The Bishop's dry voice was silky with menace. "It pays to count one's enemies, my lord Alwir."

There was silence on the steps, save for the rising whine of the icy wind in the trees. The Guards watched this confrontation uneasily. They had long grown used to the swift, vicious arguments between Bishop and Chancellor, but there was never any telling when one might suddenly escalate into civil war.

Then Alwir's eyebrow canted mockingly. "And do you count me so, my lady?"

"You?" The gray light slipped along the curve of her shaven skull as she looked him up and down, austere scorn in the curve of her delicate lips. "You care not whether you are numbered among the godly or the wicked, my lord, as long as you can command what you call your niceties of life. You would sup in Hell with the Devil, were the food good."

So saying, she turned in a swirl of scarlet and vanished into the darkness of the gate passage, her ringing footfalls dying away across the vast, empty spaces of the Aisle beyond toward the dark mazes where the Church kept unsleeping domain.

Aide whispered, "Rudy, I'm afraid of her."

Hidden by the folds of her heavy cloak, his hand pressed hers. Talk had surged up again around them. Two of the junior weatherwitches had been offering to send the coming snowstorm elsewhere until Saerlinn's body could be burned, and Thoth's harsh, academic voice was saying, "To do so is to presume upon the laws of the Cosmos that bid the winds blow where they will." There was some argument, but all of them, with the exception of Ingold and a withered little hermit named Kta, were terrified of the Scribe of Quo.

Under cover of the talk, Rudy said softly, "What can she do, babe? You're the Queen. Even if she knew about us- which she doesn't-we aren't doing anyone any harm."

"No," she murmured. But her fingers trembled in his.

CHAPTER TWO