Mabin was scolding her. While Karis stole away the hearts of her Paladins, Mabin had sat indoors, fuming. She had begun her rant even before Garland had taken Emil’s tea set and left in search of hot water. Her angry speech continued as Garland filled and almost immediately began refilling the little teacups. “… have you not even one thought of justice? Thousands of Shaftali people have been killed on their own soil, defending their own land. Do you think we can simply forget those wasted lives? The great talents of my generation and of yours–hunted down, extinguished, their knowledge and understandings forever lost. Our libraries burned, our university razed …”

Karis took the food tray from Garland, offered it to her friends, then balanced it on her knees. By the time Mabin had finally worn her anger into silence, Karis had drunk four cups of tea and eaten most of the pastries. The Paladins, having sung several songs, apparently had now begun to dance. Their heavy boots stamped out the rhythm on the wooden planks. Belatedly, some musical instruments began to play: a squealing fiddle, and a breathy flute.

“Are you done?” Karis said to Mabin. Her voice was racked, a raw edge of sound giving rough shape to hollow silence. She turned to look at the councilor, and added, “I hope?”

Mabin pursed her thin lips. “Will you respond?”

Karis ran fingers through her hair, which melting ice had left a damply curling tangle. “No,” she said.

“No?” Mabin’s voice rose. “No?”

Karis sat back in the chair, which gave an alarming squawk under her weight. “My logic supersedes yours.”

Mabin stared at her. Norina gave Karis an impressed glance, eyebrows raised. Emil said, “The Sainnites are weak, and we are rapidly becoming the kind of people who can do what we must do to overcome them, without any further trivial dithering over the morality of our actions. And then we’ll live in a land like Sainna, where all disagreements are decided by violence and every generation wreaks vengeance on the next. Is that the justice you want?”

Mabin seemed relieved that someone, at least, was willing to tangle with her. As though Medric, inconsequential in his shivering, red‑eyed misery of cold and weariness, were not even in the room, she said with disgust, “Is that what your Sainnite seer predicts?”

Emil said, “Medric was not the first to see it. When Zanja na’Tarwein was brutalized by Sainnites and then by Paladins, she rightly wondered what real difference there was between them and us. So she was the first to see that the habitual use of brute force was changing us, including she herself, into brutes. That’s a lesson you yourself managed to teach her.”

“Shall we be the victims of brutes instead? Shall we let them–”

Karis said, “If you want to convince me, you’d better come up with some new arguments.”

Though Karis’s voice was a mere shadow, at these words Mabin fell silent.

Norina said crisply, “Karis, you don’t need Mabin. Ask her to retire. Spare yourself and us the aggravation.”

Karis said wryly, “When Mabin raves at me how wrong I am, that’s the only time I’m certain that I’m right.”

Norina said, “You don’t need that certainty. You have your own, the certainty of action.”

As Garland leaned over Karis’s shoulder to take the teacup out of her hand and fill it up again, he noticed that her palms had been fissured by dry cold and hard work. J’han came in to report that Leeba was asleep. Garland whispered in his ear, and J’han went off to rummage in his pack, and returned to rub an unguent into Karis’s battered hands. Mabin, rigid, glared into the fire. Karis appeared to be considering Norina’s suggestion, but said finally, “Aggravate me all you want, Mabin. Shaftal needs its hero.”

Mabin cried, “By the land–you’re just like Harald!”

“Obstinate as a tree stump,” said Norina coolly.

Karis said in her shredded voice, “Oh, I don’t think so–a tree stump canbe moved.”

J’han, with a choked snort, dropped Karis’s hand. Emil fought for composure. Medric began to snicker helplessly. Apparently immune to their stifled hilarity, Norina said, “Councilor, you know that’s a truth to be ignored at your peril. Your continuing resistance will only force Karis to continue to humiliate you. I recommend another strategy, one that will make both of you less miserable.”

Mabin opened her mouth as though to utter a fresh recrimination. Norina raised her eyebrows. Mabin stopped herself, and took a breath. “Karis, what does Shaftal need of me?”

Emil gave Norina a congratulatory glance. Clearly, the two of them understood the shifts and starts of this conversation far more profoundly than Garland could hope to.

Karis said, “Responsibility. For Emil.”

This strangely worded request meant nothing to Garland, but Emil jerked with surprise. His fingers rose to his scarred earlobe, then he controlled the movement, and closed his mouth tightly over what Garland thought might be a strenuous objection.

Mabin said, “But Emil resigned from the Paladins.”

Emil replied in a strained, muted voice, “No, I resigned my position in South Hill. I wrote in my letter to you that I could no longer serve under your command. But I did not renounce my vows.”

After a moment’s thought, Mabin said with rigid discipline, “I see. And you are not refusing Karis’s request?”

Emil looked at Karis. Her lips were drawn tight; her jaw was set. He said unsteadily, “I know better than to refuse the will of Shaftal.”

Mabin seemed to be gathering herself to rise, and Garland said, “What do you need, Councilor?”

She glanced at him, surprised. “My commander.”

“And a cork,” said J’han, who was again rummaging in his pack.

Garland went out and signaled the commander, who came in and talked to Mabin, then bent over Emil’s huddled form and said something quietly to him, with a hand on his shoulder. Emil raised a tear‑stained face to talk to her.

J’han had opened his chest of surgical instruments, and selected a sturdy needle from among the strange devices. Garland examined the contents of his pockets: a packet of salt, a nutmeg, a short length of string, a tin of matches, a wad of tinder, a sewing kit, a tin of tea, and an array of corks. He offered them all to J’han. “Which one?”

“You keep corks in your pocket?”

“Where else would I keep them? J’han, I don’t understand what is happening. Why is Emil so unhappy?”

“He’s being promoted,” J’han said.

“And that makes him miserable? You people are nothinglike Sainnites.”

Smiling crookedly, J’han selected one of Garland’s corks, and stuck the needle in it. “Emil has always wanted to be a scholar. The last few years, he’s been calling himself a librarian. I never heard him express a desire to be a general. Give that to Karis, will you?” He handed Garland the needle and cork.

After Mabin’s commander had stepped out, Emil said shakily to Medric, “Master seer, what is my future?”

Medric said, with strange gentleness, “You know the answer, Emil.”

“Karis–!” Emil cried.

‘After what you’ve done to me–!“ Karis said.

Norina uttered a sharp laugh, perhaps because Karis’s aggrieved tone so exactly matched Emil’s.

Garland gave Karis the needle and cork, which she examined determinedly. He collected the empty teacups, and hung sodden clothing on hooks. J’han, having packed away his gear, went to Karis and appeared to be explaining to her the anatomy of ears, pointing at his own ear as an example. Emil withdrew into inexplicable suffering, and no one disturbed him.

When Mabin’s commander re‑entered the room, a dozen others followed her in. The Paladins were somber; the music in the big room had been silenced. The commander put three gold rings into Mabin’s hand.

Emil refused the handkerchief Medric offered, and knelt before Karis. No one seemed surprised that he was weeping; some of the Paladins seemed ready to weep themselves, in sympathy.