"A good strong boy," said the Lady Clemita, wife of Sir Unsaethel, as she lifted Kralmir out of his cot.

Her voice was proud, as if it were her own child in her arms, and her smile was one of genuine joy. Though younger than her husband, she was still approaching fifty summers, and had long ago stopped trying to hide the consequences of those years with face tinctures and hair pigment. Her evident age, and the experienced manner she had gained with her own children and grandchildren, eased Tahlessa's mind somewhat as she watched from where she sat in her bed, but it did not still the apprehension inside her.

Her new son looked so small.

"Fine and strong, indeed," said the Lady Mandassa, though Tahlessa was sure she only spoke out of politeness. Mandassa had given her husband three sons to date, and all looked as though they would grow as large and strong as their father.

Though the Lady Clemita was the eldest, it was still the Lady Mandassa who dominated the room, with her graceful height and bright eyes, set in a beautiful face, which seemed finely sculpted from fine grained wood. If that were not enough, she wore her night black hair in tousled braids, piled about her head. The mass of darkness was held in place with clasps of metal inlaid with enamel, which shone bright in the early morning light that lanced through the open doorway to the balcony.

Tahlessa felt tawdry beside her beauty. She had scrutinised her reflection in her dressing mirror that morning, and had been dismayed to see her tawny hair so dull, and the shadows beneath her eyes looking deep as crypt doors.

"And born on such an auspicious day," said Lady Mandassa, and though her tone was light, Tahlessa knew the gravity behind it. "Has the Oracle told you anything of note about your son's future?"

"Oh, Massa, not everyone puts as much credence into the Oracle's ramblings as you," said Lady Kell from where she stood in the balcony doorway.

Like the other two Pride-commander's wives, she was clothed in her finest attire, the bodice of her cobalt dress intricately embroidered with selvin thread and dark firestones. She shared her husband's lavish tastes, and had the same pride in her appearance, but also like Sir Bevrik, her vanity did not impact negatively on her character. As he was a solid friend to her husband, the Lady Kell was Tahlessa's closest confidante. She had been the first to arrive at her apartment door that morning to offer her respects to mother and new born baby, and had been chattering away amiably ever since. Tahlessa had not had the energy to join in, so had let her talk about the tourney that would begin that day, the various dresses she intended to wear, and the food they would be serving at the banquets. She had spent a full ten minutes describing Sir Bevrik's farewell necklet, and had named all the varieties of flower grass she had incorporated into it, describing its design in intricate detail. Doubtless her work had raised some smiles among Sir Bevrik's fellow knights as he rode from the fortress-bailey that morning.

The necklet Tahlessa had made for her own husband had been, like most would doubtless be, a simple affair, plaited only from dried plains grass. She had never been one for delicate labour; her needlework had always been lamentable, and the only thing of dexterity she could do with her fingers was string a bow. Her weaving had been adequate enough, though, to craft the loop of grass she had hung about her husband's neck that morning.

The ceremony of farewell was a private thing; a shared intimacy between husband and wife. It would have taken place in hundreds of private apartments that morning, as the knights were sent to their temporary exile. They would return, only once their position in the Order was decided.

Tahlessa had spoken her words of farewell, as her husband knelt before her, and though she had meant them all, there was something hollow in them that had not been there in previous years. She did not know why.

Lady Mandassa's voice broke her from her sad reverie.

"The Oracle's words should always be treated with appropriate gravity," she said, chiding the Lady Kell for her flippancy.

"That is true," said Lady Clemita, still holding Kralmir, who was sleeping soundly, though he frowned at the proximity of her voice. "The difficulty is having the wit to unravel the wisdom in her words."

"I leave the dissections to the Communicants," said Lady Kell. "That is their duty."

"As a wife's is to give her husband sons."

Lady Mandassa made no attempt to hide the barb, and the sharpness of it would have cut the mood in the room to uncomfortable tatters if the Lady Kell had cared to let it.

"Bev and I are practicing on daughters for now. They are so much easier to raise than sons."

The Lady Mandassa arched one of her immaculate eyebrows, but did not reply. Instead, she addressed Tahlessa.

"So, did the Oracle tell you anything of note when you visited her last?"

"No," Tahlessa lied.

To forestall any further questioning, she pulled her legs from beneath the heavy bedclothes and rose, still unaccustomed to the weight in her belly that was no longer there. She crossed unsteadily to the balcony door to stand beside Lady Kell, and looked down on the scene in the fortress-bailey far below. A line of distant figures were still filing over the fortitude-bridge and down the spiralling road of the access-fort, to where the far specks of madriel waited for them. The bailey was a chaos of other small figures, as each steed would be attended by a Madriel-master, Engineer and squire, and there was very little sense to be seen down there. Order only returned beyond the bailey gatehouse, where another line of figures, now mounted, were filing out along the north road.

The crowds still swarmed along the roadside, eager to see the spectacle of the knight's exodus, but it was easy to see the mass thinning at its edge as people slowly drifted away towards the battle-grounds and the arena-field.

"It is nearly time," said Lady Kell, and Tahlessa nodded mutely.

That would surely be the lowest Echelons leaving now, and once they had left the bailey and completed their circuit of the hub, the contests would begin. Almost certainly, none of the knights crossing the bridge would be adorned with a plaited loop of plains grass. She remembered how proud she had been when her new husband had followed the same path to his first High-tourney, all those years before, the only man amongst all the fresh faced knights to wear one.

