ut now the princelings are dividing up and
returning to their separate holdings. Once there, they'll go back to
peering covetously at each other's lands, and maybe raid amongst
themselves a little, until I come back again. And you're as poor as a
church mouse at this moment, lad--no fief, no lands, no title--unless
there's an heir?"

Geoffrey shook his head distractedly. "No. I've not wed. It's as you
say."

"And just try to get your property back. No--no, it won't be so easy to
return. Unless you'd care to be a serf on your own former holding?"

"Dugald would have me killed," Geoffrey said bitterly.

"So there you are, lad. The only advantage you have is that Dugald
thinks you're dead already--you can be sure of that, or it would have
been an assassin, and not me, that woke you. That's something, at least.
It's a beginning, but you'll have to lay your plans carefully, and take
your time. I certainly wouldn't plan on doing anything until your body's
healed and your brain's had time to work."

Young Geoffrey blinked back the tears of rage. The thought of losing the
town and lands his father had left him was almost more than his hot
blood could stand. The memory of the great old Keep that dominated the
town, with its tapestried halls and torchlit chambers, was suddenly very
precious to him. He felt a sharp pang at the thought that he must sleep
in a field tonight, like some skulking outlaw, while Dugald quite
possibly got himself drunk on Geoffrion wine and snored his headache
away on the thick furs of Geoffrey's bed.

But The Barbarian was right. Time was needed--and this meant that, to a
certain extent at least, his lot and Savage's were thrown in together.
The thought came to Geoffrey that he might have chosen a worse partner.

"Now, lad," The Barbarian said, "as long as you're not doing anything
else, you might as well help me with my problem."

The realization of just exactly who this man was came sharply back to
young Geoffrey. "I won't help you escape to your own lands, if that's
what you mean," he said quickly.

"I'll take good care of that myself, when the time comes," the man
answered drily. "Right now, I've got something else in mind. They're
dividing my baggage train, as you said. Now, I don't mind that, seeing
as most of it belonged to them in the first place. I don't mind it for
this year, that is. But there's something else one of you cockerels will
be wanting to take home with him, and I've a min