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the world laid before us if I yielded to his request. His eyes were Meldov’s brown ones, the words ones I’d longed to hear, but under the honey was acid and decay. I fought him. I denied him. Until he turned me around and took what he wanted, with a snarl at my intransigence. Took and drugged and cajoled and suborned me. And I was left with only a shred of free will, deep inside, hoarded and cowering in the dark of my soul. Kept hidden against the day…
    I eventually realized I was sobbing. My cheek was pressed to my floor, my hair glued to my face with tears and snot and sweat. I was curled as tightly as possible, knees to my chest, the flagstones hard under my hip. Something rubbed across my shoulders with a firm soft pressure, like a friendly cat. I realized it was a man’s hand, and scrambled away, dragging myself up to my knees. I couldn’t stand. I pushed off from the floor with both arms, whimpering as my bad wrist took the strain. I raised my head.
    Tobin sat back on his heels, staring at me. His pupils were so wide they swallowed the honey-brown of his eyes. He held his hands up, empty. “Do you know who I am?” His voice was agonizingly gentle.
    I sat back on my heels, and wiped my face with my sleeve. “The bastard who’s going to drag me back to Riverrun.”
    “You called me Meldov.”
    I had no good answer for that.
    Tobin whispered, “I thought he was a good man. What did he do to you?”
    “Oh, he was a good man,” I said jauntily. “He was long dead when he did that.”
    If Tobin had been pale before he was sheet-white now. “He was what ?”
    I sighed. “It’s a long story.” The tears had done something for me, emptied me out. I actually felt better than I had. I was loose and drifting and untouchable, all my doors swinging open. That was a dangerous thought, and I tried to care about it.
    “I have lots of time. Tell me?”
    “You should just go.”
    “The hells I will.” He stood up. “You’re bleeding. Do you have any bandages?”
    “This?” I looked at my arm dispassionately. I’d cut deeper than usual, when he grabbed me. Still, it was nothing that wouldn’t heal. In fact, when I looked at him, I saw way more blood than that on his own sleeve. Which reminded me— “You broke my window! Who told you to dive through like some run-away beer wagon and break it? Damn you, do you know how much that cost?” I’d had to buy the large panes in the city and have them carefully shipped, and paid the local carpenter to frame it. I’d loved it. The local glassmaker couldn’t come close to it. “And you’re bleeding worse than I am. Look to your own wounds.”
    He looked down in surprise, as if he hadn’t noticed anything, and slid his sleeve up his arm to check it. A shard of bright glass fell from the fabric to the floor. A long, shallow gash scored his tanned forearm. Blood welled slowly out. He grimaced and wrapped his hand over it. “That’s nothing. But you. You were going to…” He swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet night.
    “No, I wasn’t.” At least, probably not. “I like to play with the knife. It calms me.”
    “ Calms you?”
    I shrugged. I wasn’t going to explain myself to him.
    “Well it sure as hells didn’t calm me.” He took down my dishcloth from the rack, not looking at me. “I was so damned scared.”
    “Don’t use that. It’s for the dishes. There’s a basket of cotton strips under the sink there.” Because this wasn’t the first time I’d gone a bit deep.
    He wrapped his own arm, his motions so practiced, down to tying the strip with left hand and teeth that it came home to me how often he must have done something like this. He was a soldier. I’d known, intellectually, that he was in the cavalry all those years ago. But that simple, practical action brought home the impact of that. He might have died. That realization stunned the breath out of me so well that I scarcely moved as he came over and knelt in front of me, reaching very