"Kell is right," said Lady Clemita, smiling down at the child sleeping peacefully in her arms. "We must descend, ladies, and take our positions. Our husbands will be waiting."

Lady Mandassa crossed to the tall dressing mirror and inspected her hair critically.

"Are you sure you will not be joining us, my lady?"

"Yes," said Tahlessa. "Yes, I am sure. Today I will rest."

Lady Kell put a comforting hand on her arm, and smiled sweetly before crossing to the mirror herself.

"Kralaford will understand," she said as she began a minute inspection of her own features.

"I am sure he will not order you to attend," said Lady Mandassa as she turned away from her reflection, clearly satisfied.

"No," said Tahlessa. "He will not."

Meanwhile, the Lady Clemita had returned Kralmir to his cot.

"I will summon your maid before we depart. You will need to eat if you are to regain your strength."

Once the Commanders' wives had left, Tahlessa crossed back to the bed and sat on its edge, looking down at her sleeping son. As if alerted by her gaze, Kralmir opened his eyes, frowned in the manner of all waking children, and began to cry.

Tahlessa lifted him from his basket and held him close.

* * * * *

Tahlia explored the avenues of the Encampment, enthralled by everything, unable to think she would ever get bored there. She had never seen so many people crammed into one place before. The fortress was always busy, of course. People moved constantly along its wide corridors and stairways, and the central-courtyard was always full at tithe time with farmers and masdon carts, but there always seemed an order to the business. Even the fortress kitchens were meticulously organized by the solid manners of the senior cooks, so that even there the tumult and noise had an odd harmony to it.

The Encampment was quite a different tale. The very layout itself was somewhat chaotic. The avenue that led from the arena-field was the main artery of the place, running first eastwards, between the pavilions of the competing knights, and then curving north, following the twin line of ascension markers that eventually joined the western road. It was wide and easy to follow, with further avenues radiating from it, but Tahlia soon found that to leave those smaller arteries was to enter a maze of narrow alleyways where the tents were fronted by a rag tag of stalls, and filled with coarser crowds. Their layout had no order, and there was no division between the public and private areas, which Tahlia found most odd. Several times she wandered through a gap between some stalls and found herself among rough tents, where people sat in their doorways or dozed on the grass in front. They chatted or drank or gambled with bone disks, beneath lines slung between the tents where clothes had been hung to dry.

There was no order in the people of the Encampment either, and certainly no manners. They moved about, either hurrying or dawdling, brushing past one another or getting in each other's way. Stallholders bellowed rudely in the ears of the passing crowds who sauntered back and forth, some of them shouting in return, others ignoring. Many of the people, to Tahlia's eye, were coarse and unwashed. They talked loudly, and some walked along eating food, dropping any unwanted remnants on the floor to be trodden into the grass, or gobbled up by the numerous ruteia and other domesticated creatures that scrambled about in between the legs of the crowd.

All about her were surprises and noises and smells.

Tahlia loved it.

In previous years, she had not been allowed to enter the Encampment, and her mother had kept a more watchful eye on her than was usual whenever the tourney came around. This year, however, her mother's attention seemed somewhat diminished, it being more occupied with her new brother. Neither her mother, nor her father, had actually forbidden her from visiting the Encampment. Not in so many words. Her father had merely warned her to behave with caution, and her mother had told her that the Encampment was no place for a young girl on her own, and she was not to go there without protection.

Tahlia had heeded this advice. She had gone to her mother's gear that morning and taken one of the small hunting knives, which she kept in a specially oiled roll of cured karabok skin. Now she had the knife, in its small sheath, hidden at the bottom of the pouch she wore at her waist, ready in case it should be needed for any dangerous eventuality. It was only a small matter of inconvenience that the knife was not currently closely accessible, as it was covered by the mass of sticky sweets and pastries that she had accumulated during her morning's exploration. She stopped and found a quiet corner in the shade of a leaning tent, then pulled out a slightly squashed larakkos roll and began to eat as she watched the crowds.

She had spent the first half of the morning wandering through the Encampment's many wonders. She had marvelled at everything new that there was to see, and explored its avenues while most people were waiting at the arenas, or lining the road from the bailey, to watch the knights being expelled. The thought that she would be enjoying herself somewhat more if Dak were there to share all the excitement with crossed her mind again, but she hastily shook the thought away. She was still annoyed with Dak.

She had not seen her friend since the day they had been caught out in the rains, because every time she went to visit, she was refused admittance to the Workshops. Her requests to send her a message were similarly refused by the Forge-guard, so that morning she had taken her secret way down to the Workshop rooftops and banged at her friend's window. There had been no reply, so she had climbed down from the roof and waited in the shadows opposite Tomova's workshop until the Engineer had left. Then she had crept inside to find Dak upstairs, cleaning the kitchen after breakfast.

She had regaled her friend with plans for them both to sneak into the Encampment and have a look around, but Dak had declined.

"But why?" Tahlia had asked.

"Because father is taking me to see them this afternoon, and besides that, he says I am not allowed to be seeing you."

"Your father need never know. We can be back before the hour of Fortak."

But, despite her best efforts at persuasion, Dak had still refused, her father's discipline overcoming Tahlia's persuasiveness.

So, still annoyed at her friend's refusal, she vowed to herself that she would enjoy the Encampment just as much as she could. Then, when she and Dak spoke again, she could assail her with stories of all the fun she had enjoyed without her, which would be sure to teach her a good lesson.

She swallowed the last of the larakkos roll, smiled, and then pushed her way back into the throng.