Though she and Arachnia both worked steadily backwards through Godmother Hildegarde's commonplace book, Elena hadn't yet found any clue as to what had gone wrong with her colleague. A Godmother's commonplace book was kept for the benefit of other Godmothers: both those in other realms, who could keep up on events through the copies that magically appeared in their libraries, and those who would one day succeed her in her own kingdoms, who would need to know the precedents that she had set. Hildegarde, like many of the Trullney Islanders, was rather dour and reserved. And so she had scrupulously recorded anything she had done in her duties as a Godmother, but had been equally scrupulous about keeping her private feelings to herself. Thus it was Elena's mirror-servant, Randolph, who brought her the next piece of news from the Northern Isles.

"You'll never guess, Godmother, what has happened in Brucemuir!" The green, disembodied head in the mirror looked as eager as a puppy. Randolph loved gossip, and he had no inhibitions whatsoever.

Elena smiled. "Well then, you'd better just tell me."

"The two girls have run away, both of them together! Godmother Hildegarde is quite bewildered."

"Really!"

"Oh, yes. Her mirror servant, Theobald, told me all about it. In point of fact–" Randolph waggled his eyebrows significantly and lowered his voice, even though there was no one else around to overhear – "he wanted me to help him scry into the past, to see what happened. Theo's a good soul but a little, well, slow," Randolph confided. "Perhaps it's because the Tradition of using Mirror Servants isn't very strong in the Trullneys. Most people there haven't heard of anything more sophisticated than a silver knife that turns red when someone far away is in danger, and the magicians mostly use Wise Beasts to gather their information." In addition to having no inhibitions, Randolph had very few other ways of setting priorities. He was equally interested in anything Elena set him to watching, from weather patterns to court intrigues, and unless Elena or someone else stopped him, he would natter on happily about anything whatever that occurred to him.

"So…" Elena redirected him, "Did you help Theobald? Did you find out what had happened to set the girls running away?"

"Oh, yes, of course. A local Witch that Hildegarde somehow overlooked teamed up with the Stepmother to curse the Princess with ugliness. The Stepsister – the one that looked like a False Bride waiting to happen — said, and I quote, 'we cannae be having wi' this,' and off they went. They mean to make it to a Temple halfway into the next Kingdom over, where, they hope, the Witch who placed the curse can't get at them to do whatever it is she has in mind."

Elena digested this for a time.

"Good," she decided. "This witch seems to have turned the Tale from the False Bride to the Two Loyal Sisters – and what was she thinking, I wonder? Of course, there's a good chance the elder girl will fall afoul of something-or-other and have to be rescued by the younger one, but it's still better than a False Bride. Unless Hildegarde has truly gone to the bad, she should be giving them a bit more help from here out. And speaking of Hildegarde, did Theobald…"

"Oh, yes, Godmother. All I had to do was mention that she seemed a little down, and he gave me the whole story. It seems that she had got rather fond of the Knight of the White Eagle. The Knight disappeared on a quest to find a cure for Princess Ysabeau of Vraimont, and hasn't been seen since."

"That long ago! Ysabeau was cured not long after my father died, before I became a Godmother – my Horrid Stepmother was most put out at not being invited to the wedding, as I recall – so that's at least ten or twelve years. Is Hildegarde still brooding about that?"

Randolph tilted his head to one side. Being without shoulders, that was the closest he could come to shrugging. "She's not brooding, precisely. But Theo says she blamed herself for allowing herself to fall in love outside her Traditional role, and believes that losing the Knight was only what she deserved. She's been throwing herself into her job more and more, with less and less regard for how she feels about anything, and she's fought the Tradition a lot less, since then."

"Oh, the poor thing! And of course, I'm famous among the Godmothers for marrying my Champion … no wonder she got touchy when it looked like I was meddling with her affairs. More and more, I think we need to pay attention to making sure our fellow Godmothers have the support they need – it's easy to forget when we all have so much else on our plates, but I'm sure it would pay in the long run. I'd much rather meddle now, before she turns irredeemably bitter and we have an Evil Sorceress on our hands – especially an Evil Sorceress who knows so much about Godmothers."

