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Barbara was loyal to the house of Atilliet, but that house grew more and more divided against itself. She picked her path precariously, hoping to avert a final breach. She would never have agreed to carry the foreigner's secret correspondence to Princess Elisebet except by Annek's orders. But neither would she deliver it without counseling Elisebet against its contents, whatever that might be. No more, she said, but Elisebet knew no ground between loyalty and treason.

* * *

“How can you abandon us now? You don’t know what I face—what peril my son is in. Even here Aukustin isn’t safe from that…that foreigner’s malice.”

This was more than her usual distrust. Barbara asked, “What happened?”

Elisebet looked around in the frightened furtive way that came over her more and more. “Friedrich. He came here.”

“Is that such a matter for concern?” Barbara asked when no immediate details followed. “He has as much right to spend his time at Fallorek as you.”

“He came with a gift for Aukustin. A spirited horse, trained by his own hand, he said. What boy could resist? And then, after he’d left, we learned the truth. Trained by his own hand indeed! The beast was vicious, unmanageable. I was forced to have it destroyed. Even here we are not safe.”

Barbara listened with barely concealed horror. No wonder that Chustin has fallen under a black mood! To be given such a gift and have it snatched away so brutally… She dismissed instantly the thought that the accusation was true. But something had set the horse off. Her mind skipped back to the hunt at Feniz. Someone has been playing tricks with horses before. Someone close to him who wouldn’t be questioned. Who could it have been? Might the same man have been behind both accidents? A servant who’d been corrupted? Or…

* * *

And now some exciting news: my queer Mabinogi short story "Hoywverch" has been accepted by PodCastle for their Artemis Rising series. PodCastle is part of the Escape Artists network of genre fiction audio magazines (also including Escape Pod and PseudoPod). Usually they do audio versions of previously published short fiction, but this series is for unpublished works. No details yet on the narrator or release date, but I'll let you know when I have them. Guess that's a sign I should write the other three "branches"!