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talk, Lord Daeghrefn?” Laca asked, but Daeghrefn
     listened to no denial, no reasoning, asking the question again and again as he drew sword.
    “What are you saying, Laca?”
    Laca's retainers then burst into the roomsummoned, no doubt, by the retreating servant. A
     sea of unyielding Solamnic Knights stepped between the friends turned adversaries.
     Daeghrefn waved his sword helplessly over a burly fellow in full armor, as the tide of
     retainers pushed him farther and farther from the man who had wronged him, who had implied
     ... no, who had boasted of his deed, now that he thought again of it.
    Daeghrefn had looked to his wife then. Her head was bowed, and the pallor of her face told
     him that what Laca had admitted, had proclaimed to all presentincluding lit-
    tie Abelaardwas the truth.
    The snow had been blinding, Daeghrefn remembered, and the guards at the gate of Laca's
     keep pleaded with him to stay, to take light and shelter. But he would accept no comfort
     from a false friend. After all, the infidelities of seven months past must have taken
     place at Nidus, in the heart of Daeghrefn's true hospitality. Under his protecting roof.
     Perhaps in his own chamber. He now remembered that Laca had declined the hunt one morning,
     saying he must be about his devotions.
    Indeed.
    In a frenzy of righteous anger, he herded his family from Laca's castle. It was the
     outcome of too much trust in friends, too much faith in the Oath.
    Daeghrefn scorned the five days' path they had followed around the Khalkists. He chose
     instead a shortcut, which, even in clear weather, was a hard day's climb right through the
     mountains. But now it was obscured by snow and his own blinding rage. Gradually the steps
     of his wife j*rew slower, and she stumbled. Abelaard, only four, still duped by his
     mother's lies and wiles, stopped to help her. And the three of them straggled over the
     rocky road to Nidus into a new blizzard.
    He would have guided them home that very last night. Perhaps the woman would have fallen
     in the mountains, even within sight of the castle walls, but she had been doomed
     anywaydoomed seven months before by the feverish promptings of her blood. Had the druidess
     not come, there would soon have been but two of themAbelaard and himselfand there would
     have been no reminder of that betrayal.
    None but this faceted glass he turned in his hand. Daeghrefn shook his head, swallowed
     more wine, and plunged back into the memories.
    Verminaard had always been underfoot, at the edge of sight, where his presence was a
     mocking reminder of
    that distant spring, the harsh revelations of that distant winter night. Only for
     Abelaard's sake had he tolerated the bastard at all. For Abelaard, and for a strange
     goading at the borders of his thought some reason he could not put words around. But he
     knew that to injure the child or to abandon him would bring down fearful consequences.
    Indeed, Verminaard had been such a thorn to Daeghrefn, such a torment and mockery. The
     gebo- naud seemed a just reprieve from his twelve years with the boy. With the Nerakans in
     the mountains forcing an alliance with his old enemy, he saw the gebo-naud as he wished to
     see it. Son for son meant he could give Verminaard to the Solamnics in exchange for
     Aglaca, sealing the alliance, ridding himself of Verminaard, and sending the boy back
     where he belonged, all in one thrifty gesture. And Abelaard would have understood.
     Eventually.
    But the chance for that was past, the gebo-naud over and Daeghrefn's only son taken in the
     exchange. Daeghrefn's anger had not subsided. He thought of his own son, of Abelaard
     encamped somewhere in the western distances, and slammed the table with his fist. It shook
     the crystal and crockery; the faceted glass that had sparked his memory teetered
     precariously on the table's edge. Robert, rising from his venison long enough to notice,
     snatched the delicate