“I apologise that you must share this chamber with me,” Cleric Rodel said, removing books and scrolls from the second bed in the servant’s rooms adjoining Deacon Alast’s chambers, “and for the state it is in.” Caste allowed him to apologise, carefully stacking and arranging the clutter that Rodel was sweeping off the bed in haste. “When I first came to Fort Mavour some months ago, Deacon Alast said there was little to no chance I would need to share so I started to spread out.”

  “I don’t mind the spread,” Caste said tersely, picking up a discarded book by the spine, allowing the pages to hang straight before closing it properly, “but I wish you would take greater care with these books.”

  “I apologise again.” Rodel sighed. “It was the other thing I was told when I arrived. Nothing in Fort Mavour lasts forever. So close to the mount of Maul there have been countless fires and entire libraries of books turned to ash…”

  “Which only means you must look after the ones in your care with greater…” Caste floundered.

  Rodel eyed him. “Care?”

  “Treatment.” Caste retorted.

  Rodel gave a small laugh but to Caste’s relief, he did start treating the books and scrolls more carefully. Rodel was older than Caste with a head of ash blond hair and a slightly pinched expression in his eyes which were a faded shade of blue/grey, like the perpetual hue of the skies of the south. Caste suspected the squint was because he was meant to wear spectacles but they lay on the small chest of drawers by his bed and from the light sheen of dust on them, had not been worn in some time.

  “I remember you,” Caste turned to Rodel, surprised, “from when we were novitiates in the Order of the Grail.”

  Caste thought frantically but when it came to people, his lack of recall, especially within the Order of the Grail of his peers was sorely lacking.

  “I’m sorry…I don’t…”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Rodel admitted, pulling his outer robes off and hanging them dutifully from a hook. Caste wondered if, previously, Rodel had just dumped the cloak on the ground and wasn’t willing to do so in his presence. “You are younger than I yet you had a cyclops’ one eyed focus that advanced you faster than those your age. I said hello several times in the dining hall but you made it clear your only interest was for your books.”

  Caste cringed. “I…you are not the only one I ignored.”

  “That’s what I realised and never took offence.” Rodel sat on his bed and kicked his boots off. Caste did the same.

  “If we were novitiate peers, how did you escape being commissioned to following a middle class knight quester around?”

  “Actually…I was one of the first.”

  “You were?”

  Rodel nodded. “I was assigned to Jovan Acronimer but he lasted about three weeks before giving up after a rather close call with a cockatrice. He returned to Astaril, fully convinced that he never should have attempted to grasp at something that was only ever offered to noble families.” He sighed then looked at Caste with admiration and some concern. “That Judd LaMogre survived this long…you must have been a better advisor to him than I was to Jovan.”

  Rodel’s remark caused all the times Caste had ‘advised’ Judd to return and he recalled how many of those times he had rejected and ridiculed him.

  “Or Judd is simply more stubborn.” Caste muttered, lying on his bed, drawing the covers up over himself. Everything about Fort Mavour was cold. The stone, the air…even the bedlinen struggled to keep away the chill.

  Or perhaps the chill had been present in his chest since seeing Aalis’ hands and witnessing her powers that could only be attributed to a witch.

  So…she was a witch.

  Witches were condemned by the Order of the Grail.

  Caste was an officer of the Order of the Grail.

  He had a duty, an obligation, to report, condemn and even witness her execution.

  Yet, despite his usually detached demeanour to relationships, Caste knew he couldn’t personally condemn Aalis. Not after all she had done and how many times she had saved him and the others in Judd’s party. It rankled with Caste that the Order would condemn a woman who actively worked against the powers that she was falsely aligned with. Yet he knew such concerns would be a whisper amidst the shout of condemnation.

  Perhaps if he was the Bishop, he could put in place measures to give the women who were tainted by the waters of the south a chance to be heard or prove their innocence…but as a lowly cleric his words were a matter of infallible observation, not transformation. He was charged with observing and recording. He had no power to change anything.

  Caste rolled over and faced the wall, wrestling with what he had taught was truth and what he knew to be true.

  When had it all become so grey?

  He had known, with absolute certainty, what was true when he’d left Astaril.

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  Now the lines were blurred and Caste felt a little like he was on shifting sand, unable to find his footing. He shook his head and scrunched his eyes shut.

  “No,” he vowed soundlessly, “I will not falter. I will remain a cleric of the Order of the Grail.”

  Because, if Caste was brutally honest with himself, if he wasn’t an officer of the Grail…what else was there for him to be?

  Aalis knew she had to keep a low profile while at Fort Mavour and continued to dress as a nomad even when alone in the chambers originally assigned to Judd. He had been summoned by Sir Donimede for a tour of the fort while Giordi insisted on returning to Mavour markets to ply his minstrel trade. He had asked Verne to go with him, concerned he might not be able to climb the steps back to the fort on his own.

  Aalis pulled the bedding straight on all the beds and tidied, thinking of the quandary that was Verne and Giordi. Verne was sure that Giordi would reject her if he knew she was really a woman and in love with him. Aalis wasn’t sure that was true however, in matters of the heart, she knew she was hardly the best person to make any kind of judgement.

  Goodness knows she had been wrong before.

  She was resolved to spend her days reading and acting the part of servant to Judd. So when there was a knock on the door, she answered it, making sure her nomad veil was draped over her hair.

  A young woman, probably no older than Aalis with hair the colour of blood braided over one shoulder, stood across the threshold.

  “You seek LaMogre?” Aalis asked, trying to adopt the manner of speech of the nomads.

  “Actually, I am looking for you.” The woman explained. “I am Endolin, second eldest daughter of Sir Donimede and Lady Jocasa.” Aalis’ heart immediately began to pulse with a frantic beat. “You are a healer?”

