I jumped at the low, gravelly voice, but my heart stopped beating quite so rapidly when I saw who had discovered me. “By the rood, Ulric! You almost scared the humors right out of my belly!”

“Aye, I’ve no doubt I did,” the old man replied, leaning on a battered hoe. “Due to your guilty conscience, I’m thinking. Aren’t you supposed to be in the solar with the other women?”

I patted the earth around the early-blooming rose that I had cleared of weeds, and snorted in a delicate, ladylike way. “I was excused.”

“Oh, you were, were you? And for what? Not to leave off your sewing and leeching and all those other things Lady Alice tries to teach you.”

I got to my feet, dusting the dirt off my knees and hands, looking down my nose at the smaller man, doing my best to intimidate him even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Ulric had known me since I was a wee babe puling in her swaddling clothes. “And what business is it of yours, good sir?”

He grinned, his teeth black and broken. “You can come over the lady right enough, when you like. Now, what I’m wanting to know is whether you have your mother’s leave to be here in the garden, or if you’re supposed to be up learning the proper way to be a lady.”

I kicked at a molehill. “I was excused . . . to use the privy. You know how bad they are—I needed fresh air to recover from the experience.”

“You had enough, judging by the weeding you’ve done. Get yourself back to the solar with the other women before your mother has my hide for letting you stay out here.”

“I . . . er . . . can’t.”

“And why can’t you?” he asked, clearly suspicious.

I cleared my throat and tried to adopt an expression that did not contain one morsel of guilt. “There was an . . . incident.”

“Oh, aye?” The expression of suspicion deepened. “What sort of an incident?”

“Nothing serious. Nothing of importance.” I plucked a dead leaf from a rosebush. “Nothing of my doing, which you quite obviously believe, a fact that I find most insulting.”

“What sort of an incident?” he repeated, ignoring my protests of innocence and outrage.

I threw away the dried leaf and sighed. “It’s Lady Susan.”

“What have you done to your mother’s cousin now?”

“Nothing! I just happened to make up some spiderwort tea, and mayhap I did leave it in the solar next to her chair, along with a mug and a small pot of honey, but how was I to know she’d drink all of it? Besides, I thought everyone knew that spiderwort root tea unplugs your bowels something fierce.”

Ulric stared at me as if it was my bowels that had run free and wild before him.

“Her screams from the privy were so loud, Mother said I might be excused for a bit while she sought one of Papa’s guards to break down the privy door, because her ladies were worried that Lady Susan had fallen in and was stuck in the chute.”

Ulric’s look turned to one of unadulterated horror.

“I just hope she looks on the positive side of the whole experience,” I added, tamping down the molehill with the toe of my shoe.

“God’s blood, you’re an unnatural child. What positive side is there to spewing out your guts while stuck in the privy?”

I gave him a lofty look. “Lady Susan always had horrible wind. It was worse than the smell from the jakes! The spiderwort tea should clear her out. By rights, she should thank me.”

Ulric cast his gaze skyward and muttered something under his breath.

“Besides, I can’t go inside now. Mother said for me to stay out of her way because she is too busy getting ready for whoever it is who’s visiting Father.”

That wasn’t entirely true—my mother had actually snapped at me to get out from underfoot and do something helpful other than offer suggestions on how to break down the privy door, and what could be more helpful than tending the garden? The whole keep was gearing up for a visit from some important guest, and I would not want the garden to shame her.

“Get ye gone,” Ulric said, shooing me out of the garden. “Else I’ll tell your mother how you’ve spent the last few hours rather than tending to your proper chores. If you’re a good lass, perhaps I’ll help you with those roses later.”

I smiled, feeling as artless as a girl of seventeen could feel, and dashed out of the haven that was the garden and along the dark overhang that led into the upper bailey. It was a glorious almost-summer morning, and my father’s serfs were going about their daily tasks with less complaint than was normal. I stopped by the stable to check on the latest batch of kittens, picking out a pretty black-and-white one that I would beg my mother to let me keep, and was just on the way to the kitchen to see if I couldn’t wheedle some bread and cheese from the cooks when the dull thud of several horses’ hooves caught my attention.

