"I can only repeat rumor," Hearn said, "but I've heard that most who enter his gates are flawed in some way. You know the sort of lad who has nothing to lose and is willing to grind himself into the dust to numb his pain."
"Aye, I've met a few of those," Miach said. "Go on. What other kind of man does Weger take?"
"Those with an abhorrence of magic and mages," Hearn said with an unholy twinkle in his eye. "I don't suppose you know any ofthosekinds of lads. Or lassies."
Miach pursed his lips, but refrained from comment.
"Whatever the state of the lad, it is still not a place for the faint of heart," Hearn continued. "Few manage to get inside his gates; fewer still leave with Weger's mark upon their brow."
"He marks them?"
"I understand they consider it a high honor, those who are so marked. It is a very exclusive band of those who have managed to leave his tower at all. Perhaps every time they touch their foreheads, they feel a rush of gratitude for their lives."
"What does he do with the failures? Toss them over the wall?"
"I imagine he does," Hearn said seriously. "You know, his keep is on the coast. I wouldn't be surprised to learn he feeds the sharks with those who cannot keep up."
Miach shivered in spite of himself. "What has this to do with Morgan?"
Hearn considered, then shrugged. "Perhaps nothing. I was merely thinking of a man I knew briefly who bore Wegers mark. There is something about the way your woman wields a sword that reminds me of him." He shrugged. "I find it merely curious that a woman should fight so well."
"Many women fight well. And she is not my woman."
Though he had to admit, the thought was not an unpleasant one.
Hearn looked at him. "No woman I've ever met could fightthatwell. Hell, I don't know anymenwho can fight that well. And I daresay we haven't seen what she can truly do. Did you watch her last eve with Carney?"
Miach could still see Morgan in the lists, engaging Hearn's most skilled guardsman and making him look as if he were a page with no training at all. And then she had battled pairs and trios of other men in much the same fashion, seemingly making little effort to either keep them at bay or best them.
Yet somehow, it had not been an insulting thrashing. She was simply doing what she apparently did best and doing it at a level none of her opponents could possibly hope to match. She hadn't boasted loudly as she was about her work, as Adhémar would have done, she simply did.
It had been spectacular and terrifying, all at the same time.
"Aye," Miach said finally. "I saw."
"She was not sweating, my lord Mochriadhemiach. She might as well have been picking flowers for the effort she made. And my men are not unskilled."
Miach sighed. "Perhaps your men were afeared to truly engage her."
Hearn looked at him with pursed lips. "Think you?"
"In this matter, I try not to," Miach said dryly. He shook his head. "I cannot believe that a woman of her beauty would subject herself to whatever tortures Weger perpetrates in his keep."
"Believe what you like," Hearn said easily, "but I would think twice about irritating her. You will pay, and dearly I'd say."
"I'm hoping to have befriended her by the time she learns the truth."
"Ha," Hearn said with a snort. "You'd have more success taming an asp, my lord." He stared off into the distance for a moment or two, then turned back to Miach. "I would speak to you of something else. "
Miach could just imagine what that might be, but he nodded just the same. "Go on."
"I've heard rumors. Rumors of darkness, rumors of magic lost, rumors of someone being sought."
Unsurprising. "Has everyone heard these rumors, or is it just you?"
"I have ears in many places, so take that as you will."
Miach studied the older man. "It is rumored that your horses spy for you and that you can understand their speech."
