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  Chapter 1

  The Fourth Crown Princess of the Blue Crescent Islands had sixteen rituals to observe from the moment of waking to when she broke her fast. These included getting out of bed on the right-hand side; turning to the east to bow to the sun; submitting to having her hair groomed with forty strokes from a silver-backed brush by the Under Mistress of the Royal Chamber; and--

  Princess Taoshira paused. What have I forgotten? Goddess rot the Etiquette Mistress's rule book, I know there's something else.

  "Your fingerbowl, Your Highness," intoned the Senior Mistress of the Chamber, holding out a bronze basin.

  Fingerbowl! Why do I always forget the fingerbowl? Taoshira rinsed her fingertips delicately and dried them on a white linen towel.

  Probably, chimed in another voice in her head, because when you were at home -- before you were chosen as princess -- you had to wash your hands under the pump in the yard, jostling the serving girls for your place in the line.

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  Taoshira, or Tashi as she used to be known to her family, almost smiled at the recollection--then remembered that the Crown Princess was not allowed to show emotion until she had said the Four Blessings, the true beginning of the day in the Royal Palace, and accompanied the words with the

  appropriate gesture.

  "Eternal Goddess of Mystery, give our people wisdom" (touching her head);

  "Gracious Mother of Mercy, look upon our people with compassion" (right hand on heart);

  "Kind Sister of Healing, bless all who are ill" (hands outspread);

  "Joyful Child of Hope, prosper our work this day" (fingers arched, thumbs touching in a triangle).

  The four attendants gathered in her bedchamber gave the required response in unison: "As the Goddess wills."

  Tashi was relieved that was over. She liked the morning prayer to the four faces of the Mother Goddess but had not yet got used to the fact that she was now an official priestess for the entire nation. If she forgot to say it--or even fluffed the words--her people believed that dire consequences would be felt throughout the land. It had been very different mumbling the same prayers to herself up on the hills of her family's estate on Kai, the northernmost of the islands that made up the Blue Crescent, named for the curving shape of the isles in the Sapphire Ocean. In those days, as a faithful Kaian, she had said the words with only her goats to hear her as the sun broke over the jagged crests of the

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  Marine Mountains. She had never dreamed that she would be snatched from that life as abruptly as a kid is plucked from the ground by a bird of prey.

  From insignificant daughter of an impoverished matriarch, she had become one of the four most powerful women in her world.

  Tashi stood with arms outstretched as the Assistant Under Mistress of the Chamber removed her nightgown. That was another thing that had taken a lot of getting used to: standing stark naked in front of her attendants with only her long fair hair to veil her while they went through the ceremonial dressing.

  Over the last four years, from blushing furiously she had progressed to thinking of other things while they fussed over her. The ceremony had its set order: first placing on the white silk under-robe, then the sleeveless orange tunic of the Fourth Crown Princess, next the flamboyant embroidered gown (today was one of her favorites--the dragonfly design), and finally the orange sash.

  Four items of clothing. Her life was ruled by that number. It had decided her fate when the last Fourth Crown Princess had met an untimely death at the age of twenty. The Blue Crescent Islands always had four crown princesses, one from each isle of Rama, Lir-Salu, Phonilara, and Kai. It had been the princess from the smallest and most northern island that had died, so the priests and priestesses of Kai had gathered to identify the next candidate.

  Their choice was restricted to all eligible twelve-year-old girls of matriarchal families.

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  Normally, the choice fell on the greatest and most wealthy households, but it seemed that in Tashi's year something had gone awry and she--the

  youngest daughter of a family whose claim to matriarchal nobility was largely on paper--had been chosen. Her family had long since ceased to be noticed at court, their wealth dwindling until they had become hill farmers in an obscure province.

  There had been no question that she would accept the role. Tashi had known that her family would benefit hugely from having their daughter at the seat of government--and she also shared the belief that the Goddess's hand was behind such decisions, no matter how imperfect her human agents.

