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don’t remember what else I told her — learning knife-forms with my step-father, wrestling and laughing in the alkali dust with my half-brothers, the water-plague that took them all. All except me. The endless, formless days lost in a fog of ghostweed and endurance while that old ghamel the priests whored me off to dreamed himself into permanent oblivion. And the son whose father I must never name — no! I didn’t tell her that. I don’t remember what else I couldn’t say, the years and deeds I had no words for, only that it didn’t matter.
    Mother-of-us-all, take away those memories. How she cried for me, me who never cries.
    I must think only of what I have come to do, of the man I must find.
    I lay in the tub, the back of my head resting on the woodenrim, staring up at the grille on the far wall. Biting my lip. Gripping the hilt of my long-knife until my fingers cramped. Hearing my blood race through my ears.
    Out, I had to get out of the water. It was the heat making me think crazy.
    I wouldn’t get out. Not until my mind was clear of everything but my purpose here. Tonight I would sharpen my knives to steady my nerve. Tomorrow I would find him, Pateros, the Guardian of Laurea. Then, then, it would be safe to remember.

Chapter 2
    I wore the long-knife in its thigh sheath and the leather vest with the Ranger insignia. In one of the vest pockets, I carried the folded single-edged knife I used for eating, skinning small game, camp work. A careful search would find two more knives, one in my boot top and the other in a forearm sheath. Maybe, if the searcher knew what he was doing, the one in the hollow belt buckle. Maybe not.
    After a breakfast of fruit and ripened cheese, and an easy round with the buckle knife to remind my hands of the heft and reach of a short, flat blade, I felt fit and awake. My shirt was clean, the worst of the trail dust scrubbed from my boots.
    The saddlebags stayed in my room along with the cloak. The packet of papers from Captain Derron — accounts, reports, Mother knows what — I weighed in my hand as I stepped into the morning sunshine and headed for the central square. Such a little thing, but enough to make my presence here official. All I had to do to follow orders was hand it to General Montborne.
    But it was Montborne who gave the command — no searching past our patrol limits, no forays into norther territory, no retaliation for raids. It was Montborne who set the penalty for insubordination at the loss of a hand. It was Montborne who drove me here.
o0o
    So many flowers grow in Laureal City that the women wear them fresh in their hair. Everywhere I looked, I saw gardens, strips of blossoming herbs, borders around fountains and benches, pots crowded together on window ledges. Courtyards with vine-covered arches. Trees and more trees.
    The market stands were piled high with fruit and vegetables, grains and dried beans, cheese and yogurt, a dozen kinds of freshly-baked bread, fish from the rivers. People milled around, buying and selling, calling out their wares, pressing against each other, all going in different directions. They moved out of the way when they spotted my Ranger’s vest. A countrywoman with a tanned face said, “Free samples to you, magistra,” and handed me a plum from her cart. I bit into it and the tart juice squirted over my tongue.
    Past the market lay the merchant district, row after row of shops selling everything from spices and cloth to ceramics to books and musical instruments, even children’s toys. I paused to admire a display window of metals, wonderfully crafted knives set with semi-precious stones, belt buckles, bits and spurs, medician’s tools I didn’t recognize. All with their little square approval certificates from the gaea-priests.
    The plaza’s paving stones were light gray and so closely placed that not even a weed pushed through the hairline cracks. The plaza reminded me of the