Ronic glanced up from his desk to the library window, a view of pearly gray sky and the rough cobblestones of the courtyard. A flatbed cart drawn by two mules came into sight, a man roughly bound to a post in its center. His blood-matted head lolled drunkenly with each turn of the wheels, even though, by the twitchings of his fingers and feet, he was still conscious and aware. The features of his face were swollen and distorted by repeated beatings. He might have been a handsome man once, or a monster; now he was merely meat.

"An outlaw?" Ronic said, keeping his place in the book with a thin leather strip.

"The Raven," the boy corrected. He was a younger member of the Tanwakko family, too young, in fact, for the severe black uniform that made him look like a specter. His face was pale and serious, the skin petal-smooth, with a downturned pink mouth that brought to mind the steep pitch of a roof. A beautiful face in repose, perhaps more so than Kydan's, but Kydan had more life and energy. "According to the slaves that is. Of course, any ruffian giving himself that title has their sympathy these days."

The Raven was the slaves' supposed savior, a runaway turned freedom fighter sworn to release them from bondage. He was an assassin, a minstrel, a seducer, a thief; sometimes a youth, sometimes a man ... and often a woman, depending on who told the tale. The legend had been circulating for at least a century among the slaves, the restless ones who could not accept the fate deemed to them by their Goddess and Queen."What will you do with him?" Ronic said.

"My parents will question him. When they receive their satisfaction, he'll be hung. The slaves will witness the act."

The wagon passed beneath them, stopping by one of the outbuildings at the back of the manse. Servants and slaves came out to look. The expressions of the servants ranged from bland to excited, but some of the slaves were weeping and wailing already, their fellows trying vainly to silence them. "Fools," Ronic commented. "Do they really think they mourn their hero?"

The boy shrugged. He had thick black hair parted in the middle, another trait of his family, and eyebrows to match. "Does it matter? They only need to see what's become of him."

The Raven was a name, an idea, nothing more; but slaves were dangerous when they thought they had a leader among them. "Have you had much trouble from these outlaws in Stadzu?" Ronic asked, carefully, keeping his tone casual.

"Some," the boy said, equally cautiously. The great families who ruled Tranthia's provinces were rarely honest with each other, but ambiguity was acceptable between allies, which the Rhaydes and the Tanwakko were. "There was another who called herself the Raven who had an encampment in the hills. She was even bold enough to deal with the pirates. My father says we need a dragonriders' aerie on the coast."

"You should take that up with Her Majesty."

The boy made a face, revealing his true age. Like the other members of his family he had a Tembik name instead of a proper Tranthian one: Vituith. Awful! It made Ronic think of a spider. "She has promised the next aerie to Iliadmae province. What reason do the dragons have to be there? There's nothing there but rock and sand. I'll tell you what else, too. She sends part of the Queen's Levy this year to start extending the Imperial Highway from Soludiis to the mountains ... and the Tramae Nae's mines."

"You know the Queen's plans for the future," Ronic said blandly.

"But why favor the Tramaee? The Zaati have mines, and so do the Dmankaa."

Ronic made a mental note to start paying more attention to that family. He had snubbed the Tramaee for being poor and provincial. But now it seemed things were turning for them.

The wailing reached a fever pitch as the gibbet was assembled. "Sorry for the noise," Vituith apologized, closing the window. "We believe it's better to let grief play itself out rather than crushing it needlessly. Such acts only plant the seeds of future dissention."

Ronic nodded, though he didn't agree. He glanced surreptitiously at the slave  attendants who stood still as stone at their assigned library shelves. They were dressed in black like their masters, each with two black lines tattooed down the face from the lower eyelids to the jawline, and another from the lower lip to the bottom of the chin. Disfiguring, but the Tanwakko never sold their slaves. If they escaped, the marks ensured their speedy retrieval ... and if they continued to do so, they were hung like the luckless outlaw in the courtyard below. Ronic couldn't help wondering what they thought of the display, but as always the inner life of slaves was opaque to him. Except for Kydan's, of course.

Vituith drew the drape with a pale, perfect hand, the ruby of his family's sigil ring gleaming like crushed mulberry on his middle finger. "After dinner my uncle is presenting a pantomime in the garden with some of the trazieem slaves. Would you care to attend, Lord Ronic? We have several exotics from the north we bought lately at the auctions in Cantever."

Ronic considered. Actually he was more interested in Vituith Tanwakko. But neither was much of a possibility. He'd come here to exchange magical research, a nobles' prerogative, and he had to make a full report back to his sister-in-law in Niigaav. He thumbed the book open. "I'll have to decline. I have yet another shelf to search."

The boy inclined his head. "I'll see to it a meal is sent in for you. You may continue your research here until the rains break, if you like."

But he had spent enough time with that particular flock of crows. The next morning he was riding, leaving the windswept eastern coast for the broad plains and yellow grainfields of Niigaav, the province his family, the Rhaydes, had ruled for centuries.

He was looking forward to seeing Kydan again. How proud he'd been to pluck that prize from his late uncle's estate! Shy and skittish, and yet a virgin; his uncle's ill health had seen to that. He had not remained a virgin long. Ronic had to travel on his family's behalf shortly after taking care of that business, but now he was eager to see the changes three months had made in his property and reclaim it as his. None of his bedmates in the capitol were so cheerful and innocent. Whores hoarded what vulnerability they had, always mindful of how it could be exploited, while those of his own class played games with sly words and sharp glances, never sure a lover one day would be a rival at court the next. Kydan made him think of his youth, when the future had beckoned around every bend in the road, full of promise like ripening wheat in the summer sun ... when his brother had ruled as Re-Wan, and he had been twenty and yet unfettered.

Six days he spent on the east-west highway, returning to Pahaydes Sky late afternoon of the seventh. Servants called out greetings as he passed. He nodded curtly in reply. He knew Pyrismadda, the Re and now the head of the family, would note his arrival, but he didn't need to speak to her yet. He had other things to attend to.

He cantered the horse past the manse, turning down the road that led to the stables, where Ironstone told him Kydan was exercising a horse in the far meadows. Ronic rode out to meet him, taking the old dirt road that ran under the ripening thorn-nut trees. Past pens and paddocks, craftshops and farriers, he galloped, the sun striping the colonnade in bars of ruddy gold, until the line of trees abruptly ended, and so did the noise of the working areas of the estate. He stood still in time and space, under a bowl of blue sky and a sea of dry grass, a dying stream threading it like a serpent. Kydan crouched there at the water's edge, toes digging into the silt as he cupped his hands to take a drink. Ronic watched him, entranced. If he'd been unsure about bringing him to the ranch at that young age he was sure of the rightness of his decision now: Kydan was gorgeous. Neither robust nor delicate but a mixture of both, a perfection as solid as the lean stallion tethered beside him, as insubstantial as the play of light off a dragonfly's wings.

Kydan drank deeply from his hands and splashed his face, then pulled his shirt over his head and poured palmfuls of cool water over his arms and shoulders. The dusty stallion likewise drank, tethered to a tree root further up the channel.

"Kydan."

Kydan straightened, his head turning in alarm, and saw Ronic waiting on his mount. He made the slave sign with his fingers steepled at his forehead, rather perfunctorily Ronic thought, with his eyes cast down as was proper; then he looked up, meeting Ronic's own. That was definitely not proper; he still hadn't learned that slaves kept their eyes down in the presence of their betters. He was smiling, well aware of his mistake, and well aware that it didn't matter between them.

Ronic slipped off his horse. Kydan was happy to see him, and that was all that mattered in the universe.