“Asra,” Valdir repeated, nodding. “West gate.”

“You tell him Renfry sent you, and you give him one silver. That's his standard bribe to let folks out after dark, and don't let him tell you different. Then when you get to the Border, you give the other to our lads. That'll get you past them. Valdemar folk don't give a hang about who crosses to their side, so long as you don't look like a fighter or a trader. Fighter they'd question, trader they'd tax. You got that?”

“One silver to Asra at the west gate, one to the Border Guards.”

“Good lad.” Renfry nodded approvingly. “Now belt that blanket around you under your cloak; you're going to need it, it's cold out there. When you get 'round the walls, you take the east road as far as the second farm on the right tonight. You stop there. There's a haybarn right on the road and the old boy that owns it don't give a hang if people sleep there so long as they don't build fires. After that, you're on your own.”

Valdir was pulling his threadbare cloak on over the blanket when the cook returned with his pack bursting at the seams. He tucked the two tiny coins into his now-empty purse, slung pack over one shoulder and lute over the other, and turned to Renfry, trying to think of some way to thank him.

Renfry took one look at his eyes, and softened. “Damn. Wish you could have stayed a while,” he said gruffly, and suddenly pulled Valdir into a quick, rough embrace. “Now get out of here, before Bel comes looking for you.”

Vanyel made the best meal he'd had in a fortnight of half a loaf, the cheese, and a couple of apples. Yfandes got the rest.

:Funny, how you seem to be able to find friends in the most unexpected places,: she mused. :Sometimes I wonder...:

“Friends? What are you talking about?” he asked her, cinching the blanket pad in place, and pulling himself up on her back. “Gods.” He clung there for a moment, as another wave of disorientation washed over him.

:Never mind. Are you all right?:

“I'll be fine. Just low on resources, and worn out.” Anxiety cramped his stomach a moment. He wouldn't have stopped long enough to eat if he hadn't found his legs giving out as he circled around the city to his meeting place with Yfandes. The shadows under the trees seemed sinister. The wind in the near-naked branches moaned as if in pain. He had to get back -

- but the old man was one of those that died. The thought kept nagging at him. He must have loved that old man, given his reaction to Jervis. That wasn't feigned. I can't believe that he would have killed the only person he trusted, even in a fit of uncontrolled rage and fear.

Never mind. The important thing was to take this knowledge back, now - before it was too late. Before the same thing could happen at Forst Reach. It still might not have been Tashir who killed the Remoerdis Family, but he dared not take that chance.

“All right, 'Fandes,” he said aloud. “Let's get out of here.”

And she leaped out onto the moon - flooded road.

Eleven

If Vanyel had dared to Gate so close to Vedric Mavelan he would have. But he didn't; he didn't dare alert him to the fact that a mage powerful enough to Gate had been within the city. If the Mavelans were somehow behind the disaster after all, he would be a fool to alert his quarry. So he and Yfandes pounded into Forst Reach just after dawn-

To find everything as peaceful as when they'd left.

:I told you,: Yfandes said, in a maddeningly reasonable tone of mind-voice as she pulled into a tired walk. :I told you if anything had gone wrong we'd have felt it, the way we felt the first surge. Didn't I tell you?:

Visions of slaughter and mayhem melted, taking with them the fear that had strengthened and supported him. When they got to the stable, Vanyel just slid wearily off her back, vowing not to say a word.

Because if he did, he'd take her head off. He hated it when she said, “I told you so.”

And he did not want to get into a fight with her, didn't even want to have words with her; she didn't deserve it.

Much.

He hurt; he ached all over, and he was half numb with cold. His legs trembled a little as he walked beside her into the stable, his boots and her hooves echoing hollowly on the wooden floor. He managed to get her stall open, and he spent as much time as he could leaning against something while he groomed her. There was, thank the gods, hay and water already waiting.

“Get some rest,” he told her, fatigue dulling his mind and slurring his words. “I'm going to do the same.”

He didn't remember how he got to his room; all he really remembered was leaving Medren's lute by the door, stripping his filthy rags off and dropping them on the floor as he staggered to his bed, and falling into the bed. Literally falling; his legs gave out at that point. He held onto consciousness just long enough to pull off the patched breeches and his boots, drag the blankets over himself and wrap them around his chilled, numb body; as soon as he stopped shivering, he was asleep, and oblivious to the world. At that point, Tashir could have replicated the massacre in Highjorune, and he'd have slept right through it.

He woke about mid-afternoon, still tired, but no worse than when he'd first arrived home. The filthy rags he'd worn were gone. Evidently one of the servants had come in and picked up after him, and it was a measure of his exhaustion that he not only hadn't woken, he hadn't even heard the intruder. He was not pleased with himself; carelessness like that could get him killed all too easily under other circumstances.

On the other hand, it means I'm obviously nowhere near as jumpy as I was, which is all to the good.

The first order of business was food and a bath, and stopping by the kitchen on the way to the bathhouse solved both at the same time.

But the next order of business - and one that made him wolf down the first decent meal he'd had in a fortnight practically untasted, and while he bathed - was a long talk with Jervis and Savil.

“The boy's staying so close to Jervis you'd think he'd been grafted there,” Savil said. Vanyel followed her out to the salle as the late afternoon sunlight gilded everything with a mellowing glow. “It's been entirely quiet, ke'chara. Not so much as a murmur out of the boy, or a single plate gone skyward.” She looked at him quizzically, with a touch of worry. “To see you practically flying back, and in this state - I wish you'd tell me what's going on.”

Vanyel shook his head, and his hair fell annoyingly into his eyes again. He hadn't had a chance to get it cut; it was a lot longer than he was used to wearing it, and he wasn't sure if he ought to find the time to do something about it or not. He raked it back with his fingers and suppressed his flash of annoyance at it. “I will, as soon as I have both you and Jervis together. I don't want to have to repeat myself, and I want to hear both of your opinions at the same time. It's - some of what I found out is terrifying, and none of it is pretty. And I don't know what to make of it.”

Savil brooded on that. “I thought you were going to find answers over there.”

“I did,” he replied, deeply troubled. “But the answers I found only gave me more questions.”

Jervis was alone in the workroom of the salle. Which might be the first piece of good luck I've had in a while, Vanyel thought with reluctance. Jervis' eyebrows went up when he saw the expression on Vanyel's face, but he didn't move from his chair; he only put down the vam-brace he'd been repairing, and waited for them to settle themselves.

“You're back, hmm?” the armsmaster said quietly. “From the look of you, I don't know as I'm going to like what you're going to tell me.”

Vanyel shut the door carefully behind Savil; he would have preferred to stand, but he was just too tired. He compromised by perching on a tall stool, and then looked from Jervis to his aunt and back again, at a real loss as to how to broach the whole subject.