Over against the wall by the door, he saw his black saddlebags, brought up by Derry after the Council meeting. He dragged the saddlebags over by the fire and hastily unbuckled the clasp of the lighter side, felt the smooth whorls of intricately tooled leather beneath his finger as he opened the pouch.

Now, if Derry had just put them back where he’d found them; Morgan simply could not convince the young Marcher lord that the cubes were not just a strange dice game.

Aha!

A brief forage in the bottom of the pouch produced the familiar shape of the red leather case, the reassuring rattle of contents still in place.

Without a second glance, Morgan dropped the case on the chair, then crossed to Kelson’s wardrobe closet to begin searching for something that would fit him. He was still cold. And if he was going to go gallivanting about the palace in this weather, he was determined not to do it in misery.

Finally he found a blue wool robe with fur-lined collar and cuffs that looked not too small, and he shrugged it on as he returned to the fireplace. The wide sleeves ended at mid-forearm, and the robe reached only to his knees, but he decided that it would suffice for his purposes.

From the mantel, he took a candlestick with a fat yellow candle in it, lit it from the fire, then scooped up the red leather case and crossed to Kelson’s bed.

Kelson still slept soundly, sprawled diagonally across the wide bed on his stomach, his face nestled in the crook of his left arm. There were extra blankets at the foot of the bed, and Morgan gently eased one from beneath the boy’s stockinged feet. Putting the candlestick and red leather case on the floor beside the bed, he shook out the blanket and draped it across the sleeping form. Then he knelt down beside the bed and opened the red leather case, shaking out the contents on the spread.

There were eight cubes in all—wards, in the terminology of the professional wielder of magic—four white and four black, each no larger than the end of his little finger. Deftly he arranged the cubes in the proper pattern: four white in a square at the center, one black at each of the four corners, but not touching. Then, beginning with the white cube in the upper-left-hand corner, he began touching each one, at the same time softly speaking its defensive position in the master ward he was building.

“Prime.” The first white cube glowed softly.

“Seconde.” He touched the upper-right cube, and it, too, winked to milky brilliance.

“Tierce. Quarte.” The remaining white cubes lit, forming a single white square that glowed with a ghostly light.

Next, the black: “Quinte. Sixte. Septime. Octave.” The black cubes glowed faintly with a green-black fire deep within.