Free Year of the Unicorn by Andre Norton Page A

that there will be those after us."
     
    "Half blood is not always as great as full blood."
     
    "True. But, my lady, you forget that we do have powers and arts. Not all the changes we can make are to confuse the eye only."
     
    "But will their eyes continue to be confused?" I glanced about me. Those who had preceded me were rapt, ensorcelled, so that they looked only upon those with whom they shared cup and plate. Whether this was for good or ill, I could not tell.
     
    "For now," he said, "they see what they are designed to see, according to the desires of those whose cloaks the wear."
     
    "And I?"
     
    "And you? Perhaps, if more than one will was bent to the task, you might see at another's bidding-'but that I do not know. I only say, with all my cunning as a warrior, it is best that you pretend to see. There are those within this company who would not welcome a will they believed they could not dominate. Fortunately, my lady-"
     
    His change of tone and word were so abrupt that I was startled and then alerted. Someone approached us from behind. But taking my cue from those about me, I showed no sign of knowing this, and I looked only to Herrel as if he alone meant anything in a narrow world.
     
    He who had come up behind me stood silently, but from his very presence there flowed a vast, disquieting cloud of-hate? No, this emotion was too contemptuous, too self confident for hate. That we save for those who are our equals or superiors. This was the kind of anger one directs at lesser things which have crossed a will which believes it should have no limits. And how I knew this I could not have said, save that within this enchanted place perhaps emotions were made keener by design, and mine, not having been snared in the set trap, thus scented out the stranger's.
     
    "Ah, Halse, come to drink bride cup?" Herrel looked up to the one who stood behind me. There was no unease open in him. But once in Norstead village at a feasting I had watched a wrestling match. And it was said that those who pitted their strength against one another so bore ill will, so the battle was not in sport or play. Then I had witnessed that small narrowing of the eyes, that stiffness of shoulder for the instant before they sprang at one another. And so was I sure that this Halse was no good friend to Herrel, but one of those whom he expected might show anger that his cloak-spell had succeeded. But still I schooled myself to watch only Herrel, with the bemusement of the other girls.
     
    "Bride cup?" Derision on that, laid over anger. "For once it would seem, Herrel the Wronghanded, you set a spell aright. Let us see how well you set it-what kind of a bride came to your cloak!"
     
    In one fluid motion Herrel was on his feet. He was weaponless yet it was as if he stood with bared steel to take up the challenge the other had so plainly flung at him.
     
    "My lord?" Had I put into that the proper amount of wonder? It would appear that I must continue to play the part of one I was not. Putting forth my hand I caught at Herrel's where it hung by his side. Under my touch his flesh was cool and smooth. "My lord, what's to do?"
     
    Exerting unusual strength he drew me up and then I was at last able to turn and face the other. He was perhaps a finger taller than Herrel, and, of the same slim and wiry breed. Yet his shoulders were the wider. In general appearance though he differed only from his troop-mate in that his breeches and boots had been fashioned from a rusty brown fur and the belt around him had small red stones to its clasp. But beneath the general resemblance of one to the other-for they might have been brothers, or at least close kinsmen-there was a parting of spirit. Here indeed, I thought for a moment almost wildly, I might well raise my demon repelling mirror. Anger, arrogance, a self-belief so great that he deemed naught in the wide world could withstand his will were Halse's. And to me he was one whom I would have fled as a small frightened