Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

	Our Lady, always with us, blessings on Thy trees.

	Beauty m'inion.  Caitt mhathair.  Dia do bheatha.

	Lord and Lady, I know that I turn too often away from Your faces
and expect to find answers among the people who call themselves real.  But
You were my gods first, and You are the gods of my daughter and my mother,
and it is You who I turn to, to keep them safe while they are far from
home.

	Dia annseo isteach.  God save all here.

	We are heading to a land ruled by a godless heathen, a Shadow of
my brother, Calamus.  As You gave me strength to defeat him once, so give
me strength to bring his death again.  Keep watch also over my companions:
Foster, who I love and would see myself handfasted to under the Lady's
sacred trees; Ariana and her unborn child; Ahab, he who should be my
brother; Jordan, who our Father saw fit to accompany me; and this child,
Elizabeth or Haris by name.

	Amen.

	In prayer, one should keep it simple.  No need to burden the Lord
or the Lady with explanations of situations they already understand.  Just
a simple plea, perhaps a little clarification of that plea.

	In any case.  This has been a wretched day.  The girl's death
weighs heavily.  The King's anger was painful to witness.  But she was not
a child, for they sent her to do an adult's task, and put her in charge of
armed men.  There is no child who should be given that responsibility, not
without a Guardian of some sort along as well.

	The Castle of Oak, the lair of a faerie lord.  I do not know who
killed Rosemary and Mandragora, and I could never avenge them.  No one
thought to bring their bodies to me, though who knows, I might have treed
the messenger.  There is nothing I could have done differently in the
faerie king's place, except not to send out my daughter in the first
place.  And there is nothing he should have expected me to do differently. 
I cannot sell out my friend.  And I could not simply have his daughter
delivered.  I had to do what I could to allay another war.  Foil --
neither the Dexter nor the Midlands nor the Sinistre, I think, could take
another.

	But, send your daughter into danger or no, danger will find her. 
I agonize over this.  She is only eight years of age, and even if I had
not broken the curse, there is no way it could be manifesting itself this
early.  Could it?  Whoever this sorcerer is, he is greater than all the
sorcerers I vanquished eight years ago.  He could resurrect a curse.  Or
come up with a new one.

	My companions -- Ariana, faithful and spoiling for a fight, seems
not at all concerned for the death warrant on her head.  Perhaps this is
what comes from marrying a Vetch.  A new death warrant is...nothing new. 
Ahab has his body, and has a shaky control of its powers.  Our enemy is
still out there -- Beavis.  I shan't call him Arthur and profane a name I
respect.  Jordan.  Perhaps my brother and I shall make some peace through
this.  Or perhaps he shall feel I owe him a favor, and be happy that way. 
And Foster.  I apparently can't make peace with him easily.  Nor he with
me.  One cannot pull off a deception of that magnitude and expect it to be
forgotten.  Not in a few weeks.  Perhaps our senses of honor are too
disparate.  And how could he even think that I wouldn't allow him to see
his son?  Or daughter?  Or not want him to be an active part of his or her
life?  Handfasting is meant to be my assurance to him.  It's a pledge,
just as binding as marriage for its term.  And it means as much to me as
marriage, but it's separate from all the political ramifications that a
marriage would bring.

	I don't know...