“Well... mayhap there’s one more small thing...” Rhea smiled to show it was indeed small, then raised her left hand in front of Susan’s eyes with three fingers together and one apart. Glimmering in the fork between was a silver medallion, seemingly produced from nowhere. The girl’s eyes fastened on it at once. Until Rhea spoke a single guttural word, that was.

Then they closed.

5

Rhea looked at the girl who stood asleep on her stoop in the moonlight. As she replaced the medallion within her sleeve (her fingers were old and bunchy, but they moved dextrously enough when it was required, oh, aye), the businesslike expression fell from her face, and was replaced by a look of squint-eyed fury. Kick me into the fire, would you, you trull? Tattle to Thorin? But her threats and impudence weren’t the worst. The worst had been the expression of revulsion on her face when she had pulled back from Rhea’s touch.

Too good for Rhea, she was! And thought herself too good for Thorin as well, no doubt, she with sixteen years’ worth of fine blonde hair hanging down from her head, hair Thorin no doubt dreamed of plunging his hands into even as he plunged and reared and plowed down below.

She couldn’t hurt the girl, much as she wanted to and much as the girl deserved it; if nothing else, Thorin might take the glass ball away from her, and Rhea couldn’t bear that. Not yet, anyway. So she could not hurt the girl, but she could do something that would spoil his pleasure in her, at least for awhile.

Rhea leaned close to the girl, grasped the long braid which lay down her back, and began to slip it through her fist, enjoying its silky smoothness.

“Susan,” she whispered. “Do’ee hear me, Susan, daughter of Patrick?”

“Yes.” The eyes did not open.

“Then listen.” The light of the Kissing Moon fell on Rhea’s face and turned it into a silver skull. “Listen to me well, and remember. Remember in the deep cave where yer waking mind never goes.”

She pulled the braid through her hand again and again. Silky and smooth. Like the little bud between her legs.

“Remember,” the girl in the doorway said.

“Aye. There’s something ye’ll do after he takes yer virginity. Ye’ll do it right away, without even thinking about it. Now listen to me, Susan, daughter of Patrick, and hear me very well.”

Still stroking the girl’s hair, Rhea put her wrinkled lips to the smooth cup of Susan’s ear and whispered in the moonlight.

Chapter III

A MEETING ON

THE ROAD

1

She had never in her life had such a strange night, and it was probably not surprising that she didn’t hear the rider approaching from behind until he was almost upon her.