Funny, isn't it? In MY world torturers do not fare well.

The cousins eyed each other warily throughout the brief ritual, Black Lion and Silver Stallion metaphorically circling as they engaged in casual conversation.

Another chapter completed - a very brief one - as the dynamics of the principality shift. The plague years took their toll, of course, and too much responsibility has fallen too quickly on the younger generation as they try to rebuild their world.

A second cousin has been invested with his county, invested by the same despised relative. Now to explain the genesis of the assassination that triggers the war, an assassination that has nothing to do with ambitious claimants to the throne, though they will take advantage of it. It will be a very personal and non-political action. And then: How quickly can we devolve into our bestial worst?

Btw, there will be no more torture under the regime that follows the war. (Now, where did that theme come from? Oh yes, that's right! I thought of Cheney/Bush while writing the first volume of the Chronicles. There will be happier, more hopeful days at the end of volume three.)

--the BB