We had trav­elled on the road for sev­eral nights, ghost­ing si­lently through many small ham­lets be­fore we came to a town of any size. Dawn over­took us as we ap­proached the out­skirts. When some early mer­chants with a cart of caged chick­ens over­took us, we knew it was time to get out of sight. We settled for the day­light hours on a small rise that let us look down on a town built half out onto the river. When I could not sleep, I sat and watched the com­merce on the road be­low us. Small boats and large were tied at the docks of the town. Oc­ca­sion­ally the wind brought me the shouts of the crews un­load­ing from the ships. Once I even heard a snatch of song. To my sur­prise, I found my­self drawn to my own kind. I left Nighteyes sleep­ing, but only went as far as the creek at the foot of the hill. I set my­self to wash­ing out my shirt and leg­gings.

  We should avoid this place. They will try to kill you if you go there, Nighteyes offered help­fully. He was sit­ting on a creek bank be­side me, watch­ing me wash my­self as even­ing darkened the sky. My shirt and leg­gings were al­most dry. I had been at­tempt­ing to ex­plain to him why I wished to have him wait for me while I went into the town to the inn there.

  Why would they want to kill me?

  We are strangers, com­ing into their hunt­ing grounds. Why shouldn’t they try to kill us?

  Hu­mans are not like that, I ex­plained pa­tiently.

  No. You are right. They will prob­ably just put you in a cage and beat you.

  No they won’t, I in­sis­ted firmly to cover my own fears that per­haps someone might re­cog­nize me.

  They did be­fore, he in­sis­ted. Both of us. And that was your own pack.

  I could not deny that. So I prom­ised, I will be very, very care­ful. I shall not be long. I just want to go listen to them talk for a bit, to find out what is hap­pen­ing.

  Why should we care what is hap­pen­ing to them? What is hap­pen­ing to us is that we are neither hunt­ing, nor sleep­ing, nor trav­el­ling. They are not pack with us.

  It may tell us what to ex­pect, fur­ther on our jour­ney. I may find out if the roads are heav­ily trav­elled, if there is work I can take for a day or so to get a few coins. That sort of thing.

  We could simply travel on and find out for ourselves, Nighteyes poin­ted out stub­bornly.

  I dragged on my shirt and leg­gings over my damp skin. I combed my hair back with my fin­gers, squeezed the mois­ture from it. Habit made me tie it back in a war­rior’s tail. Then I bit my lip, con­sid­er­ing. I had planned to rep­res­ent my­self as a wan­der­ing scribe. I took it out of its tail and shook it loose. It came al­most to my shoulders. A bit long for a scribe’s hair. Most of them kept their hair short, and shaved it back from the brow line to keep it from their eyes when they worked. Well, with my un­trimmed beard and shaggy hair, per­haps I could be taken for a scribe who had been long without work. Not a good re­com­mend­a­tion for my skills, but given the poor sup­plies I had, per­haps that was best.

  I tugged my shirt straight to make my­self present­able. I fastened my belt, checked to be sure my knife sat se­curely in its sheath, and then hef­ted the paltry weight of my purse. The flint in it weighed more than the coins. I did have the four sil­ver bits from Burrich. A few months ago it would not have seemed like much money. Now it was all I had, and I re­solved not to spend it un­less I must. The only other wealth I had was the ear­ring Burrich had given me and the pin from Shrewd. Re­flex­ively my hand went to the ear­ring. As an­noy­ing as it could be when we were hunt­ing through dense brush, the touch of it al­ways re­as­sured me. Like­wise the pin in the col­lar of my shirt.

  The pin that wasn’t there.

  I took the shirt off and checked the en­tire col­lar, and then the com­plete gar­ment. I meth­od­ic­ally kindled a small fire for light. Then I un­did my bundle com­pletely and went through everything in it, not once, but twice. This des­pite my al­most cer­tain know­ledge of where the pin was. The small red ruby in its nest of sil­ver was in the col­lar of a shirt worn by a dead man out­side the shep­herd’s hut. I was all but cer­tain, and yet I could not ad­mit it to my­self. All the while I searched, Nighteyes prowled in an un­cer­tain circle around my fire, whin­ing in soft agit­a­tion about an anxi­ety he sensed but could not com­pre­hend. ‘Shush!’ I told him ir­rit­ably and forced my mind to go back over the events as if I were go­ing to re­port to Shrewd.

