The girls were met on the road by a thin, grey man - who had once been very fat indeed, to judge by the sack-like wrinkles of his deflated chins - carrying a spear and wearing over a scarecrow assortment of rags a soiled cloak of gold-frogged velvet. Aide gave their names as Aide and Gil-Shalos, from the Keep of Dare, and asked to speak with his lord.
Ankle- deep muck pulled at their feet as they crossed the square before the northern watchtower. The place smelled like a privy, wreathed in a perpetual haze of woodsmoke. The pitiful flotsam of flight littered the ground. Meagre bundles of possessions, stray cook pots, and little heaps of firewood were scattered over the dirty snow. Men and women sat huddled miserably around their fires or moved among them slowly. The place seemed very quiet, except for the weak, persistent crying of a child. Gil felt ashamed of her cloak, her strength, and the marginal ration of food she'd wolfed down at noon. Beside her, Aide looked very white.
Their escort halted before a brush shelter. In the shadows at the back of it, Gil thought she could discern a small, stiff figure, lying completely covered by a ragged quilt; a man sat on a bed of cut pine boughs near the open end of the shelter, quietly holding the hands of two boys who with tear-blotched faces slept huddled at his side. He looked up inquiringly as the shadows of Gil and Minalde fell across the light.
'M'lord.'
The man got slowly to his feet, careful not to wake the boys, and limped from the shelter. Gil recognized him at once as the monk who had spoken for the refugees when Alwir had turned them away at the gates of the Keep. 'Yes, Trago?* Dark eyes sunk into leathery hollows moved past him to Gil and Aide, then rested for a moment on Aide's face. 'Yes,' he said quietly. 'You may go, Trago. Get someone to stay with the boys, if you would.'
Trago saluted and moved away through the camp.
The man turned back to them, and Gil noticed how waxy his skin looked under the black tangle of unkempt beard. 'I am Maia of Thran,' he introduced himself in that same quiet voice. 'Bishop of Penambra.' Aide started to speak, startled, and he smiled
suddenly, his teeth very white in his beard. 'I believe my predecessor assisted at your wedding, my lady,' he said. Colour flooded into Aide's cheeks that no cold could account for. He continued gently. 'I was captain of his Guards.' He inclined his head to her, a sign of reverence to her rank. There was no irony in his voice as he said, 'Welcome to what is left of the city of Penambra.'
'I'm sorry,' Aide said quietly. 'Please don't think I came - idly, or - or -'
'I do not,' he replied reassuringly. *fiut I assume that, as you did come incognito and without retinue, your visit is less than official.'
Only a fool could have watched the interplay between Alwir and his compliant sister at the Keep gates yesterday and remained ignorant of how the land lay, Gil thought; and this tall, gaunt scarecrow in his ecclesiastical rags did not look like a fool. It was within a few percentage points of certainty that he knew that Aide had come here without the Chancellor's approval or knowledge.
Aide raised her eyes to meet his. 'I'm sorry,' she said again. 'But I couldn't not come.'
'I understand,' Maia said, 'and I thank you for your compassion.' He glanced around them at the camp. Men in the muddy rags of uniforms were making arrows by the warmth of smoky fires; women were tending children as best they could. There was the ripe smell of carrion cooking, the bubbling of thin soups, and the grating, persistent wailing of a child. 'Still and all, I don't advise you to come again. As legal ruler, I can still hold most of us from turning bandit. But by your next visit I may be dead or ousted. Tomorrow you may find yourself dealing with anyone. The Dark have taken a very heavy toll.'
Aide's voice was timid. 'Is Penambra truly destroyed, then? 'Truly,' the Bishop said quietly. 'Close to nine thousand of us left the city with wagonloads of goods, food, and all that we could carry away. You know Penambra - a city of bridges, built on a hundred islets in the bay. Rains flooded the town and trapped us in the cellars; and the Dark haunt those cellars, even in daylight. Half our provisions were lost to floods and half our people to the Dark before we even got clear of the town. Through the delta it was the same. The lands are flooded by the unseasonable rains and by the Dark, who have broken the levees on the rivers. What used to be the richest part of the Realm is deserted or peopled by ghouls who live by plundering the houses of the dead. It lies under terror of the Dark. They carry off as many as they kill outright. Did you know that?'
'Yes,' Aide said. 'I knew.'
He looked at her closely, then nodded. 'If you know that, my lady, and are still among us, you are more fortunate than I had thought.'
He folded long, bony arms. A singularly gentle man, Gil thought, to have been commander of the Church troops. A group of ragged warriors passed them, changing the camp guards, lank, dirty men and women with bows and axes. They saluted him as they walked by.
Maia sighed. 'So. People spoke of the Keep of Dare, the old hold up at Renweth.
In some places, enclaves of farmers have made little Keeps, fortified buildings along the river. Your brother is not the first to turn us away. But even those don't seem to be proof against the Dark. We've found their fortresses smashed like eggshells, the defenders dead or wandering mindlessly. We've been beset by wolf packs, or dog packs hundreds strong. There was even a rumour of White Raiders in the valley... At times on the march here I felt it was the end of the world.' White teeth gleamed briefly through the tangled beard. 'In some ways I think the end of the world would be a simpler matter to deal with. If what the Scriptures tell is true, at least that would be quick.'
'Oh, but it has been quick.' Aide looked around her at the desolate camp, her jewels glittering in her hair as she moved her head. 'This summer all of us were sitting on our terraces, watching the sun in the leaves and dreaming of sledding and parties at the Winter Feast. Now, before the night of the Winter Feast, we may all be dead. That's quick.'
Something in the black humour of this amused him, for he chuckled. 'Possibly. Possibly.' The grey sky darkened overhead; he drew the rags of his cloak a little tighter about him. 'But to have come here and to be told that there is neither food nor space by one with that monolith of the Keep at his back and his fat merchants in their ermine cloaks all around him... I do not know what I expected, my lady. But not that.'
Aide said nothing, but Gil saw the fire of shame burn her face.
A girl came running through the rnucky confusion of the camp to the shelter by which they stood, calling, 'M'lord! M'lord Bishop!' He stepped toward her, and she said, 'Troops, m'lord. From up the road.'
Maia cast one quick look at Aide, meeting her blank surprise. Then they all hastened to see.
Before they reached the road, Gil could hear the sounds of the troop clearly over the unnatural silence of the camp. Behind the clinking of brass scabbard buckles, the soft slurp of boots in half-frozen slush, and the light jingling of mail shirts, she heard the whuffling breath of overworked horses and the creak of harness-work and wheels. The land on which the watchtower stood overhung the road, and the brink of it was jammed with silent, ragged watchers, but they made way for the Bishop and the two girls. Down below, Gil could see the troops hastening through the twilight - Janus on his stocky bay gelding, his red hair hidden by mail coif and helm, his eyes darting to take in every possible danger of the camp and the crowding woods beyond, Alwir's troops in their scarlet livery, leading the horses that drew the empty wagons, looking uncomfortable and ashamed as they passed before the hungry eyes of those to whom they had denied food and shelter, and the double file of Red Monks walking guard, faceless in their masking helmets. The men and women around Gil watched this show of force pass by in silence; only one child in the back of the crowd cried out, asking if those men were going to give them food.