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none of which had been kept here.  Blood was
a high price, and an innocent’s blood, the highest of all.  A price none of the
gods took lightly on account of the uncomfortable lot of power it bought of
them.  To say nothing of the kind of folk as would pay for that power.
    But they, whoever they were, had not taken just her blood. 
Pegrine had been cleaned like an elk, her insides taken away.  That made no
sense at all.
    The killers had taken the blade with them, too; no doubt it
was a special ritual weapon and of dear price.  One they might use again.  Even
so, she might have expected them to set it down once, if only for a moment that
she could see the size or shape of it.  They had not.  Likewise she found no
indentations for any bowls to catch Peg’s blood or her organs.
    She pushed through the tree limbs beyond where she had found
the knights’ footprints and proved to herself that her instincts were correct. 
As she expected, she saw no tracks, no broken limbs on the trees.  Not even the
spoor of the knights’ horses, assuming, and she thought the assumption fair,
that they had ridden here from Brannagh.  All she had were two partial left
bootprints, and these with no motion to them.  Most likely, her knights had
stood here for a time, waiting, and then they had gone.  But where?  She rocked
back on her heels, considering.
    “Sweet B’radik,” whispered Renda finally, her eyes wide, her
lips trembling.  She stood, her face a stone mask of horror, and moved toward
the terrible altar, raising her sword to cut the rope and free her niece’s
body.
    “Renda, stay back,” barked Gikka, “please.”  The squire’s
face was drawn and pale, and the light of the swinging lantern cast strange shadows
over her features.  “Please.  Let me be sure they’ve not...”  She gestured
toward the child’s body.  “That she—that her body’s not set as bait and trap.”
    She watched the dull realization dawn in Renda’s eyes.  They
had both seen the wounded and dead, especially children, set with wicked
powders and elixirs, to explode in flame or a cloud of poison when they were
touched. 
    After only a moment, Renda nodded, gesturing for Gikka to do
as she thought best.  Then she walked away, leaving Gikka to her work. 
    Much later, Gikka found Renda standing beside Alandro, numb
and staring through the trees with her eyes like shining amber against the
black shadows.  Renda had split the vein of a sacred verinara leaf and
consecrated her sword before Rjeinar.  A dangerous oath for a knight sworn to
B’radik.
    Without a word, Gikka also picked a perfect verinara leaf
and split the vein with her own sword.  But then she picked another, crushed it
and ran the length of her blade through the poisonous juice.  She did the same
with her daggers. 
    Rjeinar’s priests held that verinara was a holy poison; it
would kill only the guilty one.  But Gikka did not trust superstition.  In open
air, the juice went stale within two days, about the time it took for the leaf
to yellow—a Hadrian would pin the leaf to his cloak that he might have his
revenge before it faded—but during those two days, no one, guilty or innocent,
could survive the poison without a draft of anoverinara.  Even then, he would
spend many days abed praying for a merciful death while the poison burned away
the lining of his gut.  Without the ano or having taken it too late, a man
would bleed away into his belly.
    To her mind, verinara was too easy a death for these
knights.
    “Ever the practical one,” sighed the knight as she watched
Gikka sheath her freshly poisoned daggers.  Then, with a sad smile, Renda
clapped her hand at her squire’s shoulder.  “Come,” she said.  “We must get her
back to the castle.”
    *          *          *
    At a cry from the watch at the gatehouse, everyone had come
running out to the castle gate to cheer Renda and Gikka and especially little
Pegrine on their return