The trader shook his head. “It must indeed be some faerie magic that gives you such wisdom, Lara. I shall do exactly as you have suggested, and I am grateful to you for your advice. I am sorry I must leave you with these people. You deserve a better fate than this.”

“This is only the beginning of my journey, Rolf Fairplay,” Lara told him, and he climbed from the wagon.

“This is all my fault.” Noss began to weep.

“Nay, it is the fault of the trader who purchased you for this consignment despite knowing better, which I am certain he did,” Lara soothed the girl. “Some traders are good and honest men. Others are not. The one who bought you thought to gain a few more coins in his pocket. I do not doubt Rolf Fairplay will have them from him eventually.”

“What will happen to me now?” Noss asked Lara.

“Rolf will sell you to one of the Desert people, or you will have a master from the coast. He is a kind man, and will see you are placed with a good master, I am certain,” Lara reassured the frightened girl.

“I will be alone now,” Noss said.

“I would have been alone if you remained here,” Lara replied. “I will ask my mercenary friend to look after you.”

“You are very important, Lara, aren’t you?” Noss asked, her eyes wide.

Lara laughed. “No, I am not important at all. The mercenaries watch over me because my father was a mercenary once. Now he is a Crusader Knight. They are proud of him for being able to gain such heights. I am, too.”

“But if your father is a Crusader Knight, why were you sold?” Noss wondered.

“To become a member of the Crusader Knights one must enter the tournament which is only held every three years. An applicant must be beautifully garbed to offer his applications, and he must be outfitted with the finest armor, and the best weapons. All of this costs much gold. My father is a great swordsman, but he was also a poor man. My stepmother suggested I was the only possession he had of any value, and she was right. So I was sold to Gaius Prospero for a great price. My da was able to enter the tournament and win one of the five places available to the applicants. And that is my story,” Lara explained.

“But you are very beautiful,” Noss responded, “and beauty always wins a place of importance in the world. And you are half faerie, it is said.”

“My faerie mother deserted me when I was an infant,” Lara said. “I know naught of faerie magic.”

“But you gave me a faerie blessing,” Noss reminded the older girl, her lip beginning to quiver.

“I did, and I meant it.” Lara smiled. Then reaching out she ruffled Noss’s brown-gold hair. “Go to sleep, youngling. We leave tomorrow for the Desert.”

Noss obediently lay down, and was soon asleep.

Lara touched her star pendant. The flame flickered within the crystal. This is my fate? she asked it silently.

Nay, but you have a task to complete here, the voice responded.

What is it?

You will know soon enough, the voice of her magical guardian, Ethne, replied. You will have to sacrifice yourself, but we will help you. Be brave!

Lara closed her eyes. Be brave. She would have to be. She had been horrified when the Forest Lord pushed his finger into her body, but she had somehow managed to remain silent and still. Soon, she knew, he would push his manroot into her as well. She had seen the look in his eyes as he probed her innocence so boldly. And the other man, The Head Forester. He had licked his lips in open anticipation as the younger one examined her with rough hands. What purpose was there in all of this? Ethne, her guide, said this was meant to be so it must be. The flame within the pendant had always been with her, and she couldn’t even recall when it had first spoken with her, so familiar had the voice become. She wondered how Rolf Fairplay was doing in his negotiations with the Forest Lords. They wouldn’t be happy with his decision, she knew.

And they were not.

“You will sell her, but only when we reach the border? Do you take us for fools, Rolf Fairplay?” Durga demanded.

“My reputation is gold,” the trader said in icy tones, “but I must protect myself, my lord Durga. You have agreed to pay me a small fortune. But I do not see it, nor are your Forest clans noted for much wealth. Lara is an extremely valuable piece of merchandise. She was meant for a king’s son. I know her owner, for he is my own blood. Arcas has agreed to pay twenty-five thousand pieces of gold for the girl. You offer thirty thousand. I would be a fool not to sell her to you. My cousin would chastise me for such foolishness. But I have not seen your gold, and until I do there can be no agreement between us, my lord. And if indeed you pay me this great amount, and take the girl, what is to stop you from attacking my caravan before I reach the next district? My route for this journey, as for all the journeys I make, is public knowledge. Each trader must publish with the Guild the route he is taking, the stops he is making, the merchandise he is carrying. You could steal your gold back and murder me, yet claim no knowledge of me after I left your hall. I think not, my lords.

