"Sir Niebar is not a fool," Haimya said at last.
"I did not say he was," Pirvan answered. "Did you hear me thinking it?"
"I heard you thinking that he was a poor guest for raising the matter again."
"I think less of that than of his not keeping his men-at-arms away from our table," Pirvan joked. "They ate as if they had starved for a week."
"Perhaps they had," the lady said, smiling. "Niebar is most likely here without a purse from the knights. We do not know how far his own silver runs."
"One more reason for not abandoning the manor. A landless knight is not the best fitted to pay for others' secrets out of his own purse."
"True," Haimya said. "But we need not abandon our people to spare ourselves abandoning the manor."
Pirvan looked at Haimya. He always took pleasure in that, even when as now she was swathed in a heavy woolen robe against the night's chill. Under that robe lay a woman whom he could hardly believe had been his wife and lover for more than twenty years, and mother of three children, two of them old enough to wed.
"I think what you have to say is too important to trickle out in riddles," he told her, "like a man disposing of a night's beer."
"How unfit for a lady's ears, such crudeness!" Haimya said, in tones of mock horror.
Is the plain truth unfit for a gentleman's?" Pirvan riposted. It would be pleasant to set to one of their verbal duels, which at this hour seldom ended other than in bed. But they needed an answer for Sir Niebar before he departed at dawn.
"I was thinking of Vuinlod," Haimya said. "Any of our folk who could not live under the kingpriest could find homes there."
Pirvan understood. Under Lady Eskaia, the little port city in northern Solamnia had grown into a refuge for every sort and condition of folk who needed tolerant neighbors and few Istaran spies. Haimya's notion made sense, as Pirvan understood it, but it was not without flaws either.
"Aurhinius is no danger," Haimya said, as if she had read Pirvan's first objection on his face. "Eskaia has him eating out of her hand."
"A good way to find crumbs in the sheets of a morning, if I recall the days when we were young like that," Pirvan began. He broke off at a mock-slap from Haimya.
"Solamnia is still bound by the Swordsheath Scroll and the Great Meld with Istar," he went on. "What of them?"
"What of it?" she answered. "Have the kingpriests' notions of justice yet been enforced on Solamnic territory, even under the most zealous of the breed?"
"Not yet." He did not add that it would go hard with their people if this changed, because in such case it would go hard with everyone. There would be no safety for the just and honorable anywhere under the sun, or at least anywhere Istar's reach extended.
"I suppose we could pay Eskaia that visit she has been urging upon us these past two years," Pirvan said. "Take as our guards enough trustworthy folk so that they can bring back word of life in Vuinlod. Then those whom we urge to go will not be leaping into the unknown like apes from a vine."
Haimya patted his cheek, then drew him to her and kissed him. "That will answer Niebar well enough, I think. And now that we have done our duty…"
The kiss lengthened. Presently she led him to the bed and shrugged herself out of her robe. A warming pan in the bed had done its work, so that Pirvan was not cold even in the brief moment after he disrobed and before Haimya embraced him.
Chapter 2
The mounted company rode up to Vuinlod in a sullen twilight that made one suspect the end of day. The sun had not shown her face since before noon yesterday, and sometimes the clouds had shadowed the land more deeply than now. Altogether, it was a day to make even Solamnic Knights glad that their journey was near its end.
Three knights rode with the company, Sir Pirvan first among them. In the middle rode Sir Darin Waydolsson and his lady Rynthala. In the rear, the newly-sworn Knight of the Crown, Sir Hawkbrother Redthornsson rode with his betrothed, Young Eskaia. This young lady, eldest daughter of Pirvan and Haimya, was so called to distinguish her from the Lady Eskaia of Vuinlod, after whom she was named. Along with the three knights and their ladies rode a company of Tirabot Manor guards, chosen for their skill at arms, their sharp eyes, and their keen wits.
The task of spying out Vuinlod as a refuge for the Tirabot Manor folk would begin tonight.
Vuinlod lay hard on the Solamnic coast, rising from the shore of a sheltered bay up the sides of hills that formed a bowl around the bay. The landward slopes of the hills showed few signs that a town was nearby, being mostly terraced fields and orchards, with farmhouses and byres scattered about.
On either side of the road-well graveled, Pirvan noticed, and with drainage ditches to either side-stretches of forest lay scattered like swatches of cloth on the floor of a tailor's shop. They were mostly second growth, and to Pirvan's eye the trees seemed shrunken from the last time he had come this way.
Of course, that was some years past, and the mere need for firewood and building timber would take its toll of the woods. But it seemed to him that it was not always the trees best suited for hearth or home that had vanished. More than one strip of scrubby ogresnut wound its way most conveniently across fields and along the banks of streams.
It was Sir Darin who gave voice to Pirvan's suspicions, when he and Hawkbrother rode up-as befitted junior knights-to confer with their chief.
"I think the Vuinlod folk have laid out defenses," Darin said, "to halt or at least delay any attack while they take to their ships."
"Who has so great a quarrel with them?" Hawkbrother asked.
Young Eskaia spoke before her father could. "The same folk who spoke against your becoming a knight," she said. "Or worse, if they are not bound by the Oath and the Measure, and have taken the kingpriest's silver."
Those words made the day seem gloomier still. The new kingpriest had the reputation of a fierce hater of all who lacked virtue, and might be one of those who thought only humans possessed it. Certainly he had publicly appointed several men whispered to have once been Servants of Silence; just as certainly, these dogs were not yet off their chain. Time was passing, and if enough passed, even kingpriests might gain wisdom.
At the moment, however, Pirvan unashamedly wished to gain no more than a roof over his head and something hot in his stomach. "Listen to your betrothed, Sir Hawkbrother," he said. "Now let us be on our way. And spread out a trifle farther. Trees can hide enemies as well as friends, and there has been ample time for word of our coming to reach the ears of both."
A mizzling rain blew in their faces as they urged their horses into motion once more.
Water dripped from Gildas Aurhinius's clothing as he climbed the stairs to Lady Eskaia's chambers. He left damp footprints on the polished wood. The lady met him at the door, holding out a heated, scented towel.
"Ahhh," he said. "You are my good spirit."
He must have read something in her face, because he stopped drying his hair in midstroke.
"Never be afraid to remember Jemar, no matter when or where," he said.
"I never have been," Eskaia said tartly, "and you can neither give nor withhold permission." Then she smiled and embraced him. "But I thank you for the kind words."
"You will be drenched, if you go on hugging me," Aurhinius said, with his mouth muffled in her hair. "It is the sort of day that cannot decide to be winter or spring. It ends by having the vices of both, and the virtues of neither."
"Then a soldier who does his duty out of doors on a day like this surely ought to have a warm woman embrace him when he comes inside," Eskaia said. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, then led him inside to where a couch stood by a table holding a tray with hot spiced wine, strong tarberry tea, honey cakes, melon bread, and dried fruit.