"Well," said Randolph, "you don't have to meddle in this Brucemuir business, at least. Hildegarde's planning to help the two sisters get safely to their Temple – or at least to the Pilgrim caravan that goes to the Temple – and I daresay if she watches them that closely she may end up deciding to apprentice the older one after all."

"That's something, at least." Elena stood up and stretched. "I do hope she finds an apprentice and the two get on like a house afire, or at least that she finds something for herself. Nobody can do this job on a sense of duty alone."

Katie proved to be right about one thing, at least; an hour before sunset, they were looking for a likely camping spot and they hadn't so much as heard a hunting hound in the distance to suggest that the folk of Brucemuir were looking for them in the right direction. Katie had no spare energy for feeling smug, or even disappointed, about being right. They had been leading the mules since Sext to keep from tiring them too much, and she and Trina were both as tired as they could remember being. Katie's calves ached like anything from climbing uphill for so long, and her arms from loading Spot and Bright and hanging on to Bright's reins for balance. She could feel the odd squishing that meant she had at least one blister on each foot, and she and Trina and the mules were all thirsty. Staghorn Pass was full of muddy little rivulets but not much clear water. It was an effort even to think. For the last hour or more, Katie had had the same verse of the same song running through her head over and over:

A-ah the first craw

Couldnae find his Pa

Couldnae find his Pa

Couldnae find his Pa-a-ah,

The first craw

Coulnae find his Pa

And so he flew a-way...

But she'd better start thinking now. Night would fall fast, with walls of granite mountain on all sides blocking the last of the sunlight. They couldn't expect the long gloaming that came from the light reflecting off the sea. And there wasn't any sign of any little village or even a croft where she and Trina could spend the night safely.

Katie was beginning to wonder if she hadn't been a little too sure about the bandits who supposedly had no interest in Brucemuir. She had been planning to build a fire to ward away the wolves and any bears that were already awake, but what if that fire attracted a different sort of beast? And weren't bandits supposed to be touchy about who trespassed on their territory? When they had stopped for luncheon earlier she had removed their jewelry from its pillowcase and she and Trina had hidden it more carefully under their clothes – some folded in a sort of belt made from a strip of linen and tied round their waists, the cheaper stuff in the hems of their petticoats – but then, bandits might very well be interested in what else lay under their clothes, even with Kitten cursed and ugly as she was.

"There'sh a bvit of wall or shomething just upf ahead," Trina remarked dully. "I dinna think we'll find a likelier shpot to resht bvefore full dark."

Katie looked up. It took her a moment to wrench her tired brain from the question of whether it was worth while to teach Trina to point with her forefinger, like a crofter lass, instead of using her bladed hand, like a lady – probably it wasn't – to look at the side of the road. The lengthening shadows of the trees were already making it harder to see ahead, but yes, that lumpy grayish darkness over there looked more like tumbled stones than anything else Katie could think of. From the shape of it, it wasn't a wall, but a way-cairn, set to mark a side trail or the place where a trail had once been. There was a little gap in the trees that might be the start of a path, but the cairn, if that's what it was, was far too shapeless to be in good repair. Come to that, though, an abandoned croft site might make a very good campsite indeed, if the trail was clear enough and the light lasted long enough…

The cairn moved. Katie nearly jumped out of her skin. As the sisters came nearer, it stood up and shuffled toward them, resolving itself in the last of the sunlight into a tiny old woman, gnarled as a heather root and dressed in dusty black rags. She stank powerfully of woodsmoke, and her hands and what could be seen of her face were almost gray.

"Please, good travelers," this apparition begged, "have ye a bit of bread tae spare a poor widow? I've been a-searching of the wood all day and found nane so much as a mushroom or a stale chestnut, and I'm so nigh tae famished I've scarce the strength tae gang back hame."

"Oh, you pfoor thing!" Trina cried, but Katie put a hand on her arm in warning. Not all gangs of bandits were made up of young men alone. And the ones that did have some sort of family life were the more likely to have people in their camps year-round.

