“Who?” Paul whispered.

“Why, the Prince, of course,” said Coll. “The exiled Prince, Diarmuid’s brother, Aileron.”

CHAPTER 6

Beyond the palace gates and the walls of the town, the depredations of drought came home. The impact of a rainless summer could be measured in the heavy dust of the road, in the thin grass peeling like brown paint on hills and tummocks, in stunted trees and dried-up village wells. In the fiftieth year of Ailell’s reign, the High Kingdom was suffering as no living man could remember.

For Kevin and Paul, riding south with Diarmuid and seven of his men in the morning, the way of things registered most brutally in the pinched, bitter features of the farmers they passed on the road. Already the heat of the sun was casting a shimmer of mirage on the landscape. There were no clouds in the sky.

Diarmuid was setting a hard pace, though, and Kevin, who was no horseman and who’d had a sleepless night, was exceedingly happy when they pulled up outside a tavern in the fourth village they came to.

They took a hasty meal of cold, sharply spiced meat, bread, and cheese, with pints of black ale to wash away the throat-clogging dust of the road. Kevin, eating voraciously, saw Diarmuid speak briefly to Carde, who quietly sought the innkeeper and withdrew into another room with him. Noticing Kevin’s glance, the Prince walked over to the long wooden table where he and Paul were sitting with the lean, dark man named Erron.

“We’re checking for your friend,” Diarmuid told them. “It’s one of the reasons we’re doing this. Loren went north to do the same, and I’ve sent word to the coast.”

“Who’s with the women?” Paul Schafer asked quickly.

Diarmuid smiled. “Trust me,” he said. “I do know what I’m doing. There are guards, and Matt stayed in the palace, too.”

“Loren went without him?” Paul queried sharply. “How…?”

Diarmuid’s expression was even more amused. “Even without magic our friend can handle himself. He has a sword, and knows how to use it. You worry a good deal, don’t you?”

“Does it surprise you?” Kevin cut in. “We don’t know where we are, we don’t know the rules here, Dave’s gone missing, God knows where—and we don’t even know where we’re going with you now.”

“That last,” said Diarmuid, “is easy enough. We’re crossing the river into Cathal, if we can. By night, and quietly, because there’s a very good chance we’ll be killed if found.”

“I see,” said Kevin, swallowing. “And are we allowed to know why we are subjecting ourselves to that unpleasant possibility?”

For the first time that morning Diarmuid’s smile flashed full-force. “Of course you are,” he said kindly. “You’re going to help me seduce a lady. Tell me, Carde,” he murmured, turning, “any news?”

There was none. The Prince drained his pint and was striding out the door. The others scrambled to their feet and followed. A number of the villagers came out of the inn to watch them ride off.