  The last time I could re­mem­ber hav­ing the pin was the night I had driven Burrich and Shrewd away. I had taken it out of the shirt’s col­lar and showed it to them both, and then sat look­ing at it. Then I had put it back. I could not re­call hand­ling it since then. I could not re­call tak­ing it out of the shirt when I washed it. It seemed I should have jabbed my­self with it when I washed it if it was still there. But I usu­ally pushed the pin into a seam where it would hold tighter. It had seemed safer so. I had no way of know­ing if I had lost it hunt­ing with the wolf, or if it were still in the shirt the dead man wore. Per­haps it had been left on the table, and one of the Forged ones had picked up the bright thing when they pawed through my pos­ses­sions.

  It was just a pin, I re­minded my­self. With a sick long­ing I wished I would sud­denly see it, caught in the lin­ing of my cloak or tumbled in­side my boot. In a sud­den flash of hope, I checked in­side both boots again. It still wasn’t there. Just a pin, just a bit of worked metal and a gleam­ing stone. Just the token King Shrewd had given me when he claimed me, when he cre­ated a bond between us to re­place the blood one that could never be le­git­im­ately re­cog­nized. Just a pin, and all I had left of my king and my grand­father. Nighteyes whined again, and I felt an ir­ra­tional urge to snarl back at him. He must have known that, but still he came, flip­ping my el­bow up with his nose and then bur­row­ing his head un­der my arm un­til his great grey head was up against my chest and my arm around his shoulders. He tossed his nose up sud­denly, clack­ing his muzzle pain­fully against my chin. I hugged him hard, and he turned to rub his throat against my face. The ul­ti­mate ges­ture of trust, wolf to wolf, that bar­ing of the throat to an­other’s pos­sible snarl. After a mo­ment I sighed, and the pain of loss I felt over the thing was less.

  It was just a thing from a yes­ter­day, Nighteyes wondered hes­it­antly. A thing no longer here? It is not a thorn in your paw, or a pain in your belly?

  ‘Just a thing from yes­ter­day,’ I had to agree. A pin that had been given to a boy who no longer ex­is­ted by a man who had died. Per­haps it was as well, I thought to my­self. One less thing that might con­nect me to FitzChiv­alry the Wit­ted. I ruffled the fur on the back of his neck, then scratched be­hind his ears. He sat up be­side me, then nudged me to get me to rub his ears again. I did, think­ing as I did so. Per­haps I should take off Burrich’s ear­ring and keep it con­cealed in my pouch. But I knew I would not. Let it be the one link I car­ried for­ward from that life to this one. ‘Let me up,’ I told the wolf, and he re­luct­antly stopped lean­ing on me. Meth­od­ic­ally I re­packed my pos­ses­sions into a bundle and fastened it, then trampled out the tiny fire.

  ‘Shall I come back here or meet you on the other side of town?’

  Other side?

  If you circle about the town and then come back to­ward the river, you will find more of the road there, I ex­plained. Shall we find one an­other there?

  That would be good. The less time we spend near this den of hu­mans, the bet­ter.

  Fine, then. I shall find you there be­fore morn­ing, I told him.

  More likely, I shall find you, numb nose. And I shall have a full belly when I do.

  I had to con­cede that was like­lier.

  Watch out for dogs, I warned him as he faded into the brush.

  You watch out for men, he re­joined, and then was lost to my senses save for our Wit-bond.

  I slung my pack over my shoulder and made my way down to the road. It was full dark now. I had in­ten­ded to reach town be­fore dark and stop at a tav­ern for the talk and per­haps a mug, and then be on my way. I had wanted to walk through the mar­ket square and listen in on the talk of the mer­chants. In­stead I walked into a town that was mostly abed. The mar­ket was deser­ted save for a few dogs nos­ing in the empty stalls for scraps. I left the square and turned my steps to­ward the river. Down there I would find inns and tav­erns aplenty to ac­com­mod­ate the river trade. A few torches burned here and there through­out the town, but most of the light in the streets was what spilled from poorly-shuttered win­dows. The roughly-cobbled streets were not well kept up. Sev­eral times I mis­took a hole for a shadow and nearly stumbled. I stopped a town watch­man be­fore he could stop me, to ask him to re­com­mend a wa­ter­front inn to me. The Scales, he told me, was as fair and hon­est to trav­el­lers as its name im­plied, and was eas­ily found as well. He warned me sternly that beg­ging was not tol­er­ated there, and that cut­purses would be lucky if a beat­ing was all they got. I thanked him for his warn­ings and went on my way.

