“You?” he said, and was dismayed at the sound of his own voice. Like a lamb bleating, he thought, and tried again. “Who are you?”

She went swiftly to the table to pick up the gold goblet and carry it back to the bedside. Stooping, she slid that cool hand behind his head and lifted it, helping him to drink.

“I am your nurse now, Alexander. When I heard what had happened I had you carried here, into my own chambers, where I could look after you myself. There is no one in the kingdoms who could care for you better. Come, drink.”

The neck of her gown was loose against the creamy throat. As she stooped lower he could see her breasts, round and full, with the deep shadow between. He tore his gaze away and lifted his eyes to see her watching him. She was smiling. Confused, he tried to speak, but she shook her head at him, still smiling, and tilted the last drops to his mouth, then carried the empty goblet back to the table.

Her voice was cool and composed. “You will sleep again, and tomorrow the fever will be quite gone, and the arm healing. I dressed your hurts while you still slept. The foot will pain you for a while longer, and you must rest it. Now I shall send Brigit to you again, but I will see you in the morning.”

Alexander, who knew he could never have asked this faery goddess to help him where he now needed to go, felt nothing but thankfulness as she set the goblet down and turned away. But there was something he had to know.

He said, hoarsely: “How did you know my name?”

That subtle little smile again, over her shoulder as she laid a hand to the door. She was really very lovely. “I see and I hear, and what I do not see and hear I know, from the smoke and the crystal and the voices in the dark. So good night, Alexander.”

In spite of her care, or more probably because of it, a trace of the fever returned that night, and kept his mind fretting and alert. There was one person here in the Dark Tower, and only one, who could look like that, and speak like that, and give orders for the stranger to be brought in and housed in these royal rooms. Queen Morgan the enchantress.

And how much more did she know, this witch who could look in the smoke and the crystal and listen to the voices in the dark?

FOUR

The Pretty Pilgrim

17

Some four months earlier than this, on a cold, bright afternoon in January, Duke Ansirus sought his daughter out, and found her in her solar with Mariamne in attendance. The girls, who were supposed to be busy with their tapestry-work, were sitting together in the thin shaft of sunlight from the window, laughing at something. If Alice had been anything less than a duke’s daughter, it might have been said that they were giggling. When the duke came in, the laughter stopped abruptly, and both girls rose and made their curtseys. Then Mariamne, at a glance from her mistress, bobbed another curtsey and left the solar.