"Where's the new one?" he called when he was within earshot. It was the sergeant of their company. "Master wants him to come."

"Heh," snickered Rabbit.

"He always interviews the new ones," said Twist with a sneer. "Sees right through you, if you take my meaning."

Kesh did not, but he saw no chance to escape with three armed men beside him and he with only a knife and an unstrung bow for which he had no arrows and no facility. So it would end badly after all, and just in the teeth of his victory. Fortune had turned its back on him, that was clear.

He trudged to the tent with the sergeant beside him.

"Young man come to my company a month back," remarked the sergeant, "and didn't take to our way of doing things here. So I had to break all his fingers. I did that, you see, to get him to tell me why he'd come. It seems some folk from Nessumara had sent out a few likely lads to scout the land, see what was up. I just don't like folk who will go tattling tales of me to people who don't like me. But he fessed up pretty quickly after I got to cutting off his fingers."

"Did he now?" asked Keshad, thinking of the marketplace and how you could never let your true feelings show. "What happened then?"

"Oh, it seemed a kindness just to slit his throat. I'm not one for drawing it out, although I admit a few of my soldiers asked me to let them have a go. I don't think that's right, once you've gotten what you need. I just killed him. Most likely the vultures ate him, if the Lady was feeling as kindly as I was. Here you go."

He motioned for Kesh to go through a rigged-up entryway made of hanging cloth and in under the canvas roof. Kesh heard the sounds of the creature moving within the shed. It seemed to be eating or drinking; it made horse-like noises, so that in hearing it one would think it a horse. But horses had wings only in the old stories.

In the stories about the Guardians, who had long since vanished from the Hundred.

If this was a lord's resting place, then it was no better furnished than the hovel of a simple farmer. There was a pallet covered with a thin blanket, a folding table on which stood a bronze ewer and basin, and a small traveler's chest so old its edges were smoothed to a shiny curve and its planks were warped.

The man sat on a stool, still dressed for travel. If he was a lord, then he wore clothes common to every laborer: a long knee-length linen jacket dyed an indeterminate color that the candle flame did nothing to distinguish; wide-legged trousers; knee-high boots that looked well worn and scuffed. His dark cloak pooled around his hips and thighs as if he had scooped it over them to keep himself warm.

He looked up as Kesh halted uneasily before him. He had a strange cast of face, a little broader across the cheekbones, a shade different in complexion, the shape of the eyes more exotic, twisted and pulled. Something about his features seemed passing familiar. He might be an outlander, or else the son of some hidden corner of the Hundred whose folk rarely left their home valley, a person glimpsed once and recalled now in a spin of dizziness. No, Kesh had never seen this man before. His eyes were so brown as to be black, and they were like holes driven into Kesh's heart to lay bare his secrets.

He spoke with a slight drawling accent that Kesh could not place. "You were picked up by this troop yesterday afternoon, so I hear."

"Yes." Kesh kept it short. He didn't know how to address him, or how to stop from breaking down into tears out of fear.

"Before they found you, the troop was met by a reeve who was carrying a hierodule who said you are her slave."

"So I hear. I didn't witness that meeting myself."

"Naturally." Almost, he might be about to smile, but instead the expression made Kesh shiver as if a ghost were breathing on his neck.

The candle burned straight up. There was no wind, nothing to sway that flame. The horse bumped and snuffled within the shed.

"You are not what you claim," said the man.

Kesh could say nothing, because he was pinned by that stare. The air had grown as hot as the hell where dance those lilu who have not yet found a crack through which to wiggle out onto the mortal world. He was hot and cold together, so frightened he thought he might faint.

"It would matter to the others, although not to me," said the man cryptically. "I ask, and you must answer. Do you mean to harm me or mine?"

"No." The word was forced out of him by a vise gripping and squeezing until only the truth was left. "I care nothing for you or yours."

"How can you know, since you have not asked who me or mine are? Yet strange as it seems, you are telling the truth. Very well." He raised a hand as though the effort taxed him. "Go. Best if you not come to my attention again."

Kesh backed out so fast through the curtained entrance that he stumbled as soon as he was outside and fell on his backside hard enough to jostle the ginnies. They hissed at him, and Magic nipped at his wrist as if to warn him to be more careful next time, an "I told you so."

He had forgotten about the ginnies! They had lain so still in the sling that the lord had not noticed them at all. Usually they made their feelings known. Not this time. They had chosen to avoid the man's notice.

The sergeant glanced at him, unamused by his pratfall. "Go back to your post."

He scrambled up, soothed the ginnies, and hobbled back to the sentry post. Best stick to the routine and do nothing, absolutely nothing, that would bring him to the attention of that man and his horrible stare.

He knows all and everything, all my secrets, all my crimes, all my hopes and all my fears. But he let me go anyway.

"Heh," said Rabbit, seeing him return.

"Passed muster," said Twist with a sly, cruel grin.

Kesh grunted a noncommittal reply. Above, the stars shone bright and cold, while the night was warm and the tender breeze a balmy presence. The trees whispered in a mild conversation. A nighthawk kurred. All was quiet.

No, it was only an illusion brought on by the tension of his situation, caught in the midst of an invading force whose soldiers would as easily kill him as spare him. There had been nothing strange about that man, nothing at all. Any clever man might spout truisms like "you are not what you claim to be" and "you're not telling the truth" to the kind of twisted, rabbity men willing to join this manner of army, and know he was hitting the mark.

He had certainly imagined the wings on that horse. It was only the play of shadow in the night.

There, now. That was better. The sergeant was a bigger threat. Did he suspect, or had Kesh truly passed muster? He had to glean any useful information before he made his eventual escape. He couldn't think any other way. Never give in to fear.

"What is the lord's name?" he asked, treading softly on this new ground. Each word was like the snap of a finger being pinned back and broken. "Where does he come from?"

Rabbit shuddered and turned away as the smell of urine spread sharply off him. He had wet himself. He began to weep with small, animal noises. "They scare me," he whimpered. "They scare me. Stop it. Stop asking."

Twist snarled, and the ginnies hissed in answer, crests rising as they stirred along Kesh's arm.

"Best keep your mouth shut." Twist's voice rose in pitch until he fought himself and controlled it with a grimace of dismay. "Best keep it shut and ask no more questions. If you want to stay alive. The lords don't like those who question. That one-he's the kindliest. He only burns you."

"What do you mean? Like he, uh-" Now that he had set out to say it, he realized the words might make them suspicious again, but it would be worse to break off as though he had something to hide."-uh, sets people on fire, bound in a cage, like they do in the empire to execute criminals?"