  I found the Scales as eas­ily as the watch­man had said I would. Light spilled out from its open door, and with it the voices of two wo­men singing a merry round. My heart cheered at the friendly sound of it, and I entered without hes­it­a­tion. Within the stout walls of mud brick and heavy tim­bers was a great open room, low-ceilinged and rich with the smells of meat and smoke and river­folk. A cook­ing hearth at one end of the room had a fine spit of meat in its maw, but most folk were gathered at the cooler end of the room on this fine sum­mer even­ing. There the two min­strels had dragged chairs up on top of a table and were twin­ing their voices to­gether. A grey-haired fel­low with a harp, evid­ently part of their group, was sweat­ing at an­other table as he fastened a new string to his in­stru­ment. I judged them a mas­ter and two jour­ney sing­ers, pos­sibly a fam­ily group. I stood watch­ing them sing to­gether, and my mind went back to Buck­keep and the last time I had heard mu­sic and seen folk gathered to­gether. I did not real­ize I was star­ing un­til I saw one of the wo­men sur­repti­tiously el­bow the other and make a minute ges­ture at me. The other wo­man rolled her eyes, then re­turned my look. I looked down, red­den­ing. I sur­mised I had been rude and turned my eyes away.

  I stood on the out­skirts of the group, and joined in the ap­plause when the song ended. The fel­low with the harp was ready by then, and he coaxed them into a gentler tune, one with the steady rhythm of oars as its beat. The wo­men sat on the edge of the table, back to back, their long black hair ming­ling as they sang. Folk sat down for that one, and some few moved to tables against the wall for quiet talk. I watched the man’s fin­gers on the strings of the harp, mar­vel­ling at the swift­ness of his fin­gers. In a mo­ment a red-cheeked boy was at my el­bow, ask­ing what I would have. Just a mug of ale, I told him, and swiftly he was back with it and the hand­ful of cop­pers that were the re­mains of my sil­ver piece. I found a table not too far from the min­strels, and rather hoped someone would be curi­ous enough to join me. But other than a few glances from ob­vi­ously reg­u­lar cus­tom­ers, no one seemed much in­ter­es­ted in a stranger. The min­strels ended their song and began talk­ing amongst them­selves. A glance from the older of the two wo­men made me real­ize I was star­ing again. I put my eyes on the table.

  Halfway down the mug, I real­ized I was no longer ac­cus­tomed to ale, es­pe­cially not on an empty stom­ach. I waved the boy back to my table and asked for a plate of din­ner. He brought me a fresh cut of meat from the spit with a serving of stewed root ve­get­ables and broth spilled over it. That, and a re­filling of my mug took away most of my cop­per pieces. When I raised my eye­brows over the prices, the boy looked sur­prised. ‘It’s half what they’d charge you at the Yar­darm Knot, sir,’ he told me in­dig­nantly. ‘And the meat is good mut­ton, not someone’s randy old goat come to a bad end.’

  I tried to smooth things over, say­ing, ‘Well, I sup­pose a sil­ver bit just doesn’t buy what it used to.’

  ‘Per­haps not, but it’s scarcely my fault,’ he ob­served cheekily, and went back to his kit­chens.

  ‘Well, there’s a sil­ver bit gone faster than I ex­pec­ted,’ I chided my­self.

  ‘Now that’s a tune we all know,’ ob­served the harper. He was sit­ting with his back to his own table, ap­par­ently watch­ing me as his two part­ners dis­cussed some prob­lem they were hav­ing with a pipe. I nod­ded at him with a smile, and then spoke aloud when I no­ticed that his eyes were hazed over grey.

  ‘I’ve been away from the river road for a while. A long while, ac­tu­ally, about two years. The last time I was through here, inns and food were less ex­pens­ive.’

  ‘Well, I’d wager you could say that about any­where in the Six Duch­ies, at least the coastal ones. The say­ing now is that we get new taxes more of­ten than we get a new moon.’ He glanced about us as if he could see, and I guessed he had not been blind long. ‘And the other new say­ing is that half the taxes go to feed the Far­row men who col­lect them.’

  ‘Josh!’ one of his part­ners re­buked him, and he turned to her with a smile.

  ‘You can’t tell me there are any about just now, Honey. I’ve a nose that could smell a Far­row man at a hun­dred paces.’

