“You believe in sword thrust for sword thrust, do you not?” he commented. “So Yvian has his Aldis; let them have the good of each other while they may. But I think that Yvian has made a very ill choice of it. And since one ax made a marriage, another may undo it!”

“Marriage in the gabble gabble of Siric only,” flashed Briant, still a little defiant, but not struggling in the Captain’s new hold.

“Need you have told me that,” Koris was smiling. “Lady of Verlaine?”

“Loyse of Verlaine is dead!” Briant repeated. “You get no such heritage with me, Captain.”

A tiny frown line appeared between Koris’ brows. “That you need not have said either. Rather is it that such as I am must buy a wife with gauds and lands. And never afterwards be sure of the bargain.”

Her hand whipped from his arm to his mouth, silencing him. And there was red anger in both her eyes and her voice when she replied:

“Koris, Captain of Estcarp need never speak so of himself, least of all to a woman such as I, without inheritance of lands or beauty!”

Simon moved, knowing that neither were aware of the other two in that room. He touched the witch of Estcarp gently on the shoulder and smiled down at her.

“Let us leave them to fight their own battle,” he whispered.

She was laughing silently after her fashion. “This talk of mutual unworthiness will speedily be a step to no talking at all and so to a firm settlement of two futures.”

“I take it that she is the missing heiress of Verlaine, wedded by proxy to Duke Yvian?”

“She is. By her aid alone I came scatheless out of Verlaine, I being captive there for a space. Fulk is not a pleasant enemy.”

Afire to every shade of her voice, Simon’s smile became grim.

“I think that Fulk and his wreckers shall be taught a lesson in the near future; it will curb their high spirits,” he commented, knowing well her way of understatement. It was enough for him that she admitted she owed her escape from Verlaine to the girl across the room. For a woman of the Power such an admission hinted of danger indeed. He had a sudden overwhelming desire to take one of the Sulcar ships, man it with his mountain fighters, and sail southward.

“Doubtless he shall,” she agreed to his statement concerning Fulk with her usual tranquillity. “As you have said, we are still in the midst of a war, and not victors at the end of one. Verlaine and Karsten, too, shall be attended to in their proper seasons. Simon, my name is Jaelithe.”