s a shiver.
"Someone may come," their one-legged leader had said yesterday. And now someone was indeed here in the moonlight in the very hour before battle. Mattio looked over at Elena; her eyes had not left the stranger. She was standing very straight, slender and motionless, hands holding her elbows, hiding fear and wonder as best she could. But Mattio had spent years watching her, and he could see that her breathing was shallow and fast. He loved her for her stillness, and for wanting to hide her fear.
He glanced at Donar again, and then stepped forward, extending two open palms to the stranger. Calmly he said, "Be welcome, though it is not to be abroad."
The other man nodded. His feet were planted wide and solid on the earth. He looked as though he knew how to use his sword. He said, "Nor, as I understand the highlands, is it a night to have doors and windows open."
"Why would you think you understand the highlands?" Mattio said. Too quickly. Elena still had not looked away from this man. There was an odd expression on her face.
Moving a little nearer to stand beside her, Mattio realized that he had seen this man before. This was one who had come several times to the Lady's castle. A musician, he seemed to remember, or a merchant of some sort. One of those landless men who endlessly crossed and recrossed the roads of the Palm. His heart, which had lifted to see the sword, sank a little.
The stranger had not responded to his sharp retort. He appeared, as much as the moonight revealed, to be giving the matter thought. Then he surprised Mattio.
"I'm sorry," he said. "If I am trespassing upon a custom in ignorance, forgive me. I walk for reasons of my own. I will leave you to your peace."
He actually turned away then, clearly intending to leave.
"No!" Elena said urgently.
And in the same moment Donar spoke for the first time.
"There is no peace tonight," he said in the deep voice they all trusted so much. "And you are not trespassing. I thought someone might come along this road. Elena was watching for you."
And at that the stranger turned. His eyes seemed wider in the dark, and something new, cooler, more appraising, gleamed in them now.
"Come for what?" he asked.
There was a silence. Donar shifted his crutches and swung forward. Elena moved to one side to let him stand in front of the stranger. Mattio looked across at her; her hair was falling over one shoulder, white-gold in the moonlight. She never took her eyes from the dark-haired man.
Who was gazing steadily at Donar. "Come for what?" he repeated, mildly enough.
Still Donar hesitated, and in that moment Mattio realized with a shock that the miller, their Elder, was afraid. A sickening lurch of apprehension rose in Mattio, for he suddenly understood what Donar was about to do.④本④作④品④由④④網④提④供④下④載④與④在④線④閱④讀④
And then Donar did it. He gave them away to one from the north.
"We are the Night Walkers of Certando," he said, his voice steady and deep. "And this is the first of the Ember Nights of spring. This is our night. I must ask you: wherever you were born, was there a mark . . . did the birthwomen who attended declare a blessing found?" And slowly he reached a hand inside his shirt and drew forth the leather sac he wore there, holding the caul that had marked him at his birth.
Out of the side of his eye Mattio saw Elena biting her lower lip. He looked at the stranger, watched him absorb what Donar had said, and he began gauging his chances of killing the man if it should come to that.
This time the silence stretched. The muted sounds from the house behind them seemed loud. The dark-haired man's eyes had grown wide now, and his head was lifted high. Mattio could see that he was weighing what lay behind what had just been revealed.
Then, still not speaking, the stranger moved one hand to his throat and reaching inside his shirt he brought out, so that the three of them could see, by starlight and moonlight, the small leather sac he too wore.
Mattio heard a small sound, a release of