“I have agreed to sell Lara to you, but the transaction will not take place until we reach the borders between your land and the Desert region. The border guards will witness the compact between us. You will count out your coin, and when you have, I will turn the girl over to you. That is how I desire our agreement to be. If you choose not to do it my way, then I will depart, but you have my word that I will have a suitable slave girl sent to you as quickly as possible.”

“You offend us by suggesting we would betray you after we have the slave,” Durga said. His black eyes were narrowed in irritation. “And what makes you think we couldn’t take the girl now, and dispose of you and the rest of your caravan?”

“You live by a certain code, my lord. It would not be the honorable thing to do, and so I can trust you will not do it. If you give me your word this night, and we shake hands, I know you will keep your word, and all who bow to your authority will as well.”

“Very well, I give you my word,” Durga finally said.

“Then give me your hand,” the trader replied.

“Is my word not good enough?” Durga roared angrily.

“Nay, it is not!” Rolf replied just as loudly. “Give me your hand, or the agreement between us is null and void. I know your ways, my lord. The members of my guild have not traveled your lands all these years in safety because they are fools.”

Durga held out a fat broad hand, and shook the trader’s thin hand grudgingly.

“And your brother as well, my lord?” Rolf Fairplay said quietly.

Enda laughed, and offered his hand to the trader in a firm grip. “Then we are agreed, Rolf Fairplay?” he said. “I am eager to have the beautiful Lara beneath me.”

The trader nodded reluctantly. “We are agreed. I will leave at dawn. We should reach the border in two days of travel-I shall meet you there. The gold will be counted, weighed, and the girl will be yours.” Then he added, “While my cousin will certainly be pleased with this transaction, Arcas will be quite disappointed. I wonder if I should not send a faeriepost messenger to the coast, and perhaps you might bid against one another.” It did not hurt to keep up the pretense and worry the Forest Lords, Rolf thought. He was not happy leaving a girl like Lara with them. After all, her father was a Crusader Knight, and famous even before he won his spurs in the recent tournament.

“We have agreed verbally, and I have given you my hand,” Durga protested. “You cannot break our agreement now, trader.”

Rolf pretended to consider. “I suppose not, and why waste the time? After all, in my business time is always money. Oh, one thing. The girl wears a thin gold chain with a tiny crystal star about her neck. Her faerie mother put it there. Gaius Prospero requests that it remain with her. Who knows what magic it possesses?” He smiled at the two men, and then with a neat bow left them to ponder his words.

“The girl possesses faerie magic,” Durga said. “I knew it! She will be worth every coin we give the trader. And they say that faerie women are passionate beyond all other women. Take her virginity, brother, and teach her a few tricks, but then I want my turn, and I do not choose to wait. Was her sheath tight when you put your finger in her?”

“I have never known a virgin’s to be tighter,” Enda said wickedly, and then regretted his words immediately.

His brother’s black eyes gleamed in lustful anticipation. “I have said I will leave her to you, and I will-but the night you take her virginity I must have her, too, so I can also experience that virgin denseness. It is only fair, Enda, for I have put up much of my gold for this purchase, too.”

Enda laughed. “Mother always said you were greedy, too, Durga. The girl will receive a full measure of our lust that night. And if she conceives then it matters not which of us is the child’s sire, the infant will have her faerie blood. We should have thought of this before. We must find more like her so all of our men may breed sons on faerie women. The curse will finally be lifted from us.”

“You must marry Tira as soon as possible,” Durga said. “She must be ready to receive her son from the faerie girl.”

“We cannot kill her as we do the others,” Enda told his brother. “This disaster came upon us because our men murdered a faerie woman in the first place. This faerie, and the others we find, must be treated well, for their wombs hold our future.

“I am ashamed that my blood is tainted by that of a Midland woman. Once our seed was pure, and we wed only with each other. We did not have to bring strangers into our midst in order to breed up our sons.”