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which time he was so weak he could hardly hold up his head. His hands had been as torn and bloody as his feet. His clothing had been icy and soaked, as if he had been tossed into the sea, thrown ashore, then been so desperate to get away from the water he had not even bothered to look for a path, but simply climbed straight up the cliff to reach our kitchen door.
    Old Mathilde, Susanne, and I took turns caring for him, changing the dressings on his wounded hands and feet, keeping an eye on him while he slept, ladling chicken broth down his throat when he awoke. The he announced he feared he was sprouting feathers was the day we knew he would recover. That was the day he graduated from the cot to a chair.
    It was also the day he told us who he was.
    His name was Niccolo Schiavone, a minor nobleman’s youngest son, born and raised in the land wedid not name. He was only about a year older than Raoul and I, and not a soldier, in spite of the sword. He had taken it from the body of a dead comrade in a moment of desperation, certain he would not meet with a shred of kindness upon our shores. The voyage on which he had embarked was his first at sea, his first outside his homeland. He had been sent as a courier, carrying information to the queen herself.
    “What kind of message requires warships to send it?” Raoul demanded one night after several weeks had gone by.
    Raoul, Old Mathilde, Niccolo, and I were sitting together in the kitchen. During Niccolos recovery, the days had slid from October into November. It was full winter now. The sea outside our windows was gray, a mirror of the dull and glowering sky; the wind blew hard and cold. But at least it was still blowing in its usual direction. As Niccolo had grown stronger, he had begun to demonstrate his gratitude for the fact that we had rescued him by performing various tasks around the great stone house.
    His first feat had impressed us all, but particularly Susanne, and it was this: He revealed his ability to chop onions without crying. Then he graduated to meat, and finally to wood for the kitchen fire, great piles of which were now stacked neady outside the kitchen door. He recaned Susanne’s rocking chair. When Old Mathilde discovered he had a talent for drawing, she set him to work making sketches of new and bigger cold frames to use in the spring. We had all carefully refrained frommentioning the reason Niccolo was available to perform these tasks in the first place: He had as good as been part of an invasion force.
    But the subject of Niccolo’s message could not be put off forever, and it was probably inevitable that it would be Raoul who finally brought it up. He might have gone from believing Niccolo intended to murder us all in our beds to grudging acceptance, but he was still a long way from trust. In this, though I don’t think either of them realized it, he was no different from Niccolo, himself.
    “I think that I must give you a true answer,” he finally said in response to Raoul’s question. “Though there are many in my land who would say that I should not.
    “The news I was bringing to the queen is this: Her father is dead. Her brother now sits upon their country’s throne. For twenty long years, brother and sister have waited for this moment. Now that their father is dead, his will can no longer hold them back from what it is that they desire: a return to the ways of war.’
    “But why?” I cried. “Why did our two countries ever start fighting in the first place? Do you know?”
    Niccolo’s dark eyebrows rose, and I could tell that I had taken him completely by surprise.
    “Of course I know,” he said. “Or I suppose, in fairness, I should say I know what I’ve been told.” He paused for a moment, gazing at each of the three of us in turn. “You truly do not know?”
    “We do not speak of it,” Raoul said softly. “We do not even name the place you live aloud, for to do so isconsidered as good as inviting your soldiers to march down