"I would hae thought you'd have gone on long since," Katie observed, at the same time fishing in her shawl – either for a weapon or the food the woman asked for, depending on how things went. "It cannae be the usual way of things, tae have folk on the road to beg of so late as this." Katie tried to think. On the other hand, if there was a gang hidden in the woods, and they were clever enough to survive out here year-round, they were probably clever enough to negotiate with… but Katie and Trina had no way of stopping them from taking everything they had with them. A clever gang of bandits wouldn't kill them if they could hold them for ransom and might not rape them, but it would still be better not to encounter them at all.

"Tha speaks true, good lass," the woman creaked, "And I hadnae meant tae do more than rest by the way-cairn before I went hame. But when I saw you coming, with those twa mules looking sae well-kempt …" she trailed off, staring at Trina. "But maybe the mules are better off than the maids. That one looks fair as marred as I am, at less than half my age!"

"She's ugly, but she's neither deaf nor daft," Katie said sharply. "Mind how thy mouth gangs, if you want bread in it." And the woman cringed back and made apologetic noises.

"Indeed," Trina spoke up, "We can share shomvthing with you, Mother, bvut…" and now her voice was full of naked longing, "ish your home very far from here? We were jusht looking for a pflashe to spfend the night."

'Tis hardly even a roof on it, syn' the fire," the crone replied, "but what I have you are welcome tae share. And blessings on ye for sharing what ye have in turn," she added as Katie pulled out her sack of nuts and poured a few into her hands.

Despite appearances, the woman must have at least one or two teeth left, because the nuts didn't seem to give her any trouble. Katie handed Bright's lead to her, suggesting that she could lean on the beast for some extra support, and then she brought up the rear with Spot. This way, there was a mule between the old woman and Trina, in case she really was up to no good, and if she made off with the mule, well, they could still get along with Spot and the things Spot carried. It was only another day to Clydesmuir, and if all else failed, Katie supposed they could still go back home and risk whatever the mysterious sorcerer had in mind.

It was over a mile to the old woman's "hame." As they all (including the mules) stumbled along the narrow track in the rapidly falling dusk, the woman, who said her name was Hilda, told them her tale of woe. Her husband had been a charcoal burner: cutting great stacks of wood and carefully, slowly, burning them down into "soft" coal. "Soft" coal was lighter and burned slower and more steadily than wood, though not as slowly as the "hard" coal that got pulled from under the mountains in Earne. A charcoal burner's stack looked from the outside like a huge round beehive the size of a small cottage. It looked as solid as a stone house, but it was actually full of holes and weak spots, set to let in just the right amount of air. Hilda's husband's foot had slipped one day while tending a stack, and he'd fallen through its "roof" and had burns from his feet to his armpits. He'd taken a week to die. Hilda had tended him and the stacks as best she could, but it too much for one old woman, and one of the stacks had started burning too fast, and it had taken most of the cottage with it. So Hilda had been eking out the little food she had been able to rescue with whatever she could gather in the woods so early in the year, until the last remaining charcoal stack finished burning down and she could sell the load for a ride into Clydesmuir and enough to keep her going until she found other work.

By the time they reached the little clearing with the remains of the cottage in it, it was clear enough that Hilda was telling the truth, and that they need not fear bandits, at least. With a numb sort of relief, Katie started unloading the mules, while Trina did her best to help Hilda put together beds for the three of them, and filled the kettle Katie had snatched from the kitchen with water from the spring Hilda showed her. The three of them drank about half of it, and then poured oats and a handful of dried apple pieces into the rest, to boil for porridge. Hilda plunked the kettle expertly into a sort of nest in the remaining charcoal stack (Katie watched closely), and said the porridge would do there until breakfast next morning. Meanwhile they each had a few more nuts and a half-handful apiece of raw oats to chew. The oats tasted like sawdust, but they were better than nothing and enough to go to sleep on. The mules nosed at their share of the oats and nibbled at the new green shoots on the trees, as they had been doing all day whenever they could.

