‘That’s true, and my thanks to your Capa­man for his gen­er­os­ity,’ I said mildly. I was already look­ing for a way to ex­tric­ate my­self.

  ‘So. What brings you to Pome?’ the other asked. He was taller than his in­dol­ent friend, and more muscled.

  ‘Look­ing for work.’ I met his pale eyes squarely. ‘I’ve been told there’s a hir­ing fair in Trade­ford.’

  ‘And what kind of work would you be good at, beg­gar? Scare­crow? Or do you per­haps draw the rats out of a man’s house with your smell?’ He set an el­bow on the table, too close to me, and then leaned for­ward on it, as if to show me the bunch­ing of muscle in his arm.

  I took a breath, then two. I felt some­thing I had not felt in a while. There was the edge of fear, and that in­vis­ible quiv­er­ing that ran over me when I was chal­lenged. I knew, too, that at times it be­came the trem­bling that pres­aged a fit. But some­thing else built in­side me as well, and I had al­most for­got­ten the feel of it. An­ger. No. Fury. The mind­less, vi­ol­ent fury that gave me the strength to lift an axe and sever a man’s shoulder and arm from his body, or fling my­self at him and choke the life out of his body re­gard­less of how he pum­melled at me as I did so.

  In a sort of awe I wel­comed it back and wondered what had summoned it. Had it been re­call­ing friends taken from me for ever, or the battle scenes I had Skill-dreamed so of­ten re­cently? It didn’t mat­ter. I had the weight of a sword at my hip and I doubted that the dolts were aware of it, or aware of how I could use it. Prob­ably they’d never swung any blade but a scythe, prob­ably never seen any blood other than that of a chicken or cow. They’d never awakened at night to a dog’s bark­ing and wondered if it were Raid­ers com­ing, never come in from a day’s fish­ing pray­ing that when the cape was roun­ded, the town would still be stand­ing. Bliss­fully ig­nor­ant farm-boys, liv­ing fat in soft river coun­try far from the em­battled coast, with no bet­ter way to prove them­selves than to bait a stranger or taunt caged men.

  Would that all Six Duch­ies boys were so ig­nor­ant.

  I star­ted as if Ver­ity had laid his hand on my shoulder. Al­most I looked be­hind me. In­stead, I sat mo­tion­less, grop­ing in­side me to find him, but found noth­ing. Noth­ing.

  I could not say for cer­tain the thought had come from him. Per­haps it was my own wish. And yet it was so like him, I could not doubt its source. My an­ger was gone as sud­denly as they had roused it, and I looked at them in a sort of sur­prise, startled to find they were still there. Boys, yes, no more than big boys, rest­less and aching to prove them­selves. Ig­nor­ant and cal­lous as young men of­ten were. Well, I would neither be a prov­ing ground for their man­hood, nor would I spill their blood in the dust on their Capa­man’s wed­ding feast.

  ‘I think per­haps I have over­stayed my wel­come,’ I said gravely, and rose from the table. I had eaten enough, and I knew I did not need the half-mug of ale that sat be­side it. I saw them meas­ure me as I stood and saw one startle plainly when he saw the sword that hung at my side. The other stood, as if to chal­lenge my leav­ing, but I saw his friend give his head a minus­cule shake. With the odds evened, the brawny farm-boy stepped away from me with a sneer, draw­ing back as if to keep my pres­ence from soil­ing him. It was strangely easy to ig­nore the in­sult. I did not back away from them, but turned and walked off into the dark­ness, away from the mer­ry­mak­ing and dan­cing and mu­sic. No one fol­lowed me.

  I sought the wa­ter­front, pur­pose grow­ing in me as I strode along. So I was not far from Trade­ford, not far from Regal. I felt a sud­den de­sire to pre­pare my­self for him. I would get a room at an inn to­night, one with a bath­house, and I would bathe and shave. Let him look at me, at the scars he had put upon me, and know who killed him. And af­ter­wards? If I lived for there to be an af­ter­wards, and if any who saw me knew me, so be it. Let it be known that the Fitz had come back from his grave to work a true King’s Justice on this would-be king.

  Thus for­ti­fied, I passed by the first two inns I came to. From one came shouts that were either a brawl or an ex­cess of good fel­low­ship; in either case, I was not likely to get much sleep there. The second had a sag­ging porch and a door hung crooked on its hinges. I de­cided that did not bode well for the up­keep of the beds. I chose in­stead one that dis­played an inn board of a kettle, and kept a night torch burn­ing out­side to guide trav­el­lers to its door.

