Vansen was surprised to feel pain at her words, although she only told the truth-he was not like her, not at all. The pain was from what it brought back to his thoughts, the equally unknowable distance between himself and the woman he loved. It was becoming clearer to Vansen every day that it had been madness even to suppose he and the princess lived in the same world.

"Just give your lady to know," he said, "that my people are losing patience. That everybody is losing patience. And they are frightened, too."

"As you said yourself, Captain, trust me." Aesi'uah smiled-at least, he had always assumed it was a smile, since it seemed in many ways to serve the same function as it would have in an ordinary woman, although not always. "My mistress already knows this."

"But, Opal…!"

She fixed him with a stare that could have split granite like a wedge. All the Leekstone women had that eye. "Don't you dare. There should be women there and there will be women there. By the Elders, their general is a woman."

"Exactly! And according to Vansen she has the blood of a god running in her veins and a temper like a cornered rat. She's killed Big Folk by the hundreds…!"

His wife again gave him that shriveling glance. "I'm not planning to take up a sword and fight her, old fool. We're welcoming them. We are allies now."

"Not yet." He knew he was losing, but he could not resist one last attempt to bring some perspective to the conversation. "We're hoping to be allies. This is a sort of parley, remember? There's no promise that they won't change their minds and cut all our throats-which they were trying to do just a few days ago."

"All the more reason to have a few sensible Funderling women on the spot, then," she said with satisfaction. "It will mean that much less chance of Jasper or some other lackwit starting another fight." She nodded. "Now, I have to go. Vermilion Cinnabar has called all the women to a meeting in the Temple library before the Qar arrive."