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Alaric said, pleased that he'd kept his voice calm and even passably friendly.
    'Alaric. Feeling better?' His older brother stopped near the bed, spinning the desk chair around and sinking down onto it with his thick arms folded across the back, facing Alaric.
    'Much, thank you.' He did, too. Alaric was starting to remember how ill he'd felt the night before, weak and feverish, and confused. He remembered seeing things, strange, horrible things, and he remembered starting at everything. He remembered being tied^to^his horse, although that had seemed like a bad dream, all fuzzy around the edges. Now his head was clear, however, and he felt well-rested and fit, if weak. 'I take it you took us in?' He wanted to ask about Dietz, but didn't want to give his brother the upper hand any more than necessary.
    'Of course.' Heinrich's frown indicated that it had hardly been his choice, simply his duty. The von Jungfreuds had always known their duty, all except Alaric. 'When your ser­vant appeared at our gate and announced that you were deathly ill, we brought you both inside and sent for the physician. You had a high fever and were delirious. He pre­scribed a herbal concoction, which we have been feeding to you daily, along with some broth.'
    'Daily?' Alaric glanced at the window. 'How long have I been ill?'
    'Three days.'
    'Three days!' Now Alaric did jump out of the bed, stum­bling, but managing to cross the room and wrench open the doors of the wardrobe. His clothes were indeed hang­ing within, clean and mended, and he began tugging them on. 'Thank you, Heinrich, for your help, but I must be going. Will you send my man up, please?' He assumed Dietz was all right, otherwise Heinrich would have said something.
    'What is the rush?' His brother had not moved from the chair, which was a good sign.
    'I am pursuing some men,' Alaric explained carefully, pulling his trousers up and then reaching for his shirt. 'We were already several days behind them, and now it may be too late to catch them at all.'
    'Why are you chasing them?' Heinrich's tone was mild, but Alaric wasn't fooled. He knew his brother too well, even after all these years.
    'They robbed a friend,' he answered in what he hoped was a casual tone. 'We promised to go after them and retrieve what they had taken.'
    'All the way from Middenheim?'
    Alaric cursed silently; Dietz must have told his family that.
    'It must be quite valuable, whatever they took, for you to go to such lengths,' his brother said.
    'Sentimental value only,' Alaric answered, 'but we did promise to go after it.' He shrugged, buckling his vest in place. 'If they are too far ahead of us, we'll simply have to return and admit defeat, but I want to make sure first.'
    Heinrich rose from the chair, moving it carefully back to its place by the desk. That was a bad sign. It meant he was angry, and had to control himself carefully lest he hurl the furniture across the room. Alaric vividly remembered breakages from their youth.
    'What are you really doing, Alaric?' his brother demanded. 'Where have you been the past year? You dropped out of school and all but disappeared. Father has been worried sick!'
    'I doubt it,' Alaric answered dryly. 'Unless he thought I might be embarrassing him again. Now if you'd said Mother was worried, I'd have believed you.' A horrible thought struck him. 'Is she all right?'
    'She is fine,' Heinrich replied, 'and yes, she was worried as well. We all were. You had a promising career ahead of you as a scholar, Alaric.'
    Alaric could almost hear the thought behind the state­ment: promising but useless. 'Why did you throw it away?'
    'I didn't throw anything away' Alaric snapped, tired of hearing the same old complaints from yet another family member. 'I was never cut out for it.'
    'Just like you weren't cut out for the military life?' He could hear the sneer on Heinrich's face.
    'That's right.' It wasn't worth arguing. It never had been. The von Jungfreuds were a military family. Every one of