The three humans all curled up together against the same wall of the ruined cottage – the west-facing one that still had a little heat from the sun in it—on piles of almost-dry bracken – prickly and slightly clammy at the same time – and under all the blankets Katie had filched from their own cozy chamber in Castle Bruce. Katie lay as still as she could, Trina's small back against hers, wondering if her sister, too, were letting tears of exhaustion and worry run down into her ears, but refusing to let herself sob or even sniff too loudly, for fear of disturbing the others. It would be a hard night for all of them, but they would all be alive in the morning.

The Staggering Heron hadn't been so jolly since the Feast of St. Torval. Hugh had given Mr. Taverner three crowns from the money he would otherwise have spent on a new hunting falcon to make sure that none of his guests went without a drink tonight when they wanted one. Now he was set to enjoy a proper birthday celebration with – he would not say "his real friends." He had friends in the court who were just as dear to him; Sir Robin of Tamshire, for one, and the Dowager Countess. A party, then, with those of his friends who would not attend the official one tomorrow night, and probably would have avoided it even if they had been invited. But very good friends, nonetheless. And he trusted these particular friends to celebrate this particular birthday much better than the folk in the castle.

"They're trying to strike a middle way," Hugh had explained to Sergeant Craig of the Castle Watch, who had first introduced Hugh to the denizens of the Heron some three years ago. "They don't want it to be so gloomy as to be a punishment to me, nor so frivolous as to seem disrespectful. So they're kind of pretending I'm to join a Solemn and Prestigious Order of some sort."

At the time, Sgt. Craug had made no reply beyond a phlegmy snort. But a few days later he had invited Hugh to join his friends at the Staggering Heron for a "Soldiers' Wake." "We has them before we gang tae war," he'd explained, "Syn' we dinna ken if we'll hae the time later, and we all ken some of us will be a-mustering out for guid and a.' " The idea had made perfect sense to Hugh, and so here he was at the Heron, drinking ale and singing sentimental songs with men who were as practiced as himself in facing death, if not more so, and swapping stories with the nearest of them while Pepper alternately curled up under his chair and nosed out to beg for scraps.

Many of the songs were poems Hugh himself had written, the words set to older tunes with varying degrees of success. This was, he knew, by way of being a tribute to himself, because on a normal night the only ones they bothered with were Earnish Mike's song, "I Used tae be a Soldier-sailor-miner-caravanner," And the new one from the still-unfinished Fergus O'Doone book, "My father is King Enough for Me." When he was in a brooding frame of mind, Hugh worried that his other efforts to write about commoners' lives with the same respect as Sir Robin gave to vanished heroes were about as true-to-life as those paintings of shepherdesses in pink hoopskirts that hung Queen Gwyn's sitting room. Maybe they were too long for people who didn't read. Or maybe just too new... Hugh wrenched himself back to the present. Someone had made the effort of getting this lot to learn a whole lot of Hugh's words, and they had meant it as a gift. The least Hugh could do was stop moping and listen properly.

Sgt. Craig was acting as seneschal tonight, which in this crowd meant nothing, except that when he deemed it fit, he would bang his tankard on the table and bellow, "QUIET!" in his parade-ground voice. Under Hugh's hand, Pepper flinched.

"Awreet!" the sergeant barked as the din around him settled down to a low mumble, "We are here taenight in honor of Guid Prince Hugh, who has been a friend tae us all these last three years or more, and listened tae all our best tales withoot a-calling us liars, and paid for mony a pint of ale, and nivver once told anyone how a lost battle could hae' been won, did we only do it his way. Taemorrow night, our Prince joins the Solemn and Press-teedge-ee-ous Order of Poor Fellows What've Been Buggered O'er by Folk they Nivver met. The Arms o' this Order are a fine box-bed, just big eno' for one, a fine linen sheet tae wrap up in, and a hole i' the groond tae hold it a.' "

Their laughter at this joke marked the men in the tavern for soldiers, Hugh reflected, as surely as the scars on their faces and arms and the tattered regimental tartans that a few of them wore. One of the first things that had drawn him to this lot was the way they spoke of death and horror- not as if it didn't matter, but as if it mattered no more than any other thing one might meet in the course of a day. They could be sentimental as anyone over a child or a love ballad, Hugh knew, but death and injury were simply things that happened.