  “Yes.” Aalis said tightly.

  Endolin licked her lips, more colour in her warm tones than there was in Aalis’ cold complexion.

  “My mother wishes to consult you.”

  An audience with the wife of the knight who killed witches was not what Aalis wanted but she reasoned very quickly that to refuse the wife would only draw more attention. As she left the chambers and followed Endolin along the stone passages and up the stairs to the chambers of Lady Jocasa, Aalis reminded herself that she was a nomad healer, nothing more. As long as she kept the glove on her left hand, all evidence of her tainted body would remain concealed.

  Endolin opened the door to Lady Jocasa’s chambers and Aalis stepped inside, seeing a room ten times more opulent than Judd’s chamber, warm and inviting with a large fourposter bed dominating the room. Reclining in the bed was Lady Jocasa. Her hair was a faded shade of Endolin’s and her eyes were wide, fringed with dark eyelashes.

  “Mother, the nomad healer…” Endolin paused and looked at Aalis.

  “Aalis.”

  “Come closer.”

  Aalis did so, shifting around to the side of the bed, standing still as Lady Jocasa’s hazel eyes studied her. Aalis couldn’t fathom why the lady of the fort had wanted to see her. Surely, she must have her own physician on call and access to the knowledge of the Order of the Grail through Deacon Alast.

  “Remove your veil.”

  Aalis did so, letting it drop around her shoulders.

  Lady Jocasa lifted her chin.

  “You are young to be called a healer.” Aalis swallowed, not sure if she ought to respond. “I am not sure about this, Endolin, whatever Willower might have boasted about a nomad…”

  “Mother, please…”

  Aalis blinked, hearing fear and desperation in Endolin’s voice.

  Lady Jocasa glanced aside and licked her lips. Aalis saw a tremor of fear course across her shoulders, her velvet gown lightly shifting, betraying her emotion.

  “Have you any experience with childbirth, healer?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have seen my husband, Sir Donimede?”

  Aalis’ heart went into hiding as she recalled the moment he’d grabbed her face and forced her to look into his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Endolin…”

  The second eldest daughter went to a door and opened it, speaking to someone behind. A buxom woman appeared, holding a babe in her arms. She had raven locks braided in thick strands down her back and her grey eyes were as wide as saucers as they locked onto Aalis.

  “This is Shivo, my wetnurse.” Jocasa introduced.

  Aalis nodded, knowing that many great houses employed wetnurses to tend to newborns to feed them. Sometimes the lady of the house was unable to do so but more often than not, it was because feeding a babe extended a mother’s confinement. Aalis suspected Sir Donimede was not a patient man.

  “Your son?” Aalis asked.

  Jocasa nodded, waving Shivo to come closer. Shivo eased back the wrapping to expose the face of a sleeping baby, no more than a few days old. She was surprised at the blackness of his hair. Though he didn’t have a great deal, it was very black.

  “Ramon.”

  Aalis peered at the baby, seeing a black smudge on the baby’s scalp that looked like a fingerprint. With her right hand she touched the smudge, concerned that it might be a bruise, a sign of maltreatment but the smudge came off onto her finger. She smelt it and turned to Jocasa who was staring at her like a wild animal in the sights of an archer.

  “You colour his hair?”

  Endolin rolled her eyes. “I told you it would not work.”

  Aalis looked at Endolin, at the baby and then at Jocasa. “This is not your baby.”

  “I gave him a son…” Jocasa blurted then held her tongue.

  Aalis closed her eyes. “It is not Sir Donimede’s baby.” She paused, confused. “Were you with child?”

  “Yes.” Endolin said in a sharp voice.

  “Endolin…”

  “This is never going to work, mother,” Endolin said forcefully, “father is never going to believe that is his son. He was born as fair as a baby chick!”

  “By Astaril…” Jocasa put her hand over her mouth and trembled. Aalis moved back to the bed and sat on the edge.

  “Lady Jocasa…where is your baby?”

  Jocasa opened her mouth but no words emerged. Instead, as if summoned by Aalis’ inquiry, a plaintive cry reached her ears. Aalis looked back to the room Shivo had emerged from. No one moved to address the cry. Aalis looked at the wetnurse whose eyes were wide with horror, Jocasa was filled with shame and Endolin was struggling to contain her scorn. Aalis couldn’t ignore the cries which sounded weak and desperate. She ran into the room and found a cradle where Ramon had lain. It was empty. But there was a tapestry behind where the cry was coming from. Aalis dragged it aside to see a baby in a plain box, as cold as the air around it. She scooped it up, immediately pressing it against her body to share her warmth. Its cries, which had been weak, increased in strength, as if sensing its salvation was at hand.

  She emerged from the wetnurse’s room, her eyes dark and serious. Lady Jocasa, though being in her rights to maintain a haughty, superior demeanour, wouldn’t meet Aalis’ eyes. The young healer turned to the wetnurse.

  “Give that baby to Endolin,” she said without room for argument in her voice, “and feed this child.” Shivo looked at Jocasa hesitantly. “Do not look at her,” Aalis ordered, brimming with fury, “look at me and feed this babe!”

  “What if it taints me?” Shivo blurted, Endolin removing the first baby from her arms.

  “It is a child, not a monster.” Aalis thrust the babe into Endolin’s arms then stood over her as she sat, opened her bodice and the squalling infant’s lips locked onto a very full breast. It struggled for a moment then Shivo gasped as the baby suckled strongly, filling its belly with enthusiasm.

  Aalis watched and waited until she was sure the babe would not be neglected, stroking the top of its head then turned to Lady Jocasa.

  “How is it you gave birth to a child of Maul?”