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restraint. He laid his hands on Thibaut’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. Thibaut stared, fascinated. Aidan shook him with a whisper of his true strength; even that was enough to rattle Thibaut’s bones. “Listen to me, Thibaut. Listen well. I am honored that you think me worthy of your service. I would be honored to accept it. But I cannot.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Aidan’s breath hissed. He seemed as much amused as angry. But through it he was somber, and that somberness quelled Thibaut utterly. “Because, Thibaut. Yesterday I swore an oath, and that oath binds me. I cannot — dare not — allow another to share it.” He paused, as if he waited for Thibaut to ask, but Thibaut could not. “I swore to exact payment for Gereint’s death. I swore to exact it from the Lord of the Assassins himself, in his own person, and to stop at nothing until I should have done it.”
    His hands tightened on Thibaut’s shoulders. Thibaut gasped, but he was strong. He did not cry out. “Now do you understand?” Aidan demanded of him. “Now do you comprehend why I must be alone?”
    â€œNo,” said Thibaut.
    Aidan let him go so suddenly that he fell against the parapet. He righted himself, shaking, but trying to hide it. His voice came out as a squeak, until it steadied somewhere between alto and high tenor. “He was never of my blood, but he was my kin. He was all the father I ever knew. It is my right to share in taking his blood-price.”
    Aidan looked at him. Thibaut knew what he saw.
    The prince’s face twisted. “You’ll make a man,” he said, as if to himself. But then: “No, Thibaut. I have defenses against Assassins. You have none. And they will strike you. Believe me, Thibaut. They will.”
    â€œThat’s so whether I stay with you or no. Mother won’t tell me, but I know. I’m marked. They’ll come against me next. At least, with you, I’ll have a little hope. Of defending myself. Of taking revenge for Gereint.”
    â€œYou should have been a scholar,” said Aidan. “You argue like one.” He rose abruptly. “Your mother will have my hide.”
    And Thibaut’s. But Thibaut was too rapt in bliss to care. He had what he had wanted since he was old enough to understand Gereint’s stories.
    He did not want to be alone any longer. He smiled at the prince’s black scowl, and knelt there in the sun on the broken tower. He laid his hands on Aidan’s knees; he said the words that made him the liege man of the Prince of Caer Gwent. The Prince of Caer Gwent accepted them. He did it roughly, without pleasure, but he did it. “And on your head be it,” he said.
    oOo
    It was true, Thibaut saw to his own satisfaction. Aidan looked different when he was by himself, or with people who knew what he was. In hall, among strangers, he seemed remarkable still, but humanly remarkable: a tall young man with a strikingly handsome face. Even his pallor was dimmed, that that would never be anything but startling in a country where every man was burned either black or scarlet by the sun.
    â€œHe’s as white as a maid,” someone said in Thibaut’s hearing.
    â€œGod knows, he doesn’t fight like one,” said someone else.
    â€œWhy, have you seen him?”
    â€œSeen him? He’s knocked me clean over the crupper.” The man sounded anything but ashamed to confess it. “Here, I forget — you’ve been mewed up in court. We had a bit of tourney in Acre, a sennight back. Nothing of consequence, merely a handful of challengers and a few wagers made. There’s been the usual crop of tyros on the boat from Saint Mark, cocky as they always are, and stinking to high heaven. But that one was as fresh as a girl, and someone remarked on it as you did, and someone else took it up, and one way and another we were all hot to muss his pretty curls for him.
    â€œWe had