  Though Tashi had wondered many times over the years that had

  transformed her from free-living goat herder to a key part of the most formal court in the known world, whether the Mother had not chosen her for a bit of light relief from her three co-rulers. She sometimes felt she was more court jester than ruler as she struggled to submit to her new life.

  Only to herself would she admit that the ceremonies and duties were driving her mad; and yet she was committed to repeating the same pattern day in, day out for the rest of her life, for the good of the nation.

  The Etiquette Mistress, one of the highest ranking officials in the court, arrived even before the breakfast.

  "Now, Crown Princess, shall we resume our lesson on the right degree of bow to give the Gerfalian ambassadors?" she asked, opening her scroll at the correct place.

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  "As the Goddess wil s," replied Tashi, keeping her face inscrutable.

  Ramil ac Burinholt, Prince of Gerfal, had risen before the sun for the hunt.

  The dawn had found him and his friends riding pellmell through the Royal Forest, leaping fallen trees, whooping with excitement as they picked up a trail. Ramil loved the reckless speed of the chase and rode like the wind when the mood took him. His mother had originally come from the hot deserts of the far south, princess of a dark-skinned people known as the Horse Followers. His friends always said it was her blood in him that caught fire when he and his stallion, Leap, set off on one of their mad careers through the forest, leaving all the others behind. The professional huntsmen just shook their heads in despair and let the young Prince go, knowing from experience that he would return when it suited him, having caught nothing.

  At one with his galloping horse, Ramil entered a state of pure happiness.

  The greens, oranges, golds, reds, and browns flashed by as Leap streaked through the trees. Twigs snatched at Ramil's clothes but were unable to catch him. The rush of air was cool on skin. Harness jingled and leather creaked in a tuneful counterpoint to the rapid thud-thud of the hooves. Leap's footing was sure; he was fresh, ready to run for as long as his rider wished. It was their great game, their moment of release from stable and council chamber.

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  Having covered a mile in this fashion, Leap barely slowed for the stream that crossed their path, jumping it in one bound. Once on the other side, he pulled up by a thicket of hawthorn and snickered to his rider.

  "What's the matter, boy?" Ramil asked, patting his mount's sweat-stained neck.

  Leap shook his black mane and snorted, shifting his hooves nervously.

  In the joy of the ride, Ramil had almost forgotten the purpose of their outing this morning, but he trusted the stallion's instincts, not to mention his sense of smell. He reached for one of the short spears strapped to his back.

  "We're close, are we?"

  Ramil strained his hearing, listening for the tell-tale sound of snuffing or movement in the undergrowth. The ancient trees of the Royal Hunting Forest were particularly gnarled and squat in this part, as if like old men, they had stopped growing taller and started putting on weight round their middles.

  Dark green holly and brambles swallowed up the space beneath the oak canopy. Plenty of places to hide; ver
y hard to see. He nudged the horse forward. There! Definitely something moving through the bushes. Ramil shifted his grip on the spear and held it ready over his shoulder.

  Twigs snapped aside as a boar erupted from the undergrowth. Stubby tusks lowered, it charged towards the horse and rider. Leap side-stepped deftly, moving to give Ramil a clear shot with his spear. The boar passed them and reached the bank, trapped between huntsman

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  and water. With gritty spirit, it wheeled round to face the spear, small black eyes glaring. Ramil rose in the stirrups, paused, and then let the weapon drop.

  "Lucky for you that my friends were not here, brother," he addressed the boar. Replacing the spear in its holster, he spurred Leap forward, jumping back over the stream, leaving a confused boar in sole possession of the bank.

  "Fine prince I am." Ramil chuckled, apologizing to Leap with a pat. "But we have meat and he was magnificent--a fine sire for lots more boars just like him, don't you think?"

  A horn sounded in the trees to the east, summoning the stray Prince to return to the hunt. Ramil and Leap trotted back at peace with each other. As they neared the old road, three young lords on fine horses joined them.

  "There you are, Ramil!" called Hortlan, the Prince's cousin. "So what have you caught?" He gave Ramil a huge grin, already knowing from the empty space on the pommel that the chase had been fruitless.

