told
after her mother—she and my mother were friends. Like us. She died when Kara was twelve.""You mean she isn't your daughter? I thought you looked a little young." Harald kept a straight face as long as he could. Hen figured it out, laughed.
"But you do sound like my mother—Elaina ni Liana not Elaina ni Leonor." Her sister gave her a worried glance, looked away.
"Yes. So I'll say what your mother would: stop talking, start shooting." Kara looked startled, nocked an arrow, stared at the piled hay.
"Wood. Straw. Leather. Leather. Straw."
At each word Kara drew, released. The worst was a hand's breadth from its target.
Kara waited a moment, lowered her bow.
"Straw."
Arrow to the string, bow up, arrow into the circle.
"You'll do. 'Laina?"
Shooting at the straw circle, Elaina did almost as well as her sister. But one of the shafts called for leather went to wood instead, another wild. She put the bow down, pale faced, breathing hard.
"She's still recovering; it isn't fair. She needs to rest."
Harald looked at Hen.
"Won't be fair if an enemy arrives tomorrow, either."
Elaina nodded.
"I'll rest now, after we eat shoot again, again tomorrow. Harl's right."
They had two more weeks. She used them.
A different story this time, a larger audience—Hen sitting with the two Ladies on their bed while Harald, on a cushion by the hearth, told how the quick wit of a Lady saved herself and a treasure. Her lover had just found the hidden bowstring, restrung his bow, when Elaina held up her hand. Harald stopped. In the silence he could hear voices in the courtyard.
A mounted man just inside the gate; looking down from the door at the top of the