This straightforward approach had much endeared them to Hugh, who had been tired of people tiptoeing around their doomed Prince before he had rightly understood what it was they were being so careful about. For all that his peers in the court had been trained as knights, and were supposed to be dauntless in the face of hardship and face violent death at the hands of an enemy with aplomb, the prospect of one of their number dying slowly, in his own home and surrounded by comforts, made them very uncomfortable indeed.

Hugh remembered how much work it had been to get Sir Robin to understand that, when you had known since you could talk that your life would be a short one, you simply took it into account and went on living. It wasn't something that improved by ignoring it. On the other hand, Hugh had more sympathy for the courtiers that tiptoed around the subject of his Curse than he did for the ones who thought it was the most interesting thing about him, like Lady Perdita and all the other young ladies in black.

Sgt. Craig was still talking- something about how most soldiers were initiated into the Solemn Order of Poor Fellows by their first recruiting sergeant, but Hugh had been done over by his many times great-grandfather. Robin the Sorrowful was actually some sort of uncle, but there was no reason to point that out. "So our prince is unblooded and green as a goose," the old soldier concluded, "but he's a funny skill wi' words. He'll listen tae iverything ye say, and then he'll write it a' doon, and once he does, what he writ is what ye said, and what ye said couldnae be said any other way. And tae prove it," the sergeant shouted above the mounting roar, "Here's Earnish Mike, telling the same story he always has, in the words Prince Hugh wrote twa years back: the words that'll likely outlive the lad and even Auld Mike himsel –"

The rest was drowned out in a roar, as Earnish Mike heaved himself up on his pegleg and started in on "I Used tae be a Soldier-sailor-miner-caravanner." Except most folk here just called it "Earnish Mike's Song." At the Staggering Heron, Earnish Mike was the true royalty and the doomed and eccentric prince was merely a mascot. And that was another reason Hugh kept coming back.

…. And that is how I lost me leg, and Oh, 'tis I am sorry;

For I'd hae rather 'twas the foreman at the bottom o' that quarry...

Hugh had written half the song in one sitting, after a month of listening to Mike holding court. He'd had to make his way to the Heron very early one evening to catch the fellow when he was sober enough to listen to it being read and offer his opinion. Hugh had been as gratified by Earnish Mike's acceptance as Mike had been amazed by having anything of his put down in a book that would be read "by scholars and gentlefolk and all." But he had been as stern an editor as the Dowager Countess in his own way, and it was Mike that had insisted on adding a few verses that Sir Robin had flatly refused to print:

...The job it cam' wi' lodgings, but it left me wi' the pox,

Sae I hied me tae the guidwife wi' a stall along the docks.

She said, 'I can cure ye, but I fear the price is high,

Tae tak' it ye mun leave behind your leg up tae the thigh."

And that is how I lost me leg, tae just aboon the knee,

Though why the aud witch wanted it is more nor I can see.

I paid her price withoot complaint, and I gi' thee my word,

I'd hae gladly gi'en her both me legs, that I might keep the third!

The stories were Mike's. The words were Hugh's, though it was occasionally useful to pretend otherwise. Hugh told his mother and Pastor Stuart and any number of other dismayed courtiers, "we wrote it together," and let them assume that the drunken old soldier had been responsible for whatever offended them. And Earnish Mike said, "we wrote it taegither," when he introduced it to his friends at the Heron, and let them assume that Mike had been the brains of the operation, letting Hugh read bits of paper at him while he'd managed to bilk the innocent prince of a small fortune in ale.

Though he occasionally (much to the disapproval of the Dowager Countess) got to brooding about how his work would be remembered in years to come, Hugh never brooded about this one. It had been pure, wicked fun, sitting back in the smoke and fug of the Heron, drinking ale and doing his best to come up with lines that made Mike and the others laugh. If in the end it really was "Earnish Mike's Song," and not Hugh's, that was only fitting, and probably a better gift to the old reprobate than all the pints of ale Hugh had ever bought him.