  "I had him. I was this close!" replied Ramil, holding up a gloved hand, finger and thumb indicating the distance. "A massive boar, enough to feed the whole household for a week!"

  "And?" Hortlan mocked, giving no credence to his cousin's description.

  "He charged and I--" Ramil began to laugh, both at himself and at his friend's expression of scepticism. "And I ran for it."

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  "Now that I don't believe!" Hortlan slapped Ramil on the back. With his long light-brown hair and blue eyes, Hortlan was as unlike his curly black-haired, dark-eyed cousin as one could get. "A Burinholt run from a little hairy pig?

  Never!"

  Ramil shrugged. "All right, all right, I made that part up."

  "And the boar too, if you ask me," muttered Lord Yendral to the trees, but loud enough for all to hear.

  "Ramil the Unblooded, that's what we should call you. Bane of every hunt,"

  quipped Lord Usk, son of the Gerfalian Prime Minister. A big-framed youth, he had the reddish-brown hair of his Brigardian mother. "My father should propose a law to keep you in the castle come winter. We'll all starve otherwise."

  Ramil bowed in his saddle. "Thank you for that vote of confidence in me, my friends. Come, let us take back the tale of my heroic deeds to the castle and dine on fresh air and spring water in my honor."

  Ramil always insisted on grooming his own horse, so he waved away the stable boys waiting in the courtyard for the huntsmen's return. The stables were his favorite part of the royal palace, built within the walls of the old fortress, the castle keep. The first King Burinholt had established his throne in dark days when the Gerfafians were little better than raiding barbarians.

  The core of his old coastal stronghold reflected these times: a simple round tower, a landmark to ships at sea, built on a

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  motte, with the rest of the castle sheltered in the bailey. Times had changed for the kingdom: no enemies had come knocking at the door for so long that the palace had spread down the hill in more elegant and much less

  defensible buildings. A splendid feasting hall now sat on a low promontory opposite the original tower; its high windows and vaulted roof, decked with beautiful stone pinnacles, was in clear view of every house in the valley.

  Ramil knew that his people thought of the feasting hall as the center of power, but he preferred to think of the modest round keep as the true heart of the kingdom. It was where the King and his family still lived, simple in their tastes and dress when not on show.

  Ramil hummed a folk song to Leap as he groomed him. He loved the deep colors of the horse's coat. Unless you were this close, you would call him black but Ramil knew he was really a deep blue--the color, his mother had claimed, of the night sky over the desert. Leap, a birthday present, was one of the last links to her since her death seven years ago. She had died giving birth to his little sister, Briony, a honey-skinned creature with round scared eyes, an exchange for the vibrant Queen Zarai of Gerfal. The entire nation had mourned Zarai. Ramil had found it hard not to hold his mother's death against the little girl, her only fault being that she had been born.

  Ramil wondered if he over-compensated by being too kind and polite to the young Princess, rarely if ever showing her the rough-and-tumble, easy love of a

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  brother. She had always treated him with suspicion as if she sensed his resentment. They spent little time together, but still he felt as if he had let down his mother by somehow failing to love his sister enough.

  "I know, I'll teach her to ride," Ramil told Leap. "I'll get a nice docile pony and take her round the palace park tomorrow. She's half Horse Follower too: maybe that will set things right between us."

  Happier with himself, he slung the grooming equipment into a bucket, gave Leap a final stroke on the nose, and headed back to his rooms. As he entered the dark archway leading into the keep, he was intercepted by one of his father's servants.

  "Your Highness, His Majesty requests your presence in the council chamber immediately," intoned the elderly man with great self-importance.

  Ramil sniffed at his sweaty hunting clothes, muddy brown breeches, and leather jerkin.

  "Not like this, surely?"

  "Immediately, Your Highness; those were his very words."

