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crowd that was both demure and triumphant. Gareth stopped on the landing. His eyes searched the hall and found Rowena standing in the middle of the floor, feet poised for movement if he should beckon.
    He nodded, but she had no way of knowing if it was a nod of approval or warning. Then he disappeared with the lady into the shadows at the top of the stairs.
    A giggling squire emerged from the crowd and pulled Mortimer to his feet, brushing him off with a suggestive leer. The crowd cut a wide swath around the splintered lute. Without the music, the dance and the revelry died. Those who could walk paired off and stumbled up the stairs or out into the night. Those who could not wrapped their cloaks around them and stretched out on the tables and floor. A short blond boy cleared a corner of the table with a single swipe and rolled onto it with a gurgling snore. Rowena watched him sleep for a moment, wondering with longing what Little Freddie was doing at the moment. Her stomach ached. She sighed and curled up in the corner, bunching a grimy handful of rushes into a pillow.
    A vision of the man and woman she had seen outside the castle drifted through her weary mind. The thought of the lady Alise's delicate face screwed up into such an expression made her smile. She found it even more difficult to imagine Gareth's strong form caught in such a graceless act as skewering a woman like a trapped bug against a wall. Even the hogs at Revelwood, when they still had hogs, had possessed more finesse in their mating. A wave of homesickness faded her smile. When the yellow cur sank down beside her and lapped at her nose, she threw an arm over him and drifted into a restless sleep.
    As Gareth climbed the steps, the weight of Alise's hand in his felt cold and insubstantial. The melody of Mortimer's song echoed in the back of his skull, taunting him with its eerie refrain. Curiosity shone in Alise's hazel eyes. Perhaps she could hear it, too. He snatched his hand out of the web of her fine-boned fingers without explanation. There was no time for her gentle reproof. The door of a chamber lay before them.
    A baby-faced squire and blushing maidservant pushed past them with knowing glances as they entered. Their giggles floated back as they fled down the stairs. Gareth slammed the door and jerked the tousled counterpane off the mattress. At the violence of the gesture, a tingle of fright shuddered down Alise's spine, deepening the sparkle of anticipation in her eyes. Gareth felt sickened.
    She glided toward him, twirling like a leaf in the wind when he caught her arm and drew her into his embrace. Her lips spread hungrily, drawing him into a lake of fire. Even as his body responded in all the right ways, his mind wondered how many women bedded him out of curiosity, seeking the razor-edge thrill of danger, and hoping what others said about him was true.
    Alise backed away, her eyes darkening pools of invitation. Her fingers caught like claws at his leather gauntlets, peeling them from his forearms like a second layer of skin.
    A chord of memory chimed within him. He remembered the nightmares that had beset him after he had buried Elayne. He dreamed her moldering corpse would come dragging up the hall. Her skeletal claws would paw his bolted door until he would awaken, screaming and drenched in the scent of his own fear.
    He pulled Alise to him, burying his face in her smooth throat to vanquish the memory. His broad fingers splayed over the ridges of her ribs through the heavy brocade.
    His eyes opened of their own volition as he remembered without warning the warmth of something more solid against him—the girl sleeping in his arms on the journey to the castle. Her body, vulnerable and warm,nestled against him. Her head had fallen to the side, and her gentle breath had passed through his chain mail like a spring wind. She was so young, and he suddenly felt very old trapped in the sharp embrace of a woman he hardly knew. He could see the girl