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debt, and that horse as well."
    But when he reached for the jewels, the great black horse bared its teeth, grabbed him by the shoulder, dragged him from the hall, and then—with a swing of its neck—threw him elsewhere, beyond human sight or knowing. His soldiers, all affrighted, ran away, and the evil king's body was never found. Then the horse pranced back into the hall and bowed to Torre, tossing its head until the necklace of jewels slid off its head and over hers, to hang around her neck instead. In that instant her youth was restored: her hair black and curly, her body strong and lithe, and her clothes no longer ragged, but whole and unfaded. Her father reached out to her, tears of joy this time streaming down his face.
    But Torre bowed to her father, and shook her head, refusing his touch. "I have others to care for," she said. "Use the treasure well." She mounted the black horse; it rose, whirled, and trotted out of the hall. No one saw where it went, nor did Torre ever return.
    That night new stars appeared in the sky, a ring of twelve, brighter than any around them. Torre's Necklace, the proof of impossible deeds done, and the hope of many. Torre herself continues to perform great deeds of rescue and succor, though none can predict where or when she will answer requests.

Author's Note on "Torre's Ride"
    Torre is another part of the deep background created as I was writing The Deed of Paksenarrion , and her original legend is in the missing notebooks. I'm sure I'll find them someday. Maybe. I hope so, because there's a story in the same source about Torre and the Master Shepherd that I'd really like to have in its original form. At any rate, Torre's legend is also so old it cannot be dated. She is the patron of hopeless causes, throughout the lands once governed by magelords. Among the Horsefolk she and her legend are remembered differently. This, however, is the legend as known in the Eight Kingdoms. Torre's followers never organized as did Falk's and Gird's and Camwyn's; there are no "Knights of Torre".

A Parrion of Cooking
    When the duke's men rode into the vill and demanded a maid or two to take back to the main house for training, Farintod's father pushed her out into the lane. "Here she is," her father said, his hands firm on her shoulders. "A true parrion for cooking she has."
    The soldiers looked her up and down. "She's over-young," the leader said. "How can you be sure?"
    "She makes good bread. Better than most. Take her and see," her father said. He pushed harder, sticking his thumb under her shoulder-blade to make her stand tall. "A hard worker, too. She's stronger than she looks."
    Farintod didn't fight him. Six hungry sibs in the hut, and no more food to be had; her tiny share would mean more to the youngest than to her. The soldier nodded to the others; two of them dismounted, put a rope around her neck, re-mounted, and led her behind them like a dog.
    She stumbled along, red-faced, humiliated, frightened, while the men laughed and teased her about her clumsiness. Soon there were five, three girls and two boys, all leashed to riders, all eventually standing—naked, wet, and shivering from the buckets of water thrown on "those filthy things"—to speak a name and a skill to a tall man in thick clothes and boots. Farintod gave her name and—as her father had told her—claimed a parrion of cooking.
    "A parrion, is it? Or do you just know how to boil water?"
    "A parrion," Farintod said. "I make the bread—"
    "We shall see," the man said. He jerked his head at one of the other men. "Fetch the cook. This one's to the kitchen if Cook'll have her."
    Goltha Cook had taken her inside, into the warm kitchen, and asked her questions—how did she make bread, what foods could she cook—and then had her demonstrate what she knew. And then she had become Cook's assistant, learning day by day the use of spices she had never known, and more uses of the ones known to every peasant. Cook was twelve years dead now,