  With a mild curse, Ramil retraced his steps, crossed the courtyard separating the keep from the feasting hall and entered a long, low building to the right of the grand entrance. His feet echoed in the cloister, disturbing the scribes at their desks in the administrative heart of the kingdom. Seeing who was passing, they all stood and bowed. So used to this treatment, Ramil did not notice them bend, no more than he questioned the breeze through long grass.

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  King Lagan ac Burinholt was sitting at the head of the table in the White Stone Council Chamber when his son clattered into the room. And he was not alone. Ramil saw at once that most of his ministers and three foreigners were with him. King Lagan frowned when he noticed the state of his offspring, covered in mud and distinctly windblown, wearing clothes that little distinguished him from the stable boys. A well-built man with brown hair silvering at the temples, Lagan always appeared in simple but impressive robes when meeting foreign dignitaries. He did not want them to forget that Gerfal, with its riches of mines and forests, was amongst the most prosperous of the known nations. Today's robes of green velvet were edged with gold. Underneath he wore a loose fitting black tunic and completed the ensemble with a circlet of gold in the shape of intertwining branches.

  Ramil did not need to be told that the servant had been overly eager to hurry him into the royal presence. A stop at the palace baths would have been advisable. But, a prince to the core, he decided it was best to pretend nothing was the matter.

  "Father, I came as soon as your message reached me," he said, going down onto one knee on the white paved floor.

  "So we can see," the King said dryly. "Ambassadors, may I present His Royal Highness, Ramil ac Burinholt." Ramil bowed to the three ladies at his father's right hand, all from the Blue Crescent Islands from the look of their elaborate embroidered robes, veils and

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  white-painted faces. They stood in unison and folded in the low bow due to royalty, even mud-stained young princes.

  "Ambassadors, your presence does our court great honor," Ramil acknowledged them, wondering secretly what on earth had brought these envoys from the other end of the known world. The Islands lay far to the west, a long sea voyage around the lands of the Spearthrower's empire. A dangerous journey not to be undertaken lightly, thanks to the depredations of the warlord's im
perial Pirate Fleet.

  The King rose, giving the signal for all to do likewise.

  "Ladies, now you have seen my son, let us reconvene this time tomorrow, giving you a chance to recover from your arduous voyage."

  The ambassadors bowed again, this time a shade lower as fitting for a monarch.

  "Ramil, come with me." Lagan beckoned his son to follow him into the retiring room behind the king's dais.

  Perplexed, Ramil trailed after his father. Lagan dismissed the servants, threw a log on the fire, and sat down in an armchair with a grunt of contentment. Compared to the White Stone Chamber, it was a comfortable room, much like an old slipper after the pinch of formal footwear. Ramil felt more at ease in his muddy clothes and slumped in his favorite chair.

  "Wine? Kava?" Lagan offered his son a drink from a tray set ready on a low table. Ramil accepted a cup of the dark, bitter kava that had been his mother's preference.

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  "Sorry about that," Ramil said awkwardly, gesturing to himself and then into the hall. "The messenger made it sound as if I had to come at once."

  "A wise king never hurries without knowing to what he goes," said Lagan, quoting from the Book of Monarchs, one of Ramil's least favorite texts from his days in the schoolroom.

  "Yes, but the wise son jumps when his father whistles," Ramil countered.

  Lagan laughed. "How true. Never mind all that now: I have something very serious to discuss with you."

  "Would it have to do with the ambassadors, by any chance?"

  Lagan nodded and sipped his wine. "You won't have failed to notice that Holt has been regarding us with less than friendly eyes of late."

  Ramil nodded. The coast had been raided by so-called pirates--really privateers working for the warlord of Holt, Fergox Spearthrower. There had been several skirmishes along the border between Gerfalian troops and men from Holt's latest conquest, Brigard. War had not yet been declared but it was already being fought.

  "The Blue Crescent Islands have also had their fair share of attention from the warlord. In our different ways, we represent the next logical conquests for Holt."

  "But that'll never happen," Ramil objected. "Gerfalians will never let Spearthrower invade. We'll fight his armies street by street, field by field--"