn into tiny, autonomous bits."

"Exactly. Therefore, we have no recourse but to return Airleas to the Throne, or to witness his public abdication . . . or to be a.s.sured of his death. We have lately learned we cannot get to Airleas until spring. What is our recourse?"

Ladhar glared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Abbod, we must bring Airleas to us."

"Freeing heretics will aid that?"

"No. But holding one hostage might. This one especially. Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke is one of Taminy's special acolytes. Do you think she will let her be lost to us?"

"You mean to draw the Wicke out?" asked Ruadh.

"I intend her to understand that if she would have her lovely young convert suffer no harm, she must forfeit her hold on Airleas."

"How," asked Ladhar, "do you intend to make her understand that?"

"I will tell her young acolyte. I suspect she will see to it that her Mistress is informed. Simple, isn't it? Now, gentlemen, cousin . . ." He nodded at Ruadh. "I've had a most strenuous evening, which is not yet over. If you would be so good . . ." He glanced at the entry of his opulent tent.

Neither Ruadh or his companions were slow. They returned, each, to their smaller shelters.

They didn't tarry in Nairne, but struck their tents the next morning to return to Creiddylad. The Osraed Saxan and his companions tried again to reclaim the captive girl, but Daimhin Feich turned them away.

Ruadh couldn't help but feel a certain sympathy for the Cirkemaster. The girl did not seem evil. At the very worst, he could only imagine her to be misled. Though she'd shown extraordinary powers (he still hadn't recovered from seeing her appear out of the crystal-lit gloom of her father's study), she hadn't tried to use them against the man who was surely her worst enemy. At least, she hadn't used them yet. Perhaps she was only biding her time.

Ruadh glanced at her now, as she rode beside him, bound to her saddle, her back straight with dignity. She certainly didn't seem a creature of deceit. Ironic, he thought, that some of those on the side of right seemed much more unsavory than their supposedly wicked enemies.

He glanced past the girl to her opposing escort, the Abbod Ladhar, happening to meet the older man's eyes. A chill rattled his spine. Ladhar was a hateful man in the truest sense of the word. Ruadh glanced away, signaled one of his kinsmen to take his place beside their prisoner and urged his horse forward to pull level with Sorn Saba.

The younger man looked over at him. "She's a rare beauty, that one."

Ruadh raised his brows and Sorn twitched a glance back over his shoulder.

"The little sorceress. Such striking color! Those blue, blue eyes and that black hair. Rivals my sister, she does."

"Bored with the Lady Dearg, are you?"

Sorn's eyes widened. "Cautious of her. Have you seen her, this morning? A ma.s.s of bruises." He leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Do you think maybe her husband discovered her infidelities?"

"If he had, you'd be the one wearing black and blue."

Sorn's face hardened, making Ruadh believe, for a moment, his boasts of battle experience. "I a.s.sure you, friend Ruadh, I am most discreet. Who else but her husband would have had cause to beat her so?"

Ruadh shook his head, suspecting it was not marital infidelity that had won Coinich Mor her bruises.

The Abbod Ladhar was as perplexed as he was furious. Twice, Feich had the apostate Saxan in his camp and twice he dismissed him as if he had not admitted to his heresies. And the girl! He had her, yet made no move interrogate her about her Mistress's plans. Ladhar had even demanded that she be turned over to the Osraed for trial, but Feich merely laughed at him and told him he over-reached.

The long return trip to Creiddylad was made no shorter by the knowledge that the forces at the Regent's command had been drastically reduced and that they were no closer to capturing Taminy and tearing Airleas from her grasp. Meanwhile, Feich and his Dearg Wicke still Wove and Ladhar still slept poorly.

In the wake of Feich's decree against Taminists, crowds once again milled outside the gates of Mertuile, one contingent protesting the bans, another protesting the protest. Fights broke out often, necessitating the intervention of armed guards.

While it comforted Ladhar that Feich was at last doing something about the Taminists and their sympathizers, he could not believe that the Regent's decrees were any more than a ploy aimed at eliciting some response from the Wicke herself-a response Ladhar alternately feared and pretended not to care about.

A week pa.s.sed-a week of riots, put-downs and arrests. Mertuile's gaol began to fill with Taminists and their allies, people Daimhin Feich showed little interest in. He gave the Abbod and his cleirachs access to the prisoners, but they were, for the most part, ordinary citizens. Misled to be sure, mesmerized most likely, but among them, Ladhar recognized no one from among the Wicke's close circle of apostles.

The girl, Iseabal, was kept by herself in a chill, spartan chamber in the lower levels of the castle proper. Neither the Abbod nor any other Osraed was allowed to interview her. Only Daimhin Feich was admitted to her cell.

At the end of his first week back in Creiddylad, the Regent changed his tack with regard to the Nairnian cailin and moved her to luxurious quarters near his own. Further, he allowed her to dine with his household, which now included Eadrig and Blair Dearg and Coinich Mor, in addition to his young cousin, and the Deasach Banarigh's little brother.

On the occasions when that household also embraced Ladhar, he watched the girl with hawkish intensity. If that unnerved her, so much the better. The Deasach boy also kept close watch on her. Perhaps he expected she would suddenly rise up and perform some bit of magic at table. She did not.

One evening, after a fine supper, the Regent invited his guests, the young Wicke included, to his private salon. The men of Dearg, preferring more active after-supper entertainment, excused themselves and joined their kinsmen in Creiddylad.