Trionn reached for another pot, and a gob of wet sand for scouring. Behind him, watched by the lazy eyes of his cats, the Lord's steward hurried in, looking harried. 'Another five bottles of the red wine, and quickly, before there's trouble.'

    'Man's brought his horsebreaker to table,' the cook grumbled. 'Those kind always drink.' He wiped greasy hands on his sleeves. 'Enith, take down the lantern and go for more red!'

    'Been to the cellar twice already tonight,' she howled back. 'More big spiders than bottles left, that's certain.'

    'No help for that.' Still mournful, the cook added, 'Do you suppose the horsebreaker's here to handle that murdering dun stud? If so, he'll want the wine. It's the last drink he'll have before he's dead.'

    The pageboy took umbrage at this. 'Khaim's better than that. I once saw him break the neck of a colt who tossed him. Hit it a blow that knocked it sideways, and it couldn't stand up afterward.'

    'No man's that strong,' the cook objected over the creak of the hearth chain as he dragged a kettle off the fire.

    'Horse had to be a weak, spindly thing, maybe,' ventured the butcher.

The page insisted not.

    Trionn let his scouring sand sink to the bottom of the wash water, sickened all over again. Though he strove over the noise and the chat to picture the stallion at his fiat, free run across the meadow, instead he was poisoned by visions: of blood in the grass and the air split by a scream that might have been a woman's. Except that a horse in agony will make the same shrill sound. Trionn doubled over and shivered.

    A hard hand cuffed him back upright. 'Get back to washing, boy,' snapped the cook. 'There's barely a clean pot in the rack yet.'

    Half dizzied, Trionn groped for a ladle. His hand stopped still in midair. He could not touch the gravy that seemed suddenly the same color and sheen as congealed blood, nor could he look at the wash water clinging to his skin, so much did it shine like salt tears. The cook saw his stupefied pallor, and cuffed him all the harder.

    'Oh, no, lazy boy. Though you're sick clean down to your boottops, you'll stay and scour, until all this stack of washing is done and dry.'

II5