I stood in the kitchen door and watched as a group of four men rode into the bailey, all armed for battle.

“Ysolde! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you up in the solar tending to Lady Susan? Mother was looking for you.” Margaret, my older sister, emerged from the depths of the kitchen to scold me.

“Did they get her out of the privy, then?” I asked in all innocence. Or what I hoped passed for it.

“Aye.” Her eyes narrowed on me. “It was odd, the door being stuck shut that way. Almost as if someone had done something to it.”

I made my eyes as round as they would go, and threw in a few blinks for good measure. “Poor, poor Lady Susan. Trapped in the privy with her bowels running amok. Think you she’s been cursed?”

“Aye, and I know by what. Or rather, whom.” She was clearly about to shift into a lecture when movement in the bailey caught her eye. She glanced outside the doorway, and quickly pulled me backward, into the dimness of the kitchen. “You know better than to stand about when Father has visitors.”

“Who is it?” I asked, looking around her as she peered out at the visitors.

“An important mage.” She held a plucked goose to her chest as she watched the men. “That must be him, in the black.”

All of the men were armed, their swords and mail glinting brightly in the sun, but only one did not wear a helm. He dismounted, lifting his hand in greeting as my father hurried down the steps of the keep.

“He doesn’t look like any mage I’ve ever seen,” I told her, taking in the man’s easy movements under what must be at least fifty pounds of armor. “He looks more like a warlord. Look, he’s got braids in his hair, just like that Scot who came to see Father a few years ago. What do you think he wants?”

“Who knows? Father is renowned for his powers; no doubt this mage wants to consult him on arcane matters.”

“Hrmph. Arcane matters,” I said, aware I sounded grumpy.

Her mouth quirked on one side. “I thought you weren’t going to let it bother you anymore?”

“I’m not. It doesn’t,” I said defensively, watching as my father and the warlord greeted each other. “I don’t care in the least that I didn’t inherit any of Father’s abilities. You can have them all.”

“Whereas you, little changeling, would rather muck about in the garden than learn how to summon a ball of blue fire,” Margaret laughed, pulling a bit of grass from where it had been caught in the laces on my sleeve.

“I’m not a changeling. Mother says I was a gift from God, and that’s why my hair is blond when you and she and Papa are redheads. Why would a mage ride with three guards?”

Margaret pulled back from the door, nudging me aside. “Why shouldn’t he have guards?”

“If he’s as powerful a mage as Father, he shouldn’t need anyone to protect him.” I watched as my mother curtsied to the stranger. “He just looks . . . wrong. For a mage.”

“It doesn’t matter what he looks like—you are to stay out of the way. If you’re not going to tend your duties, you can help me. I’ve got a million things to do, what with two of the cooks down with some sort of a pox, and Mother busy with the guest. Ysolde? Ysolde!”

I slipped out of the kitchen, wanting a better look at the warlord as he strode after my parents into the tower that held our living quarters. There was something about the way the man moved, a sense of coiled power, like a boar before it charges. He walked with grace despite the heavy mail, and although I couldn’t see his face, long ebony hair shone glossy and bright as a raven’s wing.

The other men followed after him, and although they, too, moved with the ease that bespoke power, they didn’t have the same air of leadership.

I trailed behind them, careful to stay well back lest my father see me, curious to know what this strange warrior-mage wanted. I had just reached the bottom step as all but the last of the mage’s party entered into the tower, when that guard suddenly spun around.

His nostrils flared, as if he’d smelled something, but it wasn’t that which sent a ripple of goose bumps down my arms. His eyes were dark, and as I watched them, the colored part narrowed, like a cat’s when brought from the dark stable out into the sun. I gasped and spun around, running in the other direction, the sound of the strange man’s laughter following me, mocking me, echoing in my head until I thought I would scream.