  ‘And can you smell who you are talk­ing to, then?’ she asked him wryly. Honey was the older of the two wo­men, per­haps my age.

  ‘A lad a bit down on his luck, I’d say. And there­fore, not some fat Far­row man come to col­lect taxes. Be­sides, I knew he couldn’t be one of Bright’s col­lect­ors the mo­ment he star­ted sniv­el­ling over the price of din­ner. When have you known one of them to pay for any­thing at an inn or tav­ern?’

  I frowned to my­self at that. When Shrewd had been on the throne, noth­ing was taken by his sol­diers or tax-col­lect­ors without some re­com­pense offered. Evid­ently it was a nicety Lord Bright did not ob­serve, at least in Buck. But it did re­call me to my own man­ners.

  ‘May I of­fer to re­fill your mug, Harper Josh? And those of your com­pan­ions as well?’

  ‘What’s this?’ asked the old man, between a smile and a raised eye­brow. ‘You growl about spend­ing coin to fill your belly, but you’d put it down will­ingly to fill mugs for us?’

  ‘Shame to the lord that takes min­strels’ songs, and leaves their throats dry from the singing of it,’ I replied with a smile.

  The wo­men ex­changed glances be­hind Josh’s back, and Honey asked me with gentle mock­ery, ‘And when were you last a lord, young fel­low?’

  ‘’Tis but a say­ing,’ I said after a mo­ment, awk­wardly. ‘But I wouldn’t grudge the coin for the songs I’ve heard, es­pe­cially if you’ve a bit of news to go with it. I’m headed up the river road; have you per­chance just come down?’

  ‘No, we’re headed up that way ourselves,’ put in the younger wo­man brightly. She was per­haps four­teen, with start­lingly blue eyes. I saw the other wo­man make a hush­ing mo­tion at her. She in­tro­duced them. ‘As you’ve heard, good sir, this is Harper Josh, and I am Honey. My cousin is Piper. And you are … ?’

  Two blun­ders in one short con­ver­sa­tion. One, to speak as if I still resided at Buck­keep and these were vis­it­ing min­strels, and the other, to have no name planned out. I searched my mind for a name, and then after a bit too much of a pause, blur­ted out, ‘Cob’. And then wondered with a shiver why I had taken to my­self the name of a man I’d known and killed.

  ‘Well … Cob,’ and Honey paused be­fore say­ing the name just as I had, ‘we might have a bit of news for you, and we’d wel­come a mug of any­thing, whether you’re lately a lord or not. Just who are you hop­ing we won’t have seen on the road look­ing for you?’

  ‘Beg par­don?’ I asked quietly, and then lif­ted my own empty mug to sig­nal the kit­chen-boy.

  ‘He’s a run­away ’pren­tice, Father,’ Honey told her father with great cer­tainty. ‘He car­ries a scribe’s case strapped to his bundle, but his hair’s grown out, and there’s not even a dot of ink on his fin­gers.’ She laughed at the chag­rin on my face, little guess­ing the cause. ‘Oh, come, … Cob, I’m a min­strel. When we aren’t singing, we’re wit­ness­ing any­thing we can to find a deed to base a song on. You can’t ex­pect us not to no­tice things.’

  ‘I’m not a run­away ap­pren­tice,’ I said quietly, but had no ready lie to fol­low the state­ment. How Chade would have rapped my knuckles over this blun­der­ing!

  ‘We don’t care if you are, lad,’ Josh com­for­ted me. ‘In any case, we haven’t heard any cry of angry scribers look­ing for lost ap­pren­tices. These days, most would be happy if their bound lads ran away … one less mouth to feed in hard times.’

  ‘And a scriber’s boy scarcely gets a broken nose, or a scarred face like that from a pa­tient mas­ter,’ Piper ob­served sym­path­et­ic­ally. ‘So small blame to you if you did run away.’

  The kit­chen-boy came at last, and they were mer­ci­ful to my flat purse, or­der­ing no more than mugs of beer for them­selves. First Josh, and then the wo­men came to share my table. The kit­chen-boy must have thought bet­ter of me for treat­ing the min­strels well, for when he brought their mugs, he re­filled mine as well, and did not charge me for it. Still, it broke an­other sil­ver bit to cop­pers to pay for their drinks. I tried to be philo­soph­ical about it, and re­minded my­self to leave a cop­per bit for the boy when I left.

  ‘So, then,’ I began when the boy had left, ‘what news from down­river, then?’