“Come forward.” Petulance rather than command. Moonhawk and her guide obeyed.

“Well?”

“This one claims travel-right, Noble Lady,” gabbled the bold one, not so bold now. “I brought her. Her cloak, Noble Lady. My bounty, my—”

“Shut your horrid mouth!”

The rock-bearer did so, bending until her unkempt hair brushed the dirt floor. Moonhawk stood forward, sharpening her eyes in the gloom.

The woman on the throne was beautiful: red-gold hair above a face the uninitiated would claim for the Goddess. The robe of doubtful crimson revealed her breasts, in the manner of Circle robes. But this one was not of Circle.

At the woman’s side a man—hulking and muscle-gripped—stood stoic. There was a gash below one eye and a purpling bruise along the line of his jaw.

“Well,” said the woman again. “Travel-right, is it? You are bold.”

“I am in need,” Moonhawk replied levelly. “Night comes and I ask the boon of a roof.”

“Do you? But this is a hard land from which to scratch a living,, traveler. We have little to give. Even the favor of a place to sleep must be balanced by a valuable of your own.”

Moonhawk bowed her head. “I will work for the House with gladness. I sing the Teaching Tales, give news, heal…”

Lady Drudae was laughing. “Hear her, Arto? She can sing! She does not fear labor!” The laughter stopped. “You misunderstand, traveler. The boon of a roof demands the balance of a—personal—favor.” A snap of shapely fingers. “Arto!”

The man’s sluggish face lit and his lust was a thrust of jagged ice.

For a second time Moonhawk feared, and stepped back, gathering her mantle close.

“I do not choose to give that gift,” she said, flinging the words like stones to stop him.

He laughed then, low and idiot, and she knew he would heed no words of hers. She retreated, thinking of the door and of the way to the boundary lintels; and the voice of the Mother was thunder within her: “Stay, thou! Do not turn away!”