Free The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

never have a title because bastards can’t have titles. It makes no sense at all. Hulix has the title. If I was a bastard, so was Hulix, and he couldn’t have been the duke, either.”
    T he road from Woldsgard Castle came across the bridge and down from the height on which the castle stood, winding between the rough stone walls that divided orchards and pastures, the little river that filled the moat running beside it. When the castle road reached the level land of the valley, it joined the wider Woldsroad, which ran south, parallel to Woldswater Running. If followed two or three days’ journey south, Woldsroad led to Lake Riversmeet, the lake where the Woldswater and river Wells ran together, where the roads crossed and led away in all directions: south past the Old Dark House and on to the Lake of the Clouds, east to the highlands of the king, west to Wellsport and the sea. Today the journey would be much shorter than that.
    First in line was the catafalque, drawn by four black horses with purple plumes nodding above their heads. Then the carriage in which the Duke of Wold rode alone, then the other carriages and wagons, half a dozen, carrying those of the castle folk who had served the princess. Xulai was riding with Precious Wind and Great Bear, and Abasio had joined them as well, seemingly having struck up a friendship with the Tingawans over the last day or so. Certainly his own clattery wagon would have been unsuitable for such an occasion. For over an hour the horses drew them along among pastures tall with sun-glittered grasses and late flowers, scattered here and there with herds of cattle or sheep or goats under the eyes of quiet dogs and their herdsmen, who took off their hats and bowed their heads as the procession went by. In Wold it was said that the dogs owned the herdsmen, not the other way around, and certainly it was the dogs who demanded quiet reverence from the flocks as the procession passed, for the sheep stood facing the road in long rows, their heads bowed.
    To their left, eastward, unfenced meadows stretched from the road to the Woldswater, a ribbon of silver glitter rimming the green. On their right, down from the western heights of the Icefang range, streamlets hurried to join the river, some crossed by shallow, splashy fords, others by sturdy timber bridges that thundered hugely under the hooves of the horses.
    After the seventh such crossing, the catafalque turned west into a road that ran upward across green meadows into a valley extending into the mountains. On each side, the meadows gradually gave way to gray cliffs that grew higher the farther into the mountain they went, sheltering the valley on either side and joining at the western end in a vast, towering arc. Between the arms of this great escarpment a tall, sprawling gray building stood among gigantic, white-bolled trees.
    “Netherfields,” said Abasio. “I am told this is where the duke’s parents lie, and theirs before them back to the time of Lythany, Huold’s daughter. Here Xu-i-lok will lie now, and when the time comes, here the duke will lie beside her.”
    Xulai murmured, “What people keep this place? I have never met anyone at the castle who mentioned working at Netherfields.”
    It was Precious Wind who answered. “No. The people who keep this place are brothers and sisters from Wilderbrook Abbey. It lies some distance east of us, across the river Wells and upward, upon the heights beyond the great falls. They come here a year at a time, some to maintain this holy place, some to say their prayers and perform the rites that have been performed here for a thousand years or more, some armed men to protect the others, and when their term of service is over, they return to the abbey and another group comes to replace them. The place is never untenanted, never unguarded.”
    The gray building looked large even at a distance, and it proved to be both larger and farther away than it had appeared. It was some time before the