Some pleasant little while later, Gerin murmured, "There. You can' t say I'm squashing you now." Selatre, astride him, nodded agreement altogether too solemn for the moment. Both of them started to laughquietly. Gerin slid his hands along her smooth, warm length. "Is this better, then?"

"Better?" Her shrug was delightful. Even then, though, the answer she gave was carefully considered: "I don't know. It's not the same, and you're not squashing me. That's enough." She began to move, and the answers she and Gerin found were not expressed in words.

Once he'd put on his linen tunic and wool trousers, Gerin rolled up the bolt of cloth and slung it back in its corner. In the light of the single lamp still burning in the library, it looked altogether mundane: just one more thing for which there hadn't been room anywhere else in the crowded castle.

Suddenly, Selatre started to giggle. The Fox raised an interrogative eyebrow. She said, "I wonder what Ferdulf would have thought if he'd been walking in the air outside the window just then."

There was an aspect of Ferdulf's unusual abilities Gerin hadn't contemplated till then. "Maybe he would have learned something," he said, which made Selatre laugh again. He went on, "Considering which god he's the son of, maybe he wouldn't have, too." He and Selatre both laughed at that. Were they a little nervous? If they were, they both kept quiet about it. He unbarred the door. Selatre blew out the lamp. They went off to bed.

**

Marlanz Raw-Meat looked as if he'd bitten into something sour. " It's still no, is it?" he said, and swigged at the ale which, with bread and honey, made up his breakfast.

"It's still no," Gerin said firmly. "If Balser Debo's son acknowledges that he is my vassal-and I expect he will-I'll protect him from all his neighbors, including Aragis the Archer."