A fawkner's assistant wearing a slave's bracelets came by to offer a huge haunch of mutton, but Joss fed Scar lightly and sent the rest away. He remained in the semidarkness talking to the eagle about nothing in particular, just that soothing, mellow chatter necessary to allow the old eagle to adjust to the new surroundings, although all guest lofts were built exactly the same in every hall. But Scar had the patience and calm of a veteran and, when the second bell came, took the hood without fuss.

The same slave who had brought the mutton waited outside the door. They crossed the parade ground, skirted the west loft by an alley running along the sea side of the compound, and moved directly into the hall where the reeves and their community ate together every night under the eye of their marshal. He did not see the young man with scarred chin whose strange warning had raised so many alarms. A place on a bench awaited Joss, but not at the marshal's table. The marshal ate alone, still in his outdoor clothing. He was served by the old reeve, who had a habit, Joss noted, of tasting each dish before ladling out a portion onto his master's trencher.

Joss sat at the second-rank table among a flight of experienced reeves, stolid, laconic men and one woman who said nothing, apparently because it was now the custom at Argent Hall to listen to a reading while the meal was taken. A middle-aged woman read in a clear alto from a book of children's poetry about the origins and functions of the fourteen guilds, known to Joss from his schooling days when he'd been set the whole to memorize. It was as nourishing as straw.

Hew! The forester, strong and stern,

Swings with the axe the blacksmith forged.

Soon comes carter to haul the logs

To the shop where woodwright plies his turn.

Gods, how had he endured it then? Well, he had not, and had been caned on the hands more than once for his tricks when he got bored.

The mention of the carters got him thinking again about his dreams. Strange that he had folded the dying Silver's words into a dream and given them Marit's voice, as if to give himself an excuse to fly south straight into the fray rather than return with the wounded Peddo. For twenty years, hers was the only death he had never been able to leave behind.

The poem droned on and on.

Even bramble, healer uses

To give to dyer for handsome blues

Ghastly! He kept himself busy by sampling every dish, although he was careful to eat lightly, to avoid getting too full and thus too heavy. Argent Hall ate well: boiled fish covered with a spicy red chili sauce, rice cake, fried vegetables, nai porridge smothered in butter. Steamed spine-flower petals, heated just until their edges began to curl, were strewn over lamb basted in sharp ginger. The ubiquitous flat-bread and mounds of rice rounded out the meal.

Trenchers were cleared away and cups of wine brought. A cluster of giggling youths dressed in short, sleeveless tunics scurried into the hall. In the pause while this unprepossessing entertainment readied itself, his companions ventured a few comments.

"Clan Hall, is it?" asked the youngest of these veterans. He had a nose once broken but long since healed with a bump and a twist.

"It is," agreed Joss pleasantly.

They stared at him as though he had grown a second head. The man with the broken nose scratched an elbow.

"Toskala is besieged," said the woman. "How goes it there if foodstuffs can't come in or out?"

"Tss! What are you thinking?" demanded Broken Nose as two of the grizzled elders hissed through tight lips. She paled, shaking her head.

"Besieged?" Joss asked, startled and troubled by the comment. "Beleaguered, truly, but Toskala is not under siege. A strange turn that would be!"

"Beleaguered," said Broken Nose, elbowing the woman.

"That's right. That's what I heard." She wasn't a good liar.

Broken Nose continued. "That's what we heard. Refugees. Food shortages. Fighting in the hills. Fields laid waste in the night. What news have you heard, there in the north? What of the regions north of you? Heard you anything?"

Joss wanted to ask them why no one from Argent Hall had sent any manner of communication to Clan Hall this entire year, but the prickling along the back of his neck kept him quiet on this subject. He shrugged instead. "The north is lost to us. Few reeves dare patrol there now. The reeves of Gold Hall and Copper Hall say the same, of their territories that touch anywhere along the borders of Herelia and Vess. No news at all from the high vales, so I've heard. But that's only hearsay. The worst news-this I saw myself-is that High Haldia has come under attack. Under siege. Perhaps that's what you were thinking of."

Six of the seven youths fell into the familiar "talking line," and the seventh raised a stick and mirror-drum and commenced to beat out the pulse. As the storytellers fluttered their hands and stamped their feet, it took him a bit to start picking out the phrases from their gestures, because they were not accomplished: "bird flies to mountain" "the wind of ice weights its wings" "falling! falling!" "a cave" "the spring fountains, an overflowing wine cup carved into the stone" "caught in the current!" "the tumbling water spills into the hidden valley"…

This was the familiar Tale of Indiyabu, but he had never seen it performed so crudely. And at such length! Every hamlet and village had a girl or boy who had been trained in the Lady's garden and could entertain visiting dignitaries with a more graceful rendition; any member of the guild of entertainers would be shocked by this display. He yawned, caught himself, and forced a cough. Two of the older reeves were snoring softly. The woman watched her hands; her fingers twitched, as though they knew the gestures and wished to speak. Broken Nose stared at the marshal as if awaiting a signal, but if expressions were anything to go by, there was no love lost between him and the hall's master. Joss scanned the tables again, but the young man with the scarred chin remained absent. No one made a move to leave. Indeed, the audience seemed lulled into a stupor. By the Herald's Gate! Now they meant to repeat the entire thing for a third time!

It was a relief when the drumbeat ended, the marshal rose, and the company was allowed to depart. A row of tiny cells lined the southern exterior of the guest loft. Each cell had a sliding window built into the wall above the pallet to let the reeve check on his eagle at any time during the night. A slave indicated the cell he was meant to inhabit. The rest were obviously empty, doors ajar, pallets bare of mattresses, even. It appeared no visitors had stayed here in many months.

He made his last check of Scar for the night, finished his own ablutions, and paced out the cell to get his bearings in the wavering light of a small oil lamp. Four strides from door to pallet; four strides diagonal to the corner to the right of the door where a square chest, hip-high, could hold baggage and, with its lid closed, might also serve as a writing table; side to side the cell was three strides wide. There was a double shelf at the base of the pallet and some hooks set into the wall on which to hang clothing and gear. He slid the window open. The loft was dark and silent. Scar would alert him if anyone came through that way. Still wearing his leathers, he took off his boots, placed his quiver and staff on the floor just to the left of the pallet, and tucked his short sword between him and the wall. He hung the lamp from a hook and blew out the flame. Then he lay down, resting his head on his rolled-up cloak.

Maybe the food had been contaminated with sleeping herbs. Once he closed his eyes, he dropped so fast into slumber that he had a moment of disorientation before he was inexorably dragged under.

The dream unveiled itself in the gray unwinding of mist he has come to dread. He is walking within a forest of skeletal trees, and by this knows he is dead, awaiting rebirth. He is a ghost, hoping to wake up from the nightmare twenty years ago, but the dream has swallowed him and he walks in a world both sleeping and waking that has no Marit in it.