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we could come back with plenty of people. Besides, if anyone else was going to approach from Magor I wanted the troops behind me.
    I helped Emer onto Garian's mare and got back up on Beauty. We went on together in silence. When we came to the stream Emer drew in her breath but did not dismount. We went on, into Derwen. The trees and the track were no different, yet everything was different, because I knew it and it knew me.
    After a while Emer wiped her eyes. "I killed him as sure as if I'd held the sword," she said.
    "Don't ever curse anyone unless you know what you're doing."
    "I don't know any curses," I said.
    "They're not like charms you have to learn," she replied. "There are so many things you don't seem to know in Tir Tanagiri. I suppose it comes of having no oracle-priests."
    "Tell me how to curse, then," I asked, less because I wanted to know than to distract her from her grief.
    "You can only give a prohibition to someone who is close to you; a lover or a relative, or a personal enemy.
    They have to be there in front of you; it is better if you are touching them. Then you reach out to the gods and set a prohibition on them that if they break it they will die. If the gods will have it then you can feel it become part of the way the world is. It binds you to them, and you will know when it finds them. It is warding as well as curse, because they will not die of other things that might have found them. Some people set prohibitions on their children to protect them. There is a story of a mother who set a warding curse on her son that he could not be killed indoors or out of doors, by weapons or of any sickness. He died when the house collapsed as he was in Page 15

    the doorway. The whole family was crushed."
    "You just reach out?" I asked.
    "Perhaps it is better that people don't do it so much here," she said. "Conal—" Her voice broke.
    "Or I might have killed him that morning before the walls of Derwen," I said harshly.
    "I should have trusted you," she said.
    "You had little reason to," I said.
    I was worried about Emlin and the rest of the ala in Magor. As soon as I got home I would have to send word to Urdo, making sure the messenger went through Nant Gefalion and Caer Gloran, not the faster way through
    Magor.
    I had filled and emptied my waterskin four times before we came to the town walls, and still my thirst seemed never ending. I was also exhausted and had no expectation of sleep. I told the gate guards to close the gates and send the decurios to me. Then Emer and I rode up and dismounted at the stables by the house. I wanted to talk to Veniva before doing anything.
    Daldaf ap Wyn, my mother's steward, came forward to greet me. "Welcome home, Lord; you have come earlier than we looked for you?"
    I didn't want to tell him anything at the moment, so I just said, "Yes." He handed me and Emer steaming beakers of hot apple juice. This was faster than he normally managed a hot drink, even on a cold day. I
    thought that he must have started heating them when he heard we were at the gates.
    "Peace in this hall," he said to Emer. I raised my beaker to my lips, then, despite my thirst, waited as she
    murmured the response, to drink with her. Then I caught the smell and dashed it down, knocking Emer's from her hand. My cup was copper, it dented and rolled, making a ringing sound. Emer's was my mother's precious red Vincan cup, and it broke into many pieces. I grabbed Daldaf by the upper arms and lifted him off the ground.
    "Nobody plays that trick twice!" I said. His look of terror was enough to convict him in my eyes.
    "Who told you to poison me and why are you doing it?"
    Just then Veniva swept into the hall. She smelled of rosemary, and had green stains on her apron; she must have been making up a salve. She took in the scene in a moment and raised her eyebrows. "Whatever are you doing to Dal?" she asked.
    "Stopping him from poisoning me and my guest," I said. It was only then that it struck me that if Emer's drink