The whole tavern joined in on the last verse: one which had gotten Hugh into no end of trouble with Pastor Stuart. In this one, Mike got himself involved in some black magic. The lost leg was the one part of him that didn't make it over the threshold of the kirk in time, and the Evil One got hold of it and carried it away:

I went and asked the Pastor, but he said he didnae ken:

An 'tis Below, while I'm Above, will I feel it burning then?

After the song ended and Mike sat down, Hugh stood up and everyone quietened again. "Thank you, Mike," Hugh began. He "And thank all of you for coming here this night, and for your friendship these last few years. 'Tis said every Curse brings its own blessings alongside, and one of my blessings has surely been that I had the freedom to racket about and meet good folk like you, instead of training all day to be my father's heir."

What would he have been like, Hugh wondered, if he had spent his days in that training, as his brother James did? He would certainly know a great deal more about the mortice and tenons of taxes and treaties. The courtiers would say James knew more about how to lead – or in some cases just how to use – his fellow men. Hugh's opinion was that in their own way the commoners spent just as much time on politics and manipulation as the grander folk, even if the rituals were different and the stakes were lower. Not that the fate of a family couldn't loom just as large as the fate of a kingdom, provided it was your family.

" 'Tis a blessing as well, I think," He went on with his speech, "that I get to say farewell to all of you properly like this, and to say again, thank you. Thank you all." Hugh had to wipe his eyes as he sat down. It had taken a long time for him to realize that it really was a blessing to see your end coming, to be able to make your peace with everyone you would be leaving behind and say what you wanted to say... At least he'd got through his thank-you speech without his voice giving out. When he really felt something strongly, he found it hard to speak above a whisper.

Someone shouted, "Three cheers for Prince Hugh!" and hands clapped his back, and Pepper nosed his hand again. Hugh smiled. He was touched, and sad that these nights at the Heron were coming to an end, and more afraid than he would admit to anyone but Pastor Stuart of what was coming next, but he was also grateful beyond measure to be where he was.

The evening wound down and the fellows who were the least able to hold their drinks stumbled out into the night or slid under tables. Hugh and Sgt. Craig sat drinking water and talking quietly. They would each in their own way be on duty tomorrow at Tierce, and were careful not to let themselves get anything south of tipsy. "I've told Tamshire to give my share of the profits from my book to Mr. Taverner there'" Hugh said. "He's to use them to give a pint of ale to any fellow from the Almshouse who can't pay for his own. Can you cipher well enough to keep an eye on the figures and keep him honest?"

It was Sgt. Craig's turn to wipe his eyes. "Aye, laddie, I can do that. 'Twill be a fine legacy."

"Put it on my tombstone," Hugh chuckled, " 'Always guid for a pint.' It doesn't look like the Fergus book will be done with in time, but Tamshire might print it anyway, and if he does, and if it sells, it'll be the same arrangement."

Pepper looked up suddenly and growled at a man who approached the table tentatively. Hugh looked followed the dog's gaze. He was pretty sure he knew the fellow, though he couldn't remember the name just now; one of the stable hands, was it? "Hush, Pepper," he murmurred, "this fellow's all right."

"Pardon my boldness," the fellow said, "but I did hear tell you've an interest in tales of Fergus O'Doone?" at Hugh's nod, he went on, "It just so happens that the fellow I'm takin' this pair o' horses taenight claims his granddad marrit one o' Ruddy Bess's sisters. He's nane so far awa' that it would trouble you tae gang home again, after, if you'd like tae have a word?"

"You're sure he'd welcome a guest at this hour?"

"Och, aye, be right glad of it, he would."

"Then I would like to meet him, if only to set up some other, better time to talk." Some of the other Princes had lasted as much as a month, after all. There might be time to talk...

"I'll be saying farewell tae the pair of ye, then," Sgt. Craig said, stretching, "Can ye be sure you'll see him safe home again?" He asked the groom. So the sergeant knew him too, Hugh thought.

" 'Tis a promise," the fellow said, with a brilliant smile that transformed his rather nondescript face, and all three of them left the Staggering Heron to go their ways: Sgt. Craig stumping up along the Castle Road, and Hugh mounting one of the groom's pair of tall, tar-black horses.