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turned back. The little man was scrutinizing a curling scroll, bent over the table while Inch stood behind him staring at nothing particular.
    “Doctor Morgenes ...”
    At the sound of his name the doctor looked up, blinking. He seemed surprised that Simon was still in the room; Simon was surprised, too.
    “Doctor, I’ve been a fool.”
    Morgenes arched his eyebrows, waiting.
    “I was supposed to sweep your room. Rachel asked me to. Now the whole afternoon has gone by.”
    “Oh. Ah!” Morgenes’ nose wrinkled as if it itched him, then he broke out a wide smile. “Sweep my chamber, eh? Well, lad, come back tomorrow and do it. Tell Rachel that I have more work for you, if she will be so good as to let you go.” He turned back to his book, then looked up again, eyes narrowing, and pursed his lips. As the doctor sat in silent thought, the elation Simon was feeling changed suddenly to nervousness.
    Why is he staring at me like that?
    “Come to think of it, boy,” the man finally said, “I will be having many chores coming up that you could help me with—and eventually I will need an apprentice. Come back tomorrow, as I said. I will talk with the Mistress of Chambermaids about the other.” He smiled briefly, then turned back to his scroll. Simon was suddenly aware that Inch was staring across the doctor’s back at him, an unreadable expression moving beneath the placid surface of his whey-colored face. Simon turned and sprinted through the door. Exhilaration caught him up as he bounded down the blue-lit hallway and emerged under dark, cloud-smeared skies. Apprentice! To the doctor!
    When he reached the gatehouse, he stopped and climbed down to the edge of the moat to look for the broom. The crickets were well into the evening’s chorale. When he found it at last, he sat down for a moment against the wall near the water’s brink to listen.
    As the rhythmic song rose around him, he ran his fingers along the nearby stones. Caressing the surface of one worn as smooth as hand-burnished cedar, he thought:
    This stone may have been standing here since ... since before our Lord Usires was born. Perhaps some Sithi boy once sat here in this same quiet place, listening to the night....
    Where did that breeze come from?
    A voice seemed to whisper, whisper, the words too faint to hear.
    Perhaps he ran his hands across this same stone....
    A whisper on the wind: We will have it back, manchild. We will have it all back....
    Clutching the neck of his coat tight against the unexpected chill, Simon got up and climbed the grassy slope, suddenly lonesome for familiar voices and light.

3
    Birds in the Chapel

    “By the Blessed Aedon ...”
    Whack!
    “... And Elysia his mother ...”
    Whack! Whack!
    “... And all the saints that watch over ...”
    Whack!
    “... Watch over ... ouch!” A hiss of frustation. “Damned spiders!” The whacking resumed, curses and invocations laid on between. Rachel was cleaning cobwebs from the dining hall ceiling.
    Two girls sick and another with a twisted ankle. This was the kind of day that put a dangerous glint in Rachel the Dragon’s agate eye. Bad enough to have Sarrah and Jael down with the fluxion—Rachel was a hard taskmistress, but she knew that every day of working a sick girl could mean losing her three days in the longer run—yes, bad enough that Rachel had to pick up the slack left by their absence. As if she did not do two people’s work already! Now the seneschal said the king would dine in the Great Hall tonight, and Elias, the Prince Regent, had arrived from Meremund, and there was even more work to do!
    And Simon, sent off an hour before to pick a few bundles of rushes, was still not back.
    So, here she stood with her tired old body perched on a rickety stool, trying to get the spiderwebs out of the ceiling’s high corners with a broom. That boy! That, that ...
    “Holy Aedon give strength ...”
Whack! Whack! Whack!
That damnable boy!
     
    It was not enough, Rachel reflected