  Like most of the lar­ger build­ings in Pome, the inn was built of river­stone and mor­tar and floored with the same. There was a big hearth at the end of the room, but only a sum­mer fire in it, just enough to keep the prom­ised kettle of stew sim­mer­ing. Des­pite my re­cent meal, it smelled good to me. The tap-room was quiet, much of the trade drawn off to the Capa­man’s wed­ding cel­eb­ra­tion. The innkeeper looked as if he were or­din­ar­ily a friendly sort, but a frown creased his brow at the sight of me. I set a sil­ver piece on the table be­fore him to re­as­sure him. ‘I’d like a room for the night, and a bath.’

  He looked me up and down doubt­fully. ‘If ye take the bath first,’ he spe­ci­fied firmly.

  I grinned at him. ‘I’ve no prob­lems with that, good sir. I’ll be wash­ing out my clothes as well; no fear I’ll bring ver­min to the bed­ding.’

  He nod­ded re­luct­antly and sent a lad to the kit­chens for hot wa­ter. ‘You’ve come a long way, then?’ he offered as a pleas­antry as he showed me the way to the bath­house be­hind the inn.

  ‘A long way and a bit be­side. But there’s a job wait­ing for me in Trade­ford, and I’d like to look my best when I go to do it.’ I smiled as I said it, pleased with the truth of it.

  ‘Oh, a job wait­ing. I see, then, I see. Yes, best to show up clean and res­ted, and there’s the pot of soap in the corner, and don’t be shy about us­ing it.’

  Be­fore he left, I begged the use of a razor, for the wash­room boas­ted a look­ing-glass, and he was glad to fur­nish me one. The boy brought it with the first bucket of hot wa­ter. By the time he had fin­ished filling the tub, I had taken off the length of my beard to make it shavable. He offered to wash my clothes out for me for an ex­tra cop­per, and I was only too happy to let him. He took them from me with a wrink­ling of his nose that showed me I smelled far worse than I had sus­pec­ted. Evid­ently my trek through the swamps had left more evid­ence than I had thought.

  I took my time, soak­ing in the hot wa­ter, slath­er­ing my­self with the soft soap from the pot, then scrub­bing vig­or­ously be­fore rins­ing off. I washed my hair twice be­fore the lather ran white in­stead of grey. The wa­ter that I left in the tub was thicker than the chalky river wa­ter. For once I went slowly enough with my shav­ing that I only cut my­self twice. When I sleeked my hair back and bound it in a war­rior’s tail I looked up to find a face in the mir­ror that I scarcely re­cog­nized.

  It had been months since I’d last seen my­self, and then it had been in Burrich’s small look­ing-glass. The face that looked back at me now was thin­ner than I had ex­pec­ted, show­ing me cheekbones re­min­is­cent of those in Chiv­alry’s por­trait. The white streak of hair that grew above my brow aged me, and re­minded me of a wol­ver­ine’s mark­ings. My fore­head and the tops of my cheeks were tanned dark from my sum­mer out­side, but my face was paler where the beard had been, so that the lower half of the scar down my cheek seemed much more livid than the rest. What I could see of my chest showed a lot more ribs than it ever had be­fore. There was muscle there, true, but not enough fat to grease a pan, as Cook Sara would have said. The con­stant trav­el­ling and mostly meat diet had left their marks on me.

  I turned aside from the look­ing-glass smil­ing wryly. My fears of be­ing in­stantly re­cog­nized by any who had known me were laid to rest com­pletely. I scarcely knew my­self.

  I changed into my winter clothes to make the trip up to my room. The boy as­sured me he would hang my other clothes by the hearth and have them to me dry by morn­ing. He saw me to my room and left me with a good night and a candle.

  I found the room to be sparsely fur­nished but clean. There were four beds in it, but I was the only cus­tomer for the night, for which I was grate­ful. There was a single win­dow, un­shuttered and un­cur­tained for sum­mer. Cool night air off the river blew into the room. I stood for a time, look­ing out through the dark­ness. Up­river, I could see the lights of Trade­ford. It was a sub­stan­tial set­tle­ment. Lights dot­ted the road between Pome and Trade­ford. I was plainly into well-settled coun­try now. Just as well I was trav­el­ling alone, I told my­self firmly, and pushed aside the pang of loss I felt whenever I thought of Nighteyes. I tossed my bundle un­der my bed. The bed’s blankets were rough but smelled clean, as did the straw-stuffed mat­tress. After months of sleep­ing on the ground, it seemed al­most as soft as my old feather bed in Buck­keep. I blew out my candle and lay down ex­pect­ing to fall asleep at once.

