A dim shaft of moonlight streamed through the window and etched her face against the dark, a faint mysterious rippling of light and shadow and loveliness. He drew her closer, kissed the smooth cheek, and murmured puzzledly: "Who are you? Why are you working in a place like this, when you could be the greatest courtesan in the world? Kings would be your slaves, and armies would go to battle with your name on their lips—if they only knew you."
She shrugged. "Fortune does strange things sometimes," she said. "I am Freha, and I am here because I must be." Her slim fingers ruffled his harsh black hair. "But tonight," she breathed, "I am glad of it, since you came. And who are you, stranger?"
"I am Alfric, called the Wanderer, son of Beodan the Bold, son of Asgar the Tall, from the hills and lakes of Aslak."
"And why did you leave your home, Alfric?"
"I was restless." For a bleak moment, he wondered why, indeed, he had ever longed to get away from the wind-whispering trees and the cool blue hills and the small, salty, sun-glinting lakes of home—from his father's great hall and farmstead, from the brawling lusty warriors who were his comrades, from the tall sweet girls and joys of the hunt and feast—Well, it was past now, many years past.
"You must have come far," said Freha.
"Far indeed. Over most of the world, I imagine." From Aslak, pasture lands of hengists, to the acrid red deserts of Begh Sarrah, the scrub forests of Astrak and Tollaciuatl, the towered cities of Tsungchi—along the great canals which the ancient Empire had built in its last days, still bringing a trickle of water from the polar snows to the starved southlands—through ruins, always ruins, the crumbling sand-filled bones of cities which had been like jewels a hundred thousand years ago and more—
Her cool hands passed over his face, pausing at the long dull-white scar which slashed across his forehead and left cheek. "You have fought," she said. "How you have fought!"
"Aye. All my life. That scar—? I got it at Altaris, when I led the Bonsonian spears at the storming of the gates. I have been war-captain, sitting beside kings, and I have been hunted outlaw with the garms baying at my heels. I have drunk the wine of war-lords and eaten the gruel of peasants and stalked my own game through the rime-white highlands of Larkin. I have pulled down cities, and been flung into the meanest jails. One king put a price on my head, another wanted me to take over his throne, and a third went down the streets before me, ringing a bell and crying that I was a god. But enough." Alfric stirred restlessly. Somehow, he felt again uneasy, as if—
Freha pulled his face to hers, and the kiss lasted a long time. Presently she murmured, "We have heard some rumors of great deeds and clashing swords, here in Valkarion. The story of the fall of Altaris is told in the marketplaces, and folk listen till far into the night. But why did you not stay with your kings and war-lords and captured cities? You could have been a king yourself."