* * *

The hunting lodge where Crown Prince Edvard was simple Baron
Cragdale lay at the head of a sharply-sloping mountain valley down
which a river tumbled. Mountains rose on either side in high scarps,
some topped with perpetual snow, glaciers curling down from them.
The lower ranges were forested, as was the valley between, and there
was a red-mauve alpenglow on the great peak that rose from the head
of the valley. For the first time in over a year, Elaine was with
him, silently clinging to him to see the beauty of it through his
eyes. He had thought that she had gone from him forever.

The hunting lodge itself was not quite what a Sword-Worlder would
expect a hunting lodge to be. At first sight, from the air, it
looked like a sundial, a slender tower rising like a gnomen above a
circle of low buildings and formal gardens. The boat landed at the
foot of it, and he and Prince and Princess Bentrik and the young
Count of Ravary and his tutor descended. Immediately, they were
beset by a flurry of servants; the second boat, with the Bentrik
servants and their luggage was circling in to land. Elaine, he
discovered, wasn't with him any more, and then he was separated from
the Bentriks and was being floated up an inside shaft in a
lifter-car. More servants installed him in his rooms, unpacked his
cases, drew his bath and even tried to help him take it, and fussed
over him while he dressed.

There were over a score for dinner. Bentrik had warned him that he'd
find some odd types; maybe he meant that they wouldn't all be
nobles. Among the commoners there were some professors, mostly
social sciences, a labor leader, a couple of Representatives and a
member of the Chamber of Delegates, and a couple of social workers,
whatever that meant.

His own table companion was a Lady Valerie Alvarath. She was
beautiful--black hair, and almost startlingly blue eyes, a
combination unusual in the Sword-Worlds--and she was intelligent,
or at least cleverly articulate. She was introduced as the
lady-companion of the Crown Prince's daughter. When he asked
where the daughter was, she laughed.

"She won't be helping entertain visiting Space Vikings for a long
time, Prince Trask. She is precisely eight years old; I saw her
getting ready for bed before I came down here. I'll look in on her
after dinner."

Then the Crown Princess Melanie, on his other hand, asked him some
question about Sword-World court etiquette. He stuck