  In­stead I found my­self star­ing up at the darkened ceil­ing. In the dis­tance, I could hear the faint sounds of the mer­ry­mak­ing. Closer to hand were the now-un­fa­mil­iar creak­ings and set­tling of a build­ing, the sounds of folk mov­ing in other rooms of the inn. They made me nervous, as the wind through the branches of a forest, or the gurg­ling of the river close by my sleep­ing spot had not. I feared my own kind more than any­thing the nat­ural world could ever threaten me with.

  My mind wandered to Nighteyes, to won­der­ing what he was do­ing and if he were safe this even­ing. I star­ted to quest out to­ward him, then stopped my­self. To­mor­row I would be in Trade­ford, to do a thing he could not help me with. More than that, I was in an area now where he could not safely come to me. If I suc­ceeded to­mor­row, and lived to go on to the Moun­tains to seek Ver­ity, then I could hope that he would re­mem­ber me and join me. But if I died to­mor­row, then he was bet­ter off where he was, at­tempt­ing to join his own kind and have his own life.

  Ar­riv­ing at the con­clu­sion and re­cog­niz­ing my de­cision as cor­rect were easy. Re­main­ing firm in it was the dif­fi­cult part. I should not have paid for that bed, but have spent the night in walk­ing, for I would have got more rest. I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. Even in Regal’s dun­geon, fa­cing death, I had been able to reach out to my wolf. Now on this night I was alone, con­tem­plat­ing a murder I was un­able to plan, fear­ing Regal would be guarded by a co­terie of Skill-ad­epts whose tal­ents I could only guess at. Des­pite the warmth of the late sum­mer night, I felt chilled and sickened whenever I con­sidered it. My res­ol­u­tion to kill Regal never wavered; only my con­fid­ence that I would suc­ceed. I had not done so well on my own but to­mor­row I re­solved to per­form in a way that would make Chade proud.

  When I con­sidered the co­terie, I felt a queasy cer­tainty that I had de­ceived my­self re­gard­ing my strategy. Had I come here of my own will, or was this some subtle tweak­ing that Will had wrought on my thoughts, to con­vince me that to run to­ward him was the safest thing to do? Will was subtle with the Skill. So in­si­di­ously gentle a touch he had that one could scarcely feel when he was us­ing it. I longed sud­denly to at­tempt to Skill out, to see if I could feel him watch­ing me. Then I be­came sure that my im­pulse to Skill out was ac­tu­ally Will’s in­flu­ence on me, tempt­ing me to open my mind to him. And so my thoughts went, chas­ing them­selves in tighter and tighter circles un­til I al­most felt his amuse­ment as he watched me.

  Past mid­night I fi­nally felt my­self drawn down into sleep. I sur­rendered my tor­ment­ing thoughts without a qualm, fling­ing my­self down into sleep as if I were a diver in­tent on plumb­ing the depths. Too late I re­cog­nized the im­per­at­ives of that sink­ing. I would have struggled if I could have re­called how. In­stead I re­cog­nized about me the hangings and trophies that dec­or­ated the great hall of Ripple­keep, the main castle of Bearns Duchy.

  The great wooden doors sagged open on their hinges, vic­tims of the ram that lay halfway in­side them, its ter­rible work done. Smoke hung in the air of the hall, twin­ing about the ban­ners of past vic­tor­ies. There were bod­ies piled thickly there, where fight­ers had tried to hold back the tor­rent of Raid­ers that the heavy oaken planks had yiel­ded to. A few strides past that wall of carnage a line of Bearns’ war­ri­ors still held, but rag­gedly. In the midst of a small knot of battle was Duke Brawndy, flanked by his younger daugh­ters, Celer­ity and Faith. They wiel­ded swords, try­ing vainly to shield their father from the press of the foe. Both fought with a skill and fe­ro­city I would not have sus­pec­ted in them. Like matched hawks they seemed, their faces framed by short, sleek black hair, their dark blue eyes nar­rowed with hatred. But Brawndy was re­fus­ing to be shiel­ded, re­fus­ing to yield to the mur­der­ous surge of Raid­ers. He stood splay-legged, spattered with blood, and wiel­ded a battle axe in a two-handed grip.

  Be­fore and be­low him, in the shel­ter of his axe’s swing, lay the body of his eld­est daugh­ter and heir. A sword blow had cloven deep between her shoulder and neck, splin­ter­ing her col­lar-bones be­fore the weapon wedged in the ruin of her chest. She was dead, hope­lessly dead, but Brawndy would not step back from her body. Tears run­nelled with blood on his cheeks. His chest heaved like a bel­lows with every breath he took, and the ropy old muscles of his torso were re­vealed be­neath his rent shirt. He held off two swords­men, one an earn­est young man whose whole heart was in­tent on de­feat­ing this duke, and the other an ad­der of a man who held back from the press of the fight­ing, his longs­word ready to take ad­vant­age of any open­ing the young man might cre­ate.

  In a frac­tion of a second, I knew all this, and knew that Brawndy would not last much longer. Already the slick­ness of blood was bat­tling with his fail­ing grip on his axe, while every gasp of air he drew down his dry throat was a tor­ment in it­self. He was an old man, and his heart was broken and he knew that even if he sur­vived this battle, Bearns had been lost to the Red Ships. My soul cried out at his misery, but still he took that one im­pos­sible step for­ward, and brought his axe down to end the life of the earn­est young man who had fought him. In the mo­ment that his axe sank into the Raider’s chest, the other man stepped for­ward, into the half-second gap and danced his blade in and out of Brawndy’s chest. The old man fol­lowed his dy­ing op­pon­ent down to the blood­ied stones of his keep.

  Celer­ity, oc­cu­pied with her own op­pon­ent, turned frac­tion­ally to her sis­ter’s scream of an­guish. The Raider she had been fight­ing seized his op­por­tun­ity. His heav­ier weapon wrapped her lighter blade and tore it from her grip. She stepped back from his fiercely de­lighted grin, turned her head away from her death, in time to see her father’s killer grip Brawndy’s hair pre­par­at­ory to tak­ing his head as a trophy.

  I could not stand it.

  I lunged for the axe Brawndy had dropped, seized its blood-slick handle as if I were grip­ping the hand of an old friend. It felt oddly heavy, but I swung it up, blocked the sword of my as­sail­ant, and then, in a com­bin­a­tion that would have made Burrich proud, doubled it back to take the path of the blade across his face. I gave a small shud­der as I felt his fa­cial bones cave away from that stroke. I had no time to con­sider it. I sprang for­ward and brought my axe down hard, sever­ing the hand of the man who had sought to take my father’s head. The axe rang on the stone flags of the floor, send­ing a shock up my arms. Sud­den blood splashed me as Faith’s sword ploughed up her op­pon­ent’s fore­arm. He was tower­ing above me, and so I tucked my shoulder and rolled, com­ing to my feet as I brought the blade of my axe up across his belly. He dropped his blade and clutched at his spill­ing guts as he fell.

  There was an in­sane mo­ment of total still­ness in the tiny bubble of battle we oc­cu­pied. Faith stared down at me with an amazed ex­pres­sion that briefly changed to a look of tri­umph be­fore be­ing sup­planted with one of purest an­guish. ‘We can’t let them have their bod­ies!’ she de­clared ab­ruptly. She lif­ted her head sud­denly, her short hair fly­ing like the mane of a battle stal­lion. ‘Bearns! To me!’ she cried, and there was no mis­tak­ing the note of com­mand in her voice.

  For one in­stant I looked up at Faith. My vis­ion faded, doubled for an in­stant. A dizzy Celer­ity wished her sis­ter, ‘Long life to the Duch­ess of Bearns’. I wit­nessed a look between them, a look that said neither of them ex­pec­ted to live out the day. Then a knot of Bearns war­ri­ors broke free of battle to join them. ‘My father and my sis­ter. Bear their bod­ies away,’ Faith com­man­ded two of the men. ‘You oth­ers, to me!’ Celer­ity rolled to her feet, looked at the heavy axe with puz­zle­ment and stooped to re­gain the fa­mili­ar­ity of her sword.

  ‘There, we are needed there,’ Faith de­clared, point­ing, and Celer­ity fol­lowed her, to re­in­force the battle line long enough to al­low their folk to re­treat.

  I watched Celer­ity go, a wo­man I had not loved but would al­ways ad­mire. With all my heart I wished to go after her, but my grip on the scene was fail­ing, all was be­com­ing smoke and shad­ows. Someone seized me.

  That was stu­pid.

  The voice in my mind soun­ded so pleased. Will! I thought des­per­ately as my heart surged in my chest.

  No. But it could as eas­ily have been so. You are get­ting sloppy about your walls, Fitz. You can­not af­ford to. No mat­ter how they call to us, you must be cau­tious. Ver­ity gave me a push that pro­pelled me away, and I felt the flesh of my own body re­ceive me again.

  ‘But you do it,’ I pro­tested, but heard only the wan sound of my own voice in the inn room. I opened my eyes. All was dark­ness out­side the single win­dow in the room. I could not tell if mo­ments had passed or hours. I only knew I was grate­ful that there was still some dark­ness left for sleep­ing, for the ter­rible wear­i­ness that pulled